forum.freeciv.org

A rule in a custom rule set says "you can use a Spy to steal technology from a civilization unless it knows the Encryption technology". A player that don't know if another civilization has the Encryption technology or not has a Spy next to one of the other civilizations cities. He decides to do a spy action against it. The spy action menu pops up. How should the fact that it is uncertain if it is possible to steal a technology be communicated to the player? I would like to know your opinions on this.

At the moment trunk (2.6) has two alternative approaches implemented. One in the GTK3 client and one in the Qt client. I'll upload screen shots of them for those that don't want to compile trunk them self. If you have a preference for one over the other, an idea for how to improve one of them or an entirely different idea please let me know.

The approach I implemented in the Qt client is to add a warning icon and a tool tip to the button of the action that may or may not be possible. (Suggestions for a better text in the tool tip is welcome) Thanks to Jacob Nevins <jtn> for the tool tip idea.

The approach I implemented in the GTK3 client is to color the button red.

The QT approach seems better. Red button without the tooltip is confusing.

heilkitty wrote:The QT approach seems better. Red button without the tooltip is confusing.

Thank you. Is this a vote for adding a tool tip to the gtk version or for adding a tool tip AND changing from red button to icon?

For a tooltip AND a warning icon.
Red color is associated with errors and prohibitions, AFAIK. So, icon is better in this case, IMHO, because it's clearly a warning, and that icon is associated with them.

heilkitty wrote:For a tooltip AND a warning icon.

Agreed. If no objections or other suggestions have arrived in 14 days I'll change the marker from the color red to an icon in the gtk3 client. I'll add a tool tip right away. (See patch #4236) Under what name would you like to be thanked for your feed back?

I implemented the same approach as in Qt in the Gtk2 client so how it looks in the GTK environment can be evaluated. (I think its OK) See patch 4186. For those that don't wish to patch the Freeciv source code manually a screen shot is attached.