Celestia Forums

I've was fixing a couple bugs with location labels (primarily the problem with them appearing in front of foreground objects) and decided to experiment with adding symbols for locations. Here's an example:



I think that these symbols can be useful for two things:
- Indicating more precisely the position of the feature
- Distinguishing different location types with different symbols

The standard marker symbols are used. Any suggestions on which symbols should be used for which location types? I was thinking:
- x for observatories and landing sites
- small dot for cities
- circle for craters
- triangle for mountains
- square for other relatively small features
- no symbol at all for oceans, canyons, and other linear and areal features

--Chris

chris wrote:
I think that these symbols can be useful for two things:
- Indicating more precisely the position of the feature
- Distinguishing different location types with different symbols

The standard marker symbols are used. Any suggestions on which symbols should be used for which location types? I was thinking:
- x for observatories and landing sites
- small dot for cities
- circle for craters
- triangle for mountains
- square for other relatively small features
- no symbol at all for oceans, canyons, and other linear and areal features

--Chris

Hey, I like that a LOT, Chris. Previously, I have had trouble trying to distinguish just where the actual location was, so the markers help immensely. Also, I very much like the symbology you are describing above. Perfect for Brain-Dead users like myself.

Thanks, Bob

The only "problem", as shown on your picture above, is the lack of space between the symbol and the name. It's looking a bit clumsy to me.

Can you show another picture, with mountains (triangles), cities, etc ?

Nice addition!

Chris,

This looks indeed like a great addition.
Then, to avoid an overloaded screen, maybe the symbols should be displayed only when the observers is at close distance from the surface.

Chris,

that sounds like a really good idea, but I think Vincent has also a good point here.

Vincent wrote:Chris,

This looks indeed like a great addition.
Then, to avoid an overloaded screen, maybe the symbols should be displayed only when the observers is at close distance from the surface.

Perhaps the symbols could also be made to be switched off, if someone doesn't want to see them for some reason?

Regards,

Guckytos

Cham wrote:The only "problem", as shown on your picture above, is the lack of space between the symbol and the name. It's looking a bit clumsy to me.

Can you show another picture, with mountains (triangles), cities, etc ?

I'll add a couple more pixels between the symbol and name. There will be another screenshot in just a few minutes.

--Chris

Guckytos wrote:Chris,

that sounds like a really good idea, but I think Vincent has also a good point here.

Vincent wrote:Chris,

This looks indeed like a great addition.
Then, to avoid an overloaded screen, maybe the symbols should be displayed only when the observers is at close distance from the surface.

Perhaps the symbols could also be made to be switched off, if someone doesