Elvas Tower: F5 HUD scrolling. - Elvas Tower

Jump to content

Posting Rules

All new threads will be started by members of the Open Rails team, Staff, and/or Admins. Existing threads started in other forums may get moved here when it makes sense to do so.

Once a thread is started any member may post replies to it.
  • 14 Pages +
  • « First
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

F5 HUD scrolling. Rate Topic: -----

#61 User is offline   scottb613 

  • Vice President
  • Group: Status: First Class
  • Posts: 2,973
  • Joined: 06-July 09
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Downeast Maine (soon)
  • Simulator:ORTS
  • Country:

Posted 28 October 2019 - 04:42 AM

Hi Folks,

Since I'm sure it's easier to make graphic mockups vs coding the actual HUD - just another example removing the new proposed indicators (accelerometer) - using Mauricio's Control Confirmations in a slightly different manner to make them more discernable... I'm also using colors a tad more conservatively... The SPED (Speed) and BOLS (Boiler Pressure) dynamically change color to reflect current conditions... The cyan Brake Mode color is constant to differentiate from indicated pressures... Labels are all caps - modes are first letter caps - units are lower case...

Mauricio - can you make your triangle Control Confirmations any larger ?

While I'm using the "Abbreviated HUD" as my example - the same mods can be applied to the "Full Text HUD"...


Attached Image: HUD_Steam_3.jpg


Another thought - since Yellow is the most visible color - use that for Control Confirmations - and any time a font would use Yellow - use Orange instead - keeping the color of Control Confirmations unique...

Attached Image: HUD_Steam_3b.jpg


Regards,
Scott

#62 User is offline   ShortNorth 

  • Apprentice
  • Group: Status: Dispatcher
  • Posts: 10
  • Joined: 28-October 10
  • Country:

Posted 28 October 2019 - 05:28 PM

Hi all,

I note that there has been a LOT of discussion regarding the HUD and what information should be presented to the user.

Can I possibly throw in another comment, which may or may not be relevant.

In all my 60 odd years of involvement with the hobby of railways, and over 18 years with MSTS/OR in route and stock development, I have always only seen and used expression of gradients as '1 in 40' etc., rather than as a %age. Acknowledging that the US is always expressed as %age, and the UK and Australia is generally expressed in '1 in 40', would it be possible, or even desirable, that in the appropriate HUD sections that gradients be shown in BOTH %age and 1 in 40 format. This would be good for users from all continents and countries, showing their 'normal' designations. From a personal note, I find it difficult to visualize a grade steepness when expressed as a %age.

If I'm out of line here, tell me to pull my head in !

Regards, Brian Bere-Streeter

#63 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

  • Owner Emeritus and Admin
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: ET Admin
  • Posts: 15,308
  • Joined: 11-January 04
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:United States
  • Simulator:Open Rails
  • Country:

Posted 28 October 2019 - 07:24 PM

View Postscottb613, on 28 October 2019 - 04:42 AM, said:


Another thought - since Yellow is the most visible color...


FWIW the human eye can discern far more differences in green than anything else.

Anyway, the issue of color to signify information becomes a bit of problem for those people who are

  • red/green colorblind
  • blue/yellow color blind
  • all colors colorblind


None of which apply to myself but there are a few people on this board for whom it does apply.

I would expect googling colorblindness might turn up some suggestions on what to put on offer for those for whom this matters and if personal time allows for a bit of extra work it probably would be quite considerate to code some selectable alternatives for those folks.

Oh, one more thing: it's been shown that serif fonts do work better for reading text but non-serif fonts are better for numbers. I've played with this in numerous excel spreadsheets and concluded whoever did the research got it right. No idea why it is so.

#64 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

  • Owner Emeritus and Admin
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: ET Admin
  • Posts: 15,308
  • Joined: 11-January 04
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:United States
  • Simulator:Open Rails
  • Country:

Posted 28 October 2019 - 07:41 PM

Another one more thing :whistling: ... years ago Hewlett-Packard (where I worked) admitted to itself that letting the software people come up with their own abbreviations often led to misunderstandings when people changed assignments. Believe it or not a group of 8 high level programmers from around the world were tasked to determine if there was a sensible, easy to understand standard way to abbreviate any word and much to the surprise of many who rolled their eyes when first hearing of this effort, there was.

The primary rule was to (in general) to drop most vowels and strive for word abbreviations to be 3-5 characters. There were a couple of corner cases of which I can recall only one: Very common words that ended a name were listed as 2 characters. There were pretty business specific so no matter here.

So things like Part_Number became PRT_NO, Customer_Number was CUST_NO and so on.

The analysis team wrote up several thousand abbreviations covering most situations and staff was told to use them starting right now, no snide comments or belly-aching. In time most everyone came to agree it was a positive change (tho a few of the standard abbreviations did seem a bit off).

I mention this in wondering if it might be relevant to this matter. Things like Fuel remain as is (in caps) because it's 4 letters. Boiler Pressure could be BLR P, speed as SPD and so on.

