Started Train re-theme (in Changelog)

This gives level and effect in one place again.

(You'll need to refresh sidebar, the link location changed.)

I am making progress towards adding a "Show all tabs" option, so go click on cafepress and get yourself a pacifier before ranting more please.

Or at least rant in another thread.

Very nice, I like it.

Something (possibly the Verifex script) is causing unwanted untraining with the changes; I have reverted to the old Train again temporarily.

Thank you very much Jon!

I have been very unhappy with the changes as of late, but decided not to complain that the chunk of marble wasn't a good sculpture.

/me can now see a light at the end of the tunnel

(Update: the untrain is not the verifex script's fault.)

And I removed Fexy's script.... sad panda

And yeah, putting in the short version of Verifex's name screws things up...

Figured it out. Re-theme is back.

The requested URL was not found on this server.

Selecting Max to train a Skill, Evasion, then selecting the second minion and putting him at Max on Decay only does 1/2 Max Training per minion.

I can't reproduce that.

Thank you Jon for putting current/base level on the train page. This actually makes it easier when training skills that have a maximum benefit like archery and bloodlust. You can see your current ST and train accordingly.

I'll try to reproduce and screenshot.

Jon, while trying to reproduce, I ended up with NO XP being trained the first time and then the full amount doing it.

Its just being stupid.

More tabs? Wow, that's awful.

Sorry, Jonathan, I really don't get this. These tabs are an absolute wall to real functionality.

We don't create minions, we create teams. Seeing the whole team at once is awesome.

I too have to train twice on my first minion to get the training to take. The first time I train nothing happens the second time the Xp training takes.

FYI

"Recruit a new Minion" button is not working.

Ahh i hate it lol let us get the option of getting it :)

Move left? What would that mean? I can't see my whole team at once!?

I am pretty sure that this tab stuff will get me forum-banned before it actually does anything useful for the game. Wait, actually there are probably plenty of people who think those two outcomes are one in the same. *smile*

These tabs have no upside. Anyone who can show otherwise, do so. Please. Quickly.

I actually don't even think they look very good. And yes, Jonathan, that is after a day and a half. A few more days isn't going to give me an epiphany. Just because one _can_ do something doesn't mean one _should_. That's rule one in UI design. Tell me the upside.

Just to clarify... A "Show All Tabs" would be cool. But then why would we ever need single tabs? (that's the point I am trying to make)

Yes, I will stop ranting now.

i normally don't care about what stuff looks like, but i have to say that the tabs in the train don't look good, but they are also annoying and they also decrease functionality. can we please go back to what it was before

grr im tryin to enter the tourny but basically im stuck until jonathan fixes the recruit new mininons >.<

I have found that while training, the first minion I attempt to train will not train at all the first time and drain correctly the second time. The secind minion I attempt to train will only train xp to the lowest xp minion I have. Therefore, If minion 1 has 1k xp and minion 2 has 2k xp when I train minion 2 he will at most train to 1k xp, the xp of minion 1. I hope I am explaining this well enough so you can troubleshoot accordingly.

fixed recruit

> I too have to train twice on my first minion to get the training to take. The first time I train nothing happens the second time the Xp training takes.

Try refreshing that frame instead of training a 2nd time.

I'm not sure I like the "Train" button at the top where the "Recruit Minion" button is. Is there any particular reason it was moved?

When training a minion one Tab at once, which is in my opinion the new way to go, it trains, no problem, but after training it always reverts back to the first tab of the first minion. This makes me having to click even more to train all my minions. Is there a possibility to have the browser "remember" what tab was last open?

Im using Seamonkey, don't know whether this happens in Iexplore...

Same thing here: training first minion(no matter which tab) will result in no training. REfreshing that tab after first train still shows no EXP has been trained. After that first problem training all minions is working.

Hmmm. I'm training - for sake of example - a 100k XP selecting 'max. After I hit train I will have 10k xp left. If I do 'max' on that amount of xp I won't have any left. Happens every time. First train of max only does approx 90% of total.

On a smaller amount - from 9 BA - I click 'max' and then train and nothing happens. Refreshing the frame - as you suggested earlier - shows the xp to still be there and no train to have taken place. Repeat performance works fine.

It doesn't show how much untrained exp you have?

