A nice touch for the user interface would be if clicking on the infocard for something opened the elementopedia to the appropriate entry for more information.
That should be in.
Everything I understand about the cards says this won't work because the cards only appear if your mouse is over the unit or object in question, so if you moved the mouse towards the card and off the unit the card would vanish... Or at least that is how it works in Sins of a Solar
If you mean "Double click on the info card" then yes, I agree. Having it open the pedia every time you just click on the card though could get annoying real fast especially if you click the card to select the unit in question. I also think clicking on the card should select the unit in question as well.
Yeah. Porternielson's right about this.
But why not change the info card behavior, so that it stays on the screen when ou "select" something ?
Because that would be exceedingly annoying? The point of infocards is to provide you with information about things without having to drop what you're doing now and select them. They are not meant to provide information about what you currently have selected, because that will (or should be) displayed elsewhere on the GUI (currently it's usually displayed in the bottom right). Having infocards stick around permanently while you have something selected would just get in the way.
This. ... but wait. I thought that the infocards will disappear once the cursor isn't "within" the unit's 3D model. Am I wrong?
So simply change the infocard behavior slightly so it pops up under the player's cursor. If you want to know more and access the elementopedia, you click (or double-click, if one click turns out to be too prone to accidental openings); if you don't want to know more, just move your cursor off the card and it disappears.
Infocards don't work that way. They pop up when (and only when) the user mouses over particular objects. Infocards disappear when the user moves her cursor away. Changing this function of infocards ruins their purpose -- to provide a maximum amount of information to the player, without filling the screen with the UI.
Anyhow, the solution to this is relatively straight forward. Give the Elementopedia a button on the main UI, and have it automatically display the page of the currently-selected object when clicked. The downside of this is that you wouldn't be able to go directly to the Elementopedia page of anything that can't be directly selected. However, if the infocards are done right, you shouldn't need to ever access the Elementopedia for this information.
This could work, but then the object has to be selected. Another solution might be to add a shortcut-key ( F1? ) to the Elementopedia. When it's used while an info-card is shown, it opens to that subject. Otherwise it opens to the standard screen.
Also good. Probably better, actually.
So it works just like I thought. Good suggestion btw.
Yeah that's a very good idea also.
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