Plan for Dave Bacher

Options box enhancement.

I need for modifications to my game, and the game itself, to be able to put options into the options dialog box.

I do not want to hvae to edit the options dialog box every time that I want to add a new option. What I really want to do is something similar to Netscape's layout:

+ Display
+-- Resolution and Renderer
+-- Basic features
+-- Detail level
+-- Advanced features
+ Keybord
+-- Bindings
+ Joystick
+-- Basic Bindings
+-- Advanced Bindings
+-- Force Feedback
+-- Dead Zones
+ Mouse
+-- Basic Bindings
+-- Force Feedback
+ Voice
+-- Codec's
+-- GameVoice Support
+ Client
+-- (blah)

etc. Most likely, only one level deep will be supported; more than that seems silly. The tree will be on the left side of the window, and as options are selected, the right side of the window will change to reflect the specific object category.

Keyboard, joystick and mouse bindings will be available via the menu system. Components outside the options system will automatically add key bindings (I have this working already) to the options dialog box.

The options have to be in two pieces, unfortunately; I don't ahve a way of fixing that at this time that doesn't compromise source code organization and maintenence.

Important: every field presented in the UI will have an explanation to go with it. Tribes displays a bunch of sliders, and doesn't really tell the end-user what they mean.

I think the user needs to know what they mean, so they don't accidentally play with them without understanding what they're doing.

Edit:
I'm going to package all of this as "batbaz," and will make it available free of charge for folks who need the enhanced functionality.

To get my partners to agree to let me do this, I may have to put a distribution requirement that a single line, something along the lines of "Uses the Battle Bazaar enhancements to Torque; www.battlebazaar.com/torque" to the bottom of the window or something.

Nothing major; I'm going to see if I can get by without requiring that if at all possible, however.

Additionally, I've changed my mind a bit on this; it is now going to be implemented as two pieces. Piece one is a reusable control set for this type of dialog box, piece two is the options dialog itself.

I've decided I want to try to reuse this for our forum and e-mail access, and possibly for some other things. Note that our game won't have a main menu, eventually. You start it, you log on, and you're immediately in a mission area.
End of edit.