More silly tabs.

Okay, so now I can't see the XP across all my minions on the home or train pages. I have to submit a fight, which is less clicks than checking each tab, to see if it's time to train?

(No one else thinks they look like recipe cards?)

You check Home/Train to find out if you should train? I always used the fight page.

I was using "home", but then I switched to using the train page, but now that doesn't work either, so I must have BA available to submit a fight or remember to look before I actually run out of BA.

At your stage it wont matter unless you have a lot of xp hoarded up. You're not suddenly going to beat someone off 10k xp, you'll need more than a mil.

Perhaps you are missing the point. The interface is making game play more difficult. Whether I train every 1k or every 100k is immaterial.

HP 4,641 NoneUnlearn for 35,035
ST 20 20 NoneOne (exp: 1)1/10 Max1/4 Max1/3 Max1/2 MaxMaxOther
DX 20 20 NoneOne (exp: 1)1/10 Max1/4 Max1/3 Max1/2 MaxMaxOther
Cone of Cold 4,636 4,731


Ok.. not sure if this info is going to come out right.. but i trained 1/2 max on the 2 stats.. hp and on coc.. they were at the same amount when i started.. yet. with 1/2 max.. which with the old systme would put them 1 point away from each other at max... now they are 5 points different... something isn't working correctly. Also when i started to get the numbers the same. i trained 18 xp on the CoC to get it the same as the HP's... and the first train nothing happned. and i had to train again to get them the same. OK. Just hoping I gave enough info to help.

Refreshing the frame definitely doesn't make anything happen. If I click train FIRST then I can train normally.

Tabs are EXTREMELY painful to use here.

I repeat... EXTREMELY painful.

If they stay, it will take me twice as long to burn my BA and that would be bad, very bad.

Simplicity of use is one of CB's greatest assets. Do not take that away from it for the sake of aesthetics. Please.

I find the layout to be a great improvement, but I just have a single minion, so I don't need to deal with tabs. I can see how the tabs could be tricky...

"I can see how the tabs could be tricky..."

It`s more than tricky... it's close to unusable... and I only have 2 minions.

My hearth goes to all you 4 minion teams out there. I feel your pain.

I just checked on a multi-minion team I have, and it doesn't look too bad. How often do you actually have to go through and assign new training sets? If you have Verifex's script, you would only need to go through the minion tabs once for each training set. Of course, the script isn't working now...

Also, one other minor point...

If the page is to follow basic GUI design rules for usage flow (Left to Right, Top to Bottom), the Train button should logically be at the bottom of the page.

"I just checked on a multi-minion team I have, and it doesn't look too bad."

I have to train often, because the multi minion team is my active character. And anyone trying to keep balanced stats needs to train often.

Verifex's script is the best thing since sliced bread, but it can't cover everything.

The tabs are a nuisance, not an improvement.

no matter how many times i try it and how many different times i do it .. when i train 1/2 and max on minions where they start out with the same number. they end up 4 or 5 different in the end... any other time i have ever done this... where i trained 1/2 and max .. the numbers came out at the most 1 apart... even with 1/3, 1/2 max .. the most was 1 apart. now with just 2 different stats they are 4 or 5 apart.. something is broken.

"the most was 1 apart. now with just 2 different stats they are 4 or 5 apart.. something is broken."

I noticed that too.

If I train 1/2 XP on ST and max XP on DX starting from the same raw level, ST ends up much increasing significantly more than DX.

"If the page is to follow basic GUI design rules for usage flow (Left to Right, Top to Bottom), the Train button should logically be at the bottom of the page. "

Take a look at the Train page, the Auctions page, and the Store pages. There is a definite theme coming through, where there is a sidebar to the left containing the action buttons, and the content is filling the main page.

Also, if I train the minion on the second tab, the page reloads and lists the first tab. So I have to click on the second tab again to see what the train results were.

"the page reloads and lists the first tab. So I have to click on the second tab again to see what the train results were. "

This is the kind of tweaking that I'm sure will be implemented later. Why would Jon add the code to remember the last tab, when the layout could change greatly?

I'm not sure if this is the same bug being reported above. I just attempted to train just under 50K XP on each member of my two minion team. In both cases I chose to train 1/2XP on one attribute and Max XP on a latter attribute. When I clicked train both minions were left with just over 5K XP. I reproduced this a second time with around 40K XP on each minion to start, though they were left with around 12K a piece.

