[Kde-games-devel] KScoreDialog usability related question

[Tadeusz Andrzej Kadlubowski]

On Jun 12, 2007, at 18:51, Dmitry Suzdalev wrote:

> Hi fellows!
>
> While we are discussing usability related things (I mean Paolo's  
> thread), let
> me share some of my thoughts about KScoreDialog and our highscore  
> system in
> general.

Hello.

I also want to write about KScoreDialog in katomic, as it is the only  
KDE4 game I play maniacally.

Disclaimer: I work on Mac. YMMV. I play katomic and don't know other  
games.

Generally — I like KScoreDialog. I don't mind it popping up after I  
have finished a level. Players are used to highscore lists since late  
70's ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_%28computer_game%29 ).

What confuses me in katomic is that after I finish a level a yes/no  
dialog pops up asking me if I want to advance to another level (see  
GameWidget::gameOver()). It breaks the workflow. Recording highscore  
belongs to just finished level and advancing to another one should be  
considered after all the actions on the current level are finished.

Besides I don't know what happens when I click „No” on this  
questionYesNo dialog.

Here's KScoreDialog screenshot of almost 30 levels completed:
http://hell.org.pl/~yess/highscore.tiff

The list layout is broken.
The vertical widget on the left is way too long (without means to  
scroll it).
Tab titles are useless as the level numbers have been cut.
I don't understand what is to be cancelled in KSCoreDialog.

Sorry for somewhat harsh tone. I see that things improve constantly —  
for example the score numbers are no longer directly cast to strings,  
as they were about one week ago,.

I have some improvement suggestions (There's >0 probability that I  
can produce patches for it, but it's not high)

Replace vertical tabs with (scrollable) list.
Remove word „Highscores” from the titles of highscore groups. It's  
redundant.

-- 
tadeusz