There is also the not so small matter of language conversion away from English. Having a simple rule like dropping vowels might be useful there too (excepting Arabic and Hebrew).

#65 User is offline   scottb613 

  • Vice President
  • Group: Status: First Class
  • Posts: 2,973
  • Joined: 06-July 09
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Downeast Maine (soon)
  • Simulator:ORTS
  • Country:

Posted 29 October 2019 - 04:14 AM

View PostShortNorth, on 28 October 2019 - 05:28 PM, said:

Hi all,

I note that there has been a LOT of discussion regarding the HUD and what information should be presented to the user.

Can I possibly throw in another comment, which may or may not be relevant.

In all my 60 odd years of involvement with the hobby of railways, and over 18 years with MSTS/OR in route and stock development, I have always only seen and used expression of gradients as '1 in 40' etc., rather than as a %age. Acknowledging that the US is always expressed as %age, and the UK and Australia is generally expressed in '1 in 40', would it be possible, or even desirable, that in the appropriate HUD sections that gradients be shown in BOTH %age and 1 in 40 format. This would be good for users from all continents and countries, showing their 'normal' designations. From a personal note, I find it difficult to visualize a grade steepness when expressed as a %age.

If I'm out of line here, tell me to pull my head in !

Regards, Brian Bere-Streeter


Hi Brian,

We're all friends - with the same interests - please don't ever feel hesitant about posting - that's what we do here - talk about things and exchange ideas...

Sounds like a good point - I pretty much play in my own backyard - so getting a different take from another part of the world is most valuable - especially when attempting to design something for a global community...

Perhaps we could change the Gradient format when switching between imperial and metric systems of measurements ?


View PostGenma Saotome, on 28 October 2019 - 07:24 PM, said:

FWIW the human eye can discern far more differences in green than anything else.

Anyway, the issue of color to signify information becomes a bit of problem for those people who are

  • red/green colorblind
  • blue/yellow color blind
  • all colors colorblind


None of which apply to myself but there are a few people on this board for whom it does apply.

I would expect googling colorblindness might turn up some suggestions on what to put on offer for those for whom this matters and if personal time allows for a bit of extra work it probably would be quite considerate to code some selectable alternatives for those folks.

Oh, one more thing: it's been shown that serif fonts do work better for reading text but non-serif fonts are better for numbers. I've played with this in numerous excel spreadsheets and concluded whoever did the research got it right. No idea why it is so.


Hi Dave,

Great stuff - thanks for the input - color blindness did cross my mind while working on this but no aspect of color is integral to the use of the HUD - we're not asking anyone to identify the "Yellow" shape - we're simply improving the color aspects for those that do see them... Track Viewer on the other hand requires you to differentiate between Red, Yellow, and Green signal states - perhaps we need to embed some unique identification shapes in those lenses ?

Oh - you’re right - the Steam Surplus/Deficit color change would prove problematic to the color blind (although that’s how it exists currently) - as that’s essential to running a steam locomotive... My previously proposed graphic gauge - for same - could solve that though if implemented...


View PostGenma Saotome, on 28 October 2019 - 07:41 PM, said:

Another one more thing :whistling: ... years ago Hewlett-Packard (where I worked) admitted to itself that letting the software people come up with their own abbreviations often led to misunderstandings when people changed assignments. Believe it or not a group of 8 high level programmers from around the world were tasked to determine if there was a sensible, easy to understand standard way to abbreviate any word and much to the surprise of many who rolled their eyes when first hearing of this effort, there was.

The primary rule was to (in general) to drop most vowels and strive for word abbreviations to be 3-5 characters. There were a couple of corner cases of which I can recall only one: Very common words that ended a name were listed as 2 characters. There were pretty business specific so no matter here.

So things like Part_Number became PRT_NO, Customer_Number was CUST_NO and so on.

The analysis team wrote up several thousand abbreviations covering most situations and staff was told to use them starting right now, no snide comments or belly-aching. In time most everyone came to agree it was a positive change (tho a few of the standard abbreviations did seem a bit off).

I mention this in wondering if it might be relevant to this matter. Things like Fuel remain as is (in caps) because it's 4 letters. Boiler Pressure could be BLR P, speed as SPD and so on.

There is also the not so small matter of language conversion away from English. Having a simple rule like dropping vowels might be useful there too (excepting Arabic and Hebrew).


Hi Dave,

Yeah - the translations will be an issue to make them relevant to the language in use... We'll need a matrix for each language it's ported to...

Yep - that's why I posted the complete list of proposed abbreviations early on - for peer review and open discussion for modification... I did try to keep the same formatting like BTRN, BLOC, BDYN for some consistency... The four characters were chosen simply to keep the HUD in alignment while still conveying enough information to easily make their intended meaning known...

I spent over 8 hours on the weekend testing both HUDs for an equal amount of time - trying to be as unbiased as humanly possible - and the "Abbreviated HUD" seems to have far better ergonomics - as having less clutter made it quicker and more efficient at locating the information you're after - at a glance... The same should prove abundantly obvious to anyone that puts in the time...

