Bugs in SDL interface

[Lincoln Peters <sampln at sbcglobal dot net>]

I noticed that the SDL interface doesn't hammer my CPU like the TclTk
interface does (and I now have a 2.167GHz CPU; not many things could
really hammer it), so I thought I'd give it a try.


The following bugs are *not* UI features that have not yet been
implemented; just features that do exist but don't behave properly:

1. In the SDL interface, if I press 's' to put a unit to sleep, the unit
seems to drop to 0 ACP's.  In the TclTk interface, it retains its ACP's
even though it doesn't act during that turn.  Sleeping units seem to
retain their ACP's as usual on subsequent turns in both interfaces.

2. Units that can be developed but have not yet been developed do not
appear in the list of units that can be built.  This makes it impossible
to develop those units.  (I think that a similar bug existed in the
TclTk interface in 7.4.1 but was fixed in CVS a long time ago.)

3. The information panel at the bottom of the screen is not updated
after a mouse click, although it updates properly as soon as I move the
mouse or some other action takes place.  Perhaps the information is
being refreshed *before* the task is executed?

4. When I change the zoom, the main panel shifts to display a different
part of the map.  And strangely enough, it seems to shift to the same
spot every time, although a different spot for each level of
magnification.  I think we all agree that it should remain centered on
the same point when the zoom changes.

5. In the Standard game, roads do not appear at maximum zoom.  They seem
to appear properly at all other zooms (except the lowest, where they'd
be an eyesore).  I haven't tried it with other games.


The following are deficiencies in the interface that may or may not have
been considered yet (and in either case, I consider them to be pretty
big deficiencies):

6. There needs to be an easy way to tell which units have remaining
ACP's and are not in Reserve or Asleep *without* clicking on them,
unless the unit focus will automatically switch to the next such unit
when the currently-selected unit cannot perform additional actions this
turn.  Otherwise, making sure that all units have acted in a given turn
is a real pain.

7. There also needs to be an easy way to tell if a unit is under
construction; unlike the TclTk interface, there is no visual indicator
whatsoever to distinguish between complete and incomplete units. 
Perhaps alpha-blending and/or tinting would be useful (either an
incomplete unit is semi-transparent or is tinted a particular color,
maybe orange).

8. There should be some kind of feedback for combat situations.  Not
necessarily explosions (although that might be useful, if done
correctly), but some way to tell what happened without having to run
Xconq from an XTerm and flip between the two windows up to 20 times per
minute.  The best way I can think of to do this is by using a status bar
for messages such as "Your * can never do this!", and a collapsible log
panel for messages such as "You completed your *".

---
Lincoln Peters
<sampln@sbcglobal.net>

Virtue is not left to stand alone.  He who practices it will have neighbors.
		-- Confucius