Design Editable GUI Layer

[Limeth]

Name: GUI Control
Summary: Possibility of interaction with GUI features
Scope: Engine (central system only providing support for other stuff)
Current Goal: Described below
Phase: Inception (solid idea, awaiting curator)
Curator: Name of somebody involved with the feature (not needed for "Inception")
Related: http://forum.terasology.org/threads/gui-layout.377/ http://forum.terasology.org/threads/gui-where-to-put-what.623/ http://forum.terasology.org/threads/mouse-button-behavior.704/

I've seen several topics about how the gui should be layed out and I don't think we should focus on maintaining the layout ourselves. Instead, let the user change it.
Users would be able to unlock the mouse by pressing alt/ctrl, then they could interact with the windows (open quest detail by clicking a quest view) or they could click an edit button which would let them move, close, open and possibly scale/expand a window.

Preview:

If a mouse is above a window while the edit mode is active, a frame with a close button shows up highlighting the window. (Bottom toolbar)

 

[Cervator]

I wonder, if we managed to get a working radial menu, maybe you could drag and drop shortcuts into it with this mode enabled?

For reference just so we don't forget the code is in @overdhose's miniion branch - but not sure how much is salvageable (uses direct OpenGL and other fun stuff)

 

[Florian]

@Cervator I think a configurable/editable UI is even more imporant that a radiant menu

Currently modules hardly ever extend the constantly visible UI, because it may overlap with other modules that do that. If the user can edit/configure the UI, that would change.
As a developer you would not have to worry to much if there is another moulde that has also an UI in that place, because the user can change it.

Ideally it would be possible to save the UI configuration and make it possible to provide a default UI configurations in modules that combine other modules.

For entering the UI edit mode, I think a F1-F12 hotkey would be worth it

 

[Cervator]

Bump - moved this out of the Incubator as part of my reorganizing effort. Wanted to move into Core Projects but since I don't think it is being worked by anybody yet I moved it to Suggestions instead, under Design.

Any takers? @Limeth you got any free time and interest coming up?

@Immortius do you think this would be doable with NUI in its current shape, or should it be prioritized for later paired with an effort to extract NUI out into its own lib?

 

[Limeth]

Once I finish my school project, I may have some time. Should be in a month or so.

 

[Cervator]

Maybe relevant

https://github.com/MovingBlocks/Terasology/issues/1639

 

[jacklin213]

This idea sounds very interesting

 

[Immortius]

@Immortius do you think this would be doable with NUI in its current shape, or should it be prioritized for later paired with an effort to extract NUI out into its own lib?

It should be doable, via a custom layout which hooks into configuration.