Regarding Player Settings

[Heinermann]

Human is not a race and should be removed. Random should be a race and
added.
I'm not sure what to make of the unused races (Neutral, Independant).

List of valid races:
{{{
00 Zerg
01 Terran
02 Protoss
05 User Select
06 Random
}}}

Also, I didn't doc the player controller settings. I'll make a list of
selections that should be considered for those as well.

An edit box for race and controller should be added, since it's
possible to modify the race image shown at the results screen, and use
undocumented controllers for unit behaviour.

[Kellimus]

Haven't you ever used StarEdit? Human is one of the selections...
Human, Computer, Neutral (different neutral states like rescue able,
plain neutral, etc...) and Not Used...

So why should it be removed?

[Wormer]

Kellimus, you probably mixed up controller and race. Heinermann is
talking about races.

[Kellimus]

Yeah, forget what I just said I see where you're talking about now :P

[Clokr_]

I see. A lot of dialog windows won't allow the users the edit the raw
data, other ones will. I'm still not sure whether we should have two
modes or not, one of them allowing the user to raw-edit the data and
other one with user-friendly controls like radio buttons and such.

[Heinermann]

What if you can make more tabs in that tab? (tabs in tabs)
[ Normal ] [ Extended ]

[FoxWolf1]

Why not just go with numerical input boxes everywhere and, next to
each one, place a little (?) button that, when clicked, displays a
chart relating numbers to functions (i.e. 00 = zerg)? So long as the
required information is readily available, I don't see how slow
buttons (since, as a general principle, the keyboard is a faster and
less taxing means of input than the mouse) would be particularly more
"user friendly", and this way, as the uses of unknown inputs are
explored, new versions need only update their information charts to be
both powerful and user-friendly.

[Jon Cable]

The radio buttons are great for the common case. There's plenty of
space there and I like the idea of supplying a numeric input if you
want to try extended values (like we have for color).

[rockz]

Is this what you were thinking of?

http://i27.tinypic.com/rw2fxy.jpg

I think the option to put any number in anywhere is always a good
thing, due to our ability to exploit certain aspects of SC's code.
However, it's pretty simple to see that it's not faster to do such a
thing, since you have to mouse over it to enter a number. I like
tabs, plain and simple, and I think [ Normal ] [ Extended ] would be
awesome. The more you can get done in one window, the better.

[Kellimus]

I couldn't agree more!

[Marcel Dejean]

I think the number boxes would be unnecessary clutter for most users. It would be a better idea to have an option to enable "Advanced Settings" or something of the sort, that made these boxes appear.

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[FoxWolf1]

Well, not only would a cluster of number boxes, with the description
charts displayed on command, make a very clean and minimal interface,
it would also be very fast to enter information using the tab key to
cycle through fields. With the tab key, you don't need to put your
mouse over anything, which makes data entry much faster, as well as
easier, since you don't even have to be looking at what you are doing.
The more buttons and whatnot you put into the interface, the more the
tab key's selection has to cycle through to get to the next numerical
field, which slows down data entry.

Quite frankly, I don't see the need for a low-powered "beginner" mode,
given the expected user base of this software. True "beginners" aren't
going to hear about it or need it until they get beyond that stage
anyway, and more advanced users aren't going to abandon their SCMDraft
2 just to use StarForge in a mode that isn't particularly faster or
more powerful than what they switched away from. Readily available
correspondence lists, just a click away, ought to provide all the user
friendliness that is necessary, while still leaving StarForge with
something acceptably close to the fastest possible interface. A second
tier of tabs for user level, in addition to the tabs to switch between
player settings, units, etc. (hopefully including, well, everything),
would just create clutter.

[Clokr_]

Hmm, I wasn't talking about a beginner mode. As we're talking about
adding a numeric updown in addition to the radio buttons to make
possible entering any value, that extra control as you say would
clutter the dialog and make it harder to cycle through the controls
with the tab key. What I mean is simply having an option somewhere to
show/hide those extra controls, which will not be needed in the 99% of
maps and will make map editing harder.

[Jon Cable]

Player settings isn't something you change often anyway. Being able to
tab through a bunch of input fields is really important when you're
usually changing all of them at once. That's just not the case here.
Most of the other input dialogs (unit properties, etc) allow you to
fill out nearly whatever you want for all fields in the unit, and do
it by tabbing.

In this case I don't think an extra control would be clutter, there's
plenty of space.

[rockz]

Perhaps there could be a raw tab, and a format something like this:

http://i32.tinypic.com/i44f3a.png

The white cells would be available to change, all numeric, and you can
tab through them. To make things easy, it would be nice if you
clicked/tabbed in the area, it would auto select everything currently
in there. For colors, give it a name if it's 0-11, otherwise the
unchangeable box will just report the number. That way, you won't
have to know exactly which number is which, especially in the case of
the control and race. In this case, it's AWFULLY cluttered, I can try
to make a more realistic representation of what it might look like in
SF. This would simply be a raw tab, which would allow easy editing of
everything, and I think it would be easy to apply this to other areas.
What those areas are, idk, but it's all brainstorming now, right?

However, I think two boxes on the side would do just as nicely.

[Heinermann]

I don't like that layout. Keep players in a listbox. It's much easier
that way. You could probably edit multiple player settings at once
just like unit properties and unit settings.

[CAFG]

I just don't want to constantly be changing back and forth between
beginner and advanced just because I don't want to see extra races
that I will never reasonably use.

[Wormer]

You might have a little button near each control box. The button
switches related control box back and forth between extended
(numerical enter) and basic (dropdown list) modes. Current view
settings are saved with the map.