Enhanced Interface
From NexusWiki
This page consists of information that has become obsolete and no longer applies to the game. It is kept for historical reasons only.
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Beginning with version 1.2, the Nexus War interface has changed to a modern, "web 2.0" interface that makes extensive use of javascript and "AJAX" technology. There are many things that changed about the interface. The enhanced interface was removed in the 2.0 "Straylight" update.
[edit] The Basics
The interface will automatically update itself once every five seconds or whenever an Action Point is spent. Thus, there is no need to "refresh" the display (and no mechanism to do so is given).
Refreshing the entire page will, of course, refresh the state. However, this is not recommended as the download time for the interface and the data is extremely high and will likely take longer than the five second automatic "ping".
After five minutes of inactivity, active pinging of the server will cease (this is to allow automatic session timeouts to take hold). Spending an Action Point will re-engage the ping.
As the character interacts with the world, interface elements will be enabled or disabled as required. However, the actual html for all elements has already been downloaded to the browser, so the additional bandwidth required to download that html is not needed (only a small amount of text is sent, telling the browser what to enable or disable).
[edit] Notable Changes
The "buy skills" and "disconnect" buttons are no longer visible on the main map interface. In order to buy skills (or change classes, or whatever) you must now click on the character name in the right hand side character box.
You may connect to any character by opening the "Characters" dialog (clicking the "Characters" link in the global nav) and clicking on the "Connect" button. This will connect the character without reloading the interface.
[edit] The Message and Statuses Pane
The message pane has changed significantly. Included in the message pane is a second, smaller pane that displays active status effects. Unlike the original, legacy interface, messages are not "lost" after every action but are instead retained in a full buffer until the character disconnects or the user logs out. The player may scroll back through the messages at any time or clear the message buffer by clicking the "clear" link at the bottom of the pane.
The message pane will always retain the size set by the user. The bottom block of the message pane includes several controls to affect the size of the message pane (as well as one that clears it). Clicking the (+) button increases the vertical size of the message pane by about 20 pixels and clicking (-) will decrease it by the same amount. Clicking the "max." link will increase it to about 500 pixels in height while "min." will reduce it to 120 pixels (it may be made smaller with the (-) button).
[edit] Tool Tips
The interface makes extensive use of tool tips. Hovering the mouse over certain elements in the interface for about a second and a half will (in most cases) spawn a tool tip. Tooltips are used to provide additional information about skill, location, character, or anything else.
Tooltips may be immediately dismissed by clicking on them.
In the action panes, tool tips are spawned by hovering the mouse over the question mark "help" icons. Clicking on the icon will open a new browser window with the wiki page entry for the subject in question.
In the map pane, hovering over various icons in the grid will produce information about the icon in question.
Hovering over character names in the Description pane will reveal a "micro profile" for that character. If you have certain skills (such as Sense Magic or First Aid), additional information will be displayed.
[edit] Interior Dialogs
All player actions may be accomplished without leaving the map interface. Many actions will open additional "dialog boxes" that display over top of the interface. When a dialog box is active, the player is unable to interact with the map interface (though it will still refresh and ping).
[edit] Accordions
Many dialogs are multi-purpose, grouped by theme, and are what is known as accordion style dialogs. Accordion dialogs are similar to "tabbed" interfaces in that only one of the available options may be visible at any time. However, instead of tabs, the header of the dialog is the "clickable" element.
Clicking on the header of any accordion will switch the dialog to display that header's content.
[edit] Skins
Players are now given the option to change the color scheme of the interface by choosing a different "skin" for the interface. There are several skins available (the screenshots in this page were taken using the Nature skin):
- Nexus (the standard blue and white)
- Gore (black and red)
- Poison (black and green)
- Cobalt (black and blue)
- Nature (green and white)
- Valor (red and white)
- Balance (greyscale)
Skins are selected under the "Account" tab. Since skins are loaded at the same time as the base interface, any changes to the interface skin done through the enhanced interface will be visible until the next time the player reloads the full interface.
More information about skins, including screenshots, may be found under Skins.
[edit] Map Layout
In addition to choosing the color scheme of the interface, players may also select between two layouts for the interface: classic and left. The map style is selected under the "Account" tab. Since map styles are loaded at the same time as the base interface, any changes to the interface skin done through the enhanced interface will be visible until the next time the player reloads the full interface.
The classic map style places the actions panes in the middle and the map accordion on the right.
The left map style places the actions pane on the right and the map accordion on the left.