I'm doing something wrong in fixing that to .Plus I wondered what that cross wise arrow was and hit it now fex's script is gone !

Did anyone else notice that the white of the tab on the train page is brighter than the white of the tab on the home page? It's driving me mad.

Yet another change that's making me not want to stay...

And why, oh why, do we have to make the left-most minion move left? Seems like another case of "aesthetics" over function. It never was this way before.

The white is the same. The home recipe cards have the dark grey boxes under your info and the train page doesn't, so the home page seems darker. Betwixt the two, I prefer the layout of the train page cards. Now if only I could see them all at once.

I don't know if this will help anyone with training until Jon sorts it out but....



Click train on the sidebar, then on the train main page click train FIRST. This appears to have the effect of opening training so it works normally. Select your stat to be trained and click train.


Since I've been doing this I've had no problems. Of course it might not work for others but it's worth trying. ;)

Damn it, Bast. You're right. It still looks a lot brighter.

(Screen shots and Photoshop's eyedropper tool confirm that both whites are pure white-- 255 R 255 G 255 B.)

I would have to imagine that a good graphics interface would take that into account... Unfortunately for us, this is not a good graphics interface.

Mael, are you asking how often I train on all my minions?

Well, all the time. Even when I have only a few thousand EXP to train, I go through all minions and train them up. Add up the extra number of clicks I will need for that.

BEFORE:
Click "Train".
Click Minion 1 stat of choice and press "M".
Click Minion 2 stat of choice and press "M".
Click Minion 3 stat of choice and press "M".
Click Minion 4 stat of choice and press "M".
Visually double-check one more time and then click "Train".
TOTAL NUMBER OF CLICKS/KEYS: 10

WITH TABS:
Click "Train".
Click Minion 1 stat of choice and press "M".
Click minion 2 tab.
Click Minion 2 stat of choice and press "M".
Click minion 3 tab.
Click Minion 3 stat of choice and press "M".
Click minion 4 tab.
Click Minion 4 stat of choice and press "M".
No gestalt double-check (without three more clicks), but just click "Train" anyway.
TOTAL NUMBER OF CLICKS/KEYS: 13

So, a 30% increase in clicking. That's the downside.

The upside? Still waiting to hear about that. Especially if an "All Minions" tab is created. That means I would just use that anyway, and development would require double work on the interface side whenever any changes are made.

If I changed an interface at work and added 30% more keypresses or clicks to it without a business-case functional upside, I would get fired.

And if your answer to my quandary is "train less", then you are making my point, not detracting from it. If I am forced to change my training habits for no apparent business-case reason, then the change is not a good one for the interface.

No Sut, I was wondering how often people (not you specifically) define new training sets (not train) using Verifex's script. I make a few training sets, and then never use the drop downs on the training screen again.

I do not now and will never use a script of any kind, even awesome ones like Veri's.

And I will certainly not be expected to use it to make up for poor UI design. *smile* Again, such action would only prove my point.

Where tabs might help is for people playing the game from a smaller screen, say a cell phone. I think planning towards the time where there could be a majority of players coming in on 3" screens is smart. In addition, if I understand CSS at all, I think those tabs can be eliminated with a theme, meaning you (along with everyone else) can commission a theme that looks like whatever you want it to. I'm planning on attempting to hack together something that looks like Modern Mono myself...

Jon asked us to whine elsewhere...cmon man.

I am not a big fan of the tabs, but I can live with them ;)
But I think it would be that much better if there was an option to view all your minion at once... Both in train- and homesection. I really think it is annoying i can't see them all at once.
But if the tabs are staying, maybe there could be an extra tab to show all? That would be a good idea I think

Thank you for the "upside" explanation, novice.

That's a good point.

/me keeps his mouth shut until after the re-theme is finished :)

/me thinks thats a good idea, Join me? ;)

"if I understand CSS at all, I think those tabs can be eliminated with a theme"

Sorry novice, but you apparently do not understand css in its use with the new tabs. The new tabs are using an ajax library called jquery. In order for a functionality change (removal of tabs), there would have to exist separate code being rendered to allow this.

