Rollcall for Mac OS X?

[IBBoard]

You need to use some language or framework to make it cross-platform, and since the majority of people run Windows and I run Linux but there has never been a native Linux army creation application then cross-platform compatibility is an important requirement. Java is one funky language, .Net is a framework for any number of funky languages.

As for the iPhone, it's possible to run Mono on it (although Apple may lock it out because they're like that with their gadgets). Basically I think anything that has Java probably has Mono, or will do soon. TBH I don't place much value on the iPhone though, it's just another flashy Mac gadget. Getting a decent army creation application to run on Windows, Mac and Linux will be better than just about anything that has come before.

I will have to ask, though, what is "GUI inter-phase experience"? Do you mean interface, and how much actual coding do you know/have you done? You could put together an interface without coding, but without the coding knowledge then you won't get the bindings to the underlying library.

[IBBoard]

I've been thinking about Kyderdog's sample GUI design and it has prompted me to redesign the data files slightly. Rather than just being XML files, the app will now use compressed archives (Zip or GZip, I've not decided yet) and will contain the XML with the data and a collection of icons of varying resolutions.

The idea is that there will be some kind of "getIconImage()" method in the API of the Unit class. That will check for an icon specific to that unit and return it, or return its category icon or its race icon if no specific icon exists. The resolutions will probably be similar to the Linux ones, as they're most useful: 16x16, 22x22, 24x24, 32x32 and possibly 48x48. Scalable probably won't make an appearance because I don't know of any widgets that support anything but pixel-based images.

I still need to ensure that I do it in a cross-platform and cross-toolkit compatible manner, but it should allow for specific icons for units to allow for an interface like the mock-up, allow for icons in lists for visual differentiation, allow for category icons for "add unit of category" or in unit tree, and more.

[Kyderdog]

I've been thinking about Kyderdog's sample GUI design and it has prompted me to redesign the data files slightly. Rather than just being XML files, the app will now use compressed archives (Zip or GZip, I've not decided yet) and will contain the XML with the data and a collection of icons of varying...

Yea! The more developers move away from the old style of "Explorer/Word" looking GUI's for apps the better our future will be...

[IBBoard]

Some apps do need to be in that structure, but others don't.

I think your screenshot would be most efficiently implemented if you could double-click as well as dragging and dropping (so people need less mouse movement). It would be an interesting feature to put in my versions of the GUIs as well, but first off I'd need to read up on drag-and-drop since I've never done an app using it yet.

[mattstone]

As a mac user too (make music, not a programmer, sorry) the drag and drop idea is great, as a lot of mac stuff is drag and drop (osx, I believe, uses root system tags, (copies files to relevant directories) so as to cut down on individual file tags, don't quote me. I use mac for Logic and it's buss speeds and RAM smoothness, that's as far as my insider knowledge goes) so is a pretty native operation on a mac app.

Should look into a paint designer program (IE have a space marine in a 'preview', and a free choice of color and color variants (possibly a palette) a choice of variables, red legs, black arms etc, choosing colors changes the image to a real-time update of that same marine) to design chapters, shields, banners etc.

This whole idea could be quite lucrative, especially where the i-phone comment is concerned.

[IBBoard]

Root system tags? I'm a techie, but that doesn't make much sense to me As for bus speeds and RAM smoothness, you should get that with any PC these days.

Drag and drop could be useful for a lot of interfaces, but not everyone likes it. Sometimes lists can be quicker or more familiar, so I think having two options is always good. If anyone wanted to include a similar UI in the GTK# ('Linux') or WinForms ('Windows') versions of WarFoundry then there shouldn't be anything stopping them.

Your badge/banner idea is quite interesting in terms of army customisation and another "feature". It'd probably be a low priority feature, but I'm sure some people would like to give their army lists a graphical identity as well as a name (created as ticket 109)