Regards,
Scott

#66 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

  • Owner Emeritus and Admin
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: ET Admin
  • Posts: 15,308
  • Joined: 11-January 04
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:United States
  • Simulator:Open Rails
  • Country:

Posted 29 October 2019 - 05:09 PM

Scott, that's called confirmation bias.

For example, is BOLS really more obvious than STM? Or STEAM? Or S PSI? Is BOLW more obvious than WTR? Or B WTR so as to distinguish it from T WTR? Only if you are the one that came up with the suggestion.

Been meaaing to ask... are those examples, above, the actual size you suggest?

#67 User is offline   ATW 

  • Engineer
  • Group: Status: Contributing Member
  • Posts: 638
  • Joined: 07-January 13
  • Gender:Male
  • Simulator:MSTS Open Rails
  • Country:

Posted 29 October 2019 - 11:32 PM

Well since the talk is basically about improving the F5 HUD an more like scrolling I might just throw in something.

Is it me or does the F9 need plenty of improvements such as being able to fast scrolling since sliding the bar moves the window around?

Not that all great looking but there are yet other advanced features awaiting future approvals. Some Features with a click of a tab or clicking a car/loco as in RUN 8 Sim would put the limiting of looking at the full HUD's.

Since some are color blind disregard the pic for now as I know some of my CO workers that ended UP color blind. Some even failed the test by missing 1 when you need to get %100 by company policy on railroads now a days that I am afraid for my future as well as hearing :negative:

F9 Design: Color an quality not original BMP.
Attached Image: ATW_ORTS_F5_HUD_F9_Part1.jpg

#68 User is offline   scottb613 

  • Vice President
  • Group: Status: First Class
  • Posts: 2,973
  • Joined: 06-July 09
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Downeast Maine (soon)
  • Simulator:ORTS
  • Country:

Posted 30 October 2019 - 02:47 AM

Hi Dave,

I'm sure we can change the abbreviations if folks feel it's warranted but between the abbreviation used and the respective value listed on the same line - it seems pretty obvious what it's indicating - even if it's not - the learning curve to figure out where each respective value resides and the abbreviation used to indicate it - on a simple HUD - seems pretty darn small... You can certainly post a suggested alternative list of abbreviations for consideration... I can't speak for Mauricio or the ORTS Development team - but if somehow the "Abbreviated HUD" survives - I'm sure the "Full Text HUD" will be just a click away...

View PostGenma Saotome, on 29 October 2019 - 05:09 PM, said:

Been meaaing to ask... are those examples, above, the actual size you suggest?


LOL - no - just what was convenient to work with in my graphics program...

The HUD size is fixed - as in Carlo's post - the HUD appeared to take up a quarter of his screen - on my 32" 2K monitor (I posted examples earlier) - it's pretty small in the corner - at 4K I think the HUD would be too small to see - depending on the physical size of the monitor - of course...

Full Screen 2560x1440 display example of HUD Size:
http://www.elvastowe...post__p__251877

Regards,
Scott

#69 User is offline   Genma Saotome 

  • Owner Emeritus and Admin
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: ET Admin
  • Posts: 15,308
  • Joined: 11-January 04
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:United States
  • Simulator:Open Rails
  • Country:

Posted 30 October 2019 - 09:22 AM

View Posteolesen, on 21 October 2019 - 11:00 PM, said:

Just to throw a wrench in the wringer...

Why not make the HUD something with its own config file that you can turn on/off or re-order as you see fit?

You can already see dozens of opinions here on what's needed and what isn't, which means some degree of the user base will not be happy with any change.

The system variables are already there, so isn't it just a matter of what's being exposed?


YES!

There are many similar changes that would be a big plus by simply starting to look for all config files at the "lowest" level and working your way up, meaning activity first, content home folder second, OR installation third. Long overdue.

#70 User is offline   mbm_OR 

  • Fireman
  • Group: Status: Active Member
  • Posts: 236
  • Joined: 03-July 15
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Spain
  • Simulator:Open Rails
  • Country:

Posted 05 November 2019 - 01:34 PM

Hi All,

New update with some improvements.

Full text window:
  • Only the version info has been hidden.
  • Gradient still presents for this window.
  • Same as the F5 HUD.


Abbreviated window:
  • For testing purpose, the "TIME" text is clickable to toggle between constant or proportional font width, both with Font-Style set to bold.
  • Gradient and Steam usage have been hidden in this window.
  • Arrow symbol added for each control command, now the triangle any larger.
  • The Boiler Pressure (BOLS) value changes its color according to the boiler heat in/out values. (still a work in progress)
  • The Multiplayer mode data is visible only at the "Full text" window.

Attached is the new beta code aligned with the OR x1.3.1-99 Testing version.
06/11/2019. New update here

Regards,
Mauricio

  • 14 Pages +
  • « First
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users