I am waiting until the re-design is complete to really weigh in, however I do think there will be more limitations in the fixed width html containers that are being created. By fixing the width, we cannot create full width themes.

I have built a ton of sites and a lot of new ajax'ish functionality into them, there needs to be a "need" before just trying to make it look cool. I agree with Sut in that functionality first, design second should be the rule.

thanks Glory...

We might have to rely on GM scripts I guess then...

> I do think there will be more limitations in the fixed width html containers that are being created.

In the most recent pages the widths are all in css too.

You're welcome to fix up any that are not. (Auctions index is the only one I can think of but there may be others.)

I believe I fixed the issue with the first train doing an incomplete job.

"In the most recent pages the widths are all in css too."

Sorry for my ignorance, I should have checked the most recent css before I made the fixed width claim. I guess I will have to check the recent changes. Also, I hope to have a bit more time to help out in the re-design soon, things in rl have kept me too busy to dedicate time to it thus far.

I'm absolutely hating the new train page. I can't wait for a "show all" option.

Any plans to drastically alter this page?
I ask because it's the one I use/need to play when out of the house on my cell phone. Not asking for special treatment (well not really), just a heads up if changes are planned that will create a different url or w/e so that I can come up with an alternative.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, I didn't catch it first time round, and did skim back over.

The "Recruit a new minion" button wraps onto two lines for me, with "Minion" on the second line.

The wrapped "Minion" lies over the "Descrptions" section of the "Ability Descrptions" link.

WOOT i love the show all :)

Wee, the show all option in train is nice! :)
Cant wait for a option like this in the homesection

might be too much to ask... but i fancied the train button on the bottom... i keep lookin for it down there but to no avail :)

how about a bottom frame to put train in and such, it also would widen up the box perhaps?

Oh, I just saw that there actually is a Show all minions button at "home".. It is next to the charactername and has the same color as the red line... I discovered it, but it was pure luck, so maybe it could be another color? :)

you're seeing old css, reload the right frame

"Show all minions" Rules!

Now if we could have it on the Home page, it would be perfect.

Thanks Jon. I wined a lot, but I never doubted that the solution would not be great.

Cheers!

That new option in train and homepage is welcome! :)
I'm not a big fan of this new theme (yet) but I must say it is getting better ;)

Took me a second to find the 'show all' but I am happy that I did. Thanks Jon.

I like the stuff your doing so far Jon. I was questioning your last decision. But its all going upwards so far. Keep it up! :)

I would suggest "Recruit a new minion" button to be changed to "New minion". As of now, I don't know if that's just me, but the button looks weird.

Also a quick change to make sure text of all hyperlinks doesn't change color would be neat too.

I am a single minion so everything looks cool for me :)

i still think the train page should flow more like the main page... on how the 2 collums are positioned vertically as opposed to one vertical and one horizontal...

i think that the train button should be on the bottom so that the train isnt so squished looking....

Noticed this under Protection on the Train/Ability Descriptions/Enchant Defense tab: "Reduces damage taken by targets. Applied <i>after</i> armor."

Might want to remove the HTML code eh?

i don't know if it been bought up but could we get a supporter preferences that lets us choose whether we have the tabbed or non tabbed view as our default view for both the train and home page

How do I move my minions with this new train page?

Click the 'Move Left' button? ...

FYI this is what the "Recruit a new Minion" button looks like. I know other guys have mentioned it but not sure if it was showing up wierd for everybody so figured I would show Jon an example.

Show All page is nice. Thank you.

However, on that page could we get the minion names some better highlighting? Things like "Untrained Abilities" are very pronounced, and that makes the minion breaks hard to see. It all just muddles together. As I said on the initial Home page change, the minion names need to be the most pronounced, with subsequent headings either less pronounced, indented, or something. Minions are distinct entities, and need to be displayed as such.

Final niggle...when in "Show All" mode, can the "Move" button be changed to say "Move Up"? Since these new styles of display are more top-to-bottom than left-to-right, we are really moving things up and down instead of side to side... That actually makes more sense for fights as well, as the minion order is like a batting order. Batters don't move right and left, they move up and down the order.

Thanks for the great progress on changes, Jonathan! With proper accents on the "Show All" pages, this new format is going to rock across all resolutions and browsers!

Ah, just saw that the Show All was already done on home page. I love it! Minion names could maybe still use a bit more of an offset, but it already works, so that's nitpicking. *smile* Thanks so much! The best of both worlds in standard top-down flow!

hmmm. Yesterday my train page showed the amount of 'raw' exp I had to work with. Today it doesn't. It's not going to stop my gameplay if it's not there but it was convenient when working out my training plan for the moment....;)

"However, on that page could we get the minion names some better highlighting? Things like "Untrained Abilities" are very pronounced, and that makes the minion breaks hard to see. It all just muddles together. As I said on the initial Home page change, the minion names need to be the most pronounced, with subsequent headings either less pronounced, indented, or something. Minions are distinct entities, and need to be displayed as such. "

Agreed.

I would rather see all my minion stacked sideways when I press "Show All Minions". As it is now I can't see all my minions at the same time as I used to.

Seconding Johnny.

Today I untrained a bunch of stuff, then trianed a base Evasion. I could no longer see how much XP I had left to train. :/

Ah, I think I've found my problem with my missing EXP total on the train page. It's there in Firefox, but in IE it moves right and is UNDER the tab. It's currently partially obscured by the tab and not readable. But it is there.

i guess the new re-theme doesn't support IE eh?

Yup, it's definitely there, I just have to click 'show all' to see it. Try that GL and see what happens.

I'd really like to see the "Train" button moved to the bottom, but otherwise I like the new train page.

Broken HTML?

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but on the Enchant Defence tab of the Ability Descriptions, under Protection it says:

Applied <i>after</i> armor.

Yeah, this happens with System CMs too

Some thing for a change perhaps:

The new training page layout is something to get used of, I know...

but could we have it remember which minion you put on to train something instead of going back to minion #1 after hitting train?

I think that having the minion name, exp, and battle cry values all on the same line could save a lot of space.

Also, the Train button really goes at the bottom of the page instead of the top.

The rest looks good to me.

I would like a train button both on the top and bottom.

I agree with Shade, its annoying having it always go to #1 minion after training. Should remember which minion was trained or selected last.

"Should remember which minion was trained or selected last."

If you check the Train and Home page re-theme threads, you will notice that this has been mentioned before (by myself and others). I think that Jon will address this type of issue once the theme look is final. Until then, any effort put into this type of feature could be for naught.

So I think we need to be patient when it comes to page behavioral issues and focus comments more on look and feel issues.

"If you check the Train and Home page re-theme threads, you will notice that this has been mentioned before (by myself and others)."

Sorry that I didn't have time to browse through 100+ posts... it's not like I made a new thread for it...

Perhaps my reply simply helps in addressing the need of it?

"Sorry that I didn't have time to browse through 100+ posts..."

Apologies if it looked like a rebuke. It wasn't. I was just trying to write that there was a reason why the problem wasn't addressed. It could have been worded a bit better.

The "view all minions" option is in the headline bar on home and on another line on train. This should probably be consistent.
Oh, and thanks for the view all options ! Phew :)
Would it be possible for "view all" to be a rememberable option, staying set/unset between sessions ?
I'd like this for "show battles on/off/on non-win" too, but that's off-topic.

Just another FYI

there is a text area under the tabs in the "Ability Descriptions" that has a link to wiki I think I haven't clicked it but it only shows up if your mouse goes over it. it will stick on there for a bit but if you click a different tab it disappears again.

The first tab says this "See also Help: Skills"... kinda hard to explain, but that section doesnt' show unless your mouse goes over it.

they all show up just fine for me. Firefox user here.

I haven't tried it with my FF, but IE it disappears randomly

Thanks Jon

For trying to put some of the stuff we asked for I am ff user
have very few problem. I love the way you set up the the training page and do not mind if you tweek it more. Lots of big improvements.

Again Thanks
Keep up the good work.

just one question i have is, on home/train i was wondering if we could have (When finished) a checkbox to permanently show all minions, cuz when i train i have to hit that everytime i hit train and go back in to train the rest of the exp, =/

Another thing, its really kinda hard to distinguish between trained and trained exp except for the drop-down menu positions.

could we please have a link such as "create another auction" or "list another item" on the page showing your auction was successfully created? as it stands now you have to click "auction" again and then "sell item" as well.