Apple's Human Interface Guidelines

[Thomas Davie]

I'm curious as to what Bigtime thinks with respect to the interface that they have developed for the game. Is it consistent across platforms from Mac to IBM and vice versa?

How well do you think it conforms to the Apple HIG published in 1984? Reason I'm curious is that I've just finished playing a few hours of Steel Panthers WW2; a DOS game. Within the game, the conventions used to initiate action were highly variable and close to non existent.

Now, we are using Window'ed OS's on both sides. If I use the game on a W95/98 box, can I assume that the interface will be identical if I choose to play it on my Mac?

Last little bit, and I assume that this has been asked before, but....is the keyboard capable of being assigned functions and remapped?

Thanks for any info.

Tom

[Guest Big Time Software]

Apple HIG is something I haven't seen mentioned in a looooooooooong time. Yes, I have a couple of books here by Tog (Bruce Toganowski sp?). He was the Guru behind the original and subsequent HIGs out of Apple. Good stuff, but quite dated (OS 8 changed the Mac OS a great deal).

Basically, Apple got it right and MS coppied them. Some would like to say that Parc-Xerox was coppied by Apple, but that is not the case (let us not debate this, OK ). Anyhoo, the Windows interface also borrowed from its DOS past and UNIX (also part of its DOS past), so there are differences. Some, like the two button mouse, are actually good. The list of bad is a lot longer. It took YEARS for any kind of standards in interface to develop for Windows, and it NEVER happened for DOS. That is why DOS games are often hard to learn, cause there are no standards.

Anyways, I am getting off track here!

The Mac and Windows versions of Combat Mission are basically the same. However, there are slight variations, like Right/Left click and Control Key on the PC, Click and Command key on the Mac. But basically everything else is the same.

The common interface for both will be familiar to both platforms. This is because CM's UI is very clean and well thought out. It is a joy to use, the exact opposite to most other wargames (especially DOS ones!). People should have no problemos with the UI.

In terms of keyboard mapping, no we do not allow the user to do this. Primarily because it was a waste of our time There are so many keys that if you want to move one you have to relocate another. And since we have grouped them logically, that means having to relocate logically. Unlike a shooter or sim game, key placement is not really a crucial thing. So keyboard mapping is at the bottom of the list (uh, not even sure it is on The List even!).

Steve