Make room in the settings menus for additional options

[Dune-jr]

Whenever I would like to add something in the settings menus, I feel like I have to do some sort of hack to merge it with an existing option.
Examples of options I feel could be added, to make already existing features easier to access:

• Enable/Disable background map, select a custom map (Checkered bg (cl_menu_map none) should be made default again #1566)
• Transparency slider for the UI (Transparency slider for UI  #1576)
• Hide console window (Teeworlds Client - Windows - Hide Console Window #1583)
• MOTD duration slider
• Change font (list all fonts in the font/ directory)
• Change various font sizes, including chat
• Enable/Disable menu icons (it's a console option, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea)

More fantasies could include:

• select game tiles

Any suggestion for changes? An additional tab? Sub-tabs?

[Zatline]

you absolutly right i noticed that it's kinda difficult to add more options becouse of how everything is already taking all of the exiting space. It's a flaw in the UI design must admit.
I'll see what I can do to fix that and allow more options to be added easely, gotta restructure some panals.

[Dune-jr]

What I would really love to see is an "Advanced" tab (or subtab) in the Settings where we could put stuff to make Teeworlds a bit more customisable without bloating the usual tabs.

[Dune-jr]

For now, I'm thinking of just making two columns, like @LordSk already did in Graphics :

in General:

A more global solution could still be nice.

[LordSk]

I respectfully strongly disagree with adding a lot more options to the game. Adding an option is the easy answer to issues that may come up. Giving responsibility to the user is not good design. Oh you don't like the background? Here is 10 options to change that, good luck. Why do we want a transparency slider for the UI? is the question we should ask ourselves and answer it. We can't please everybody, but pleasing most people is very doable.

That being said, splitting the screen in half like I did for the limit fps setting seems fine for now.
If it ever gets too crowded we can then think about re-designing settings menus like we are doing right now for the server browser.

[oy]

Agree with @LordSk. We shouldn't bloat that stuff and focus on the stuff that's needed.

[Sonix-]

Divide the into 4 columns or boxes could be a solution.
Or adding sub-tabs (top or side aligned).

[Fisico]

Why do we want a transparency slider for the UI? is the question we should ask ourselves and answer it. We can't please everybody, but pleasing most people is very doable.

Why not simply make the green background darker like the night background map and we dont need the slider.

[Dune-jr]

The issue is the settings menu, not the background. Remember that the settings are also accessed ingame.

[1stDecadeTW]

Am I the only one who thinks the setting menu needs a revamp?

[Dune-jr]

So there are several options that would be pretty cool to add, such as a Theme selector (#1675), or the Brightness slider for the UI (#1576) or even font options and what not we may come up with.

Often, it seems like those suggestions don't make consensus because they would increase the count of unnecessary options directly visible to the user (cf. @LordSk's comment just above). While I personally don't believe the menus are loaded enough for this to be an issue, maybe the middle ground would be this "Advanced" tab:

What I would really love to see is an "Advanced" tab (or subtab) in the Settings where we could put stuff to make Teeworlds a bit more customisable without bloating the usual tabs.

A quick suggestion:

[oy]

That feels kinda misplaced there. Should probably be in the subcategory where it belonged too.

[Zatline]

there was a strong intent to keep maximal button count at six per row with buttons being of same size everywehere it's kind of embedded in the design.
I wouldn't like this as it would make buttons start vary in size and consistency fade.

[Dune-jr]

I would love any alternative suggestions.

[1stDecadeTW]

Add sub-pages within each tab with advanced options/features (or maybe not frecuently used, but useful features for players, server admins and developers).

[oy]

You could add a scrollbar to a setting subcategory or and advanced section.

[Dune-jr]

I would like an advanced section, but I have no idea how it could be accessed.

[oy]

Should be within the correspoding subcategory not in the top menu.

[Dune-jr]

So chat/HUD customization stuff - if implemented - should be a subcategory of UI?

edit: whoops, that's not a category

[oy]

There's no UI-category right now, should be in general, but yeah.

[Robyt3]

I think we should add another tab "HUD" or "Interface" with

• most of the settings under General/Game
• theme settings, probably
• Chat options #2293 as a table

This would free up the general page and allow some of the above mentioned options to have UI, if they are useful for the average player.

If there is not enough room for another tab, maybe the tabs could be rearranged to go from top to bottom on the left or right side.

[Dune-jr]

Well, a lot of the aforementioned options ended up working out somehow, or are edge cases, or bloat (cf @oy and @LordSk's feedback). Only the statboard options and #2293 remain imo.

• Putting the Settings tabs on the right, like they were in 0.6 Teeworlds, would not fit the new interface
• Adding more tabs is not great because translations would start overflowing (so we'd have to reduce the font size?)

A lot of games have the whole settings page be a scroll region:

In the case of Teeworlds, the issue here is nested Clip regions, that don't work so well. The CScrollRegion class would otherwise be nestable.

Another option I would see is an "Advanced settings" button that let you go to a second page, e.g.

--- Section ----
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 

---- Section ----
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 

--- Section ----
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 

            vvvv   Advanced options vvvvvv

and

            ^^^^^   Basic options ^^^^^^

--- Section ----
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 
[ ] Option          [ ] Option 

---- Section ----
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 
[ ] Option 

[oy]

Using scrollbars seems like a good idea 👍
Also about the tabs: "Player" and "Tee" could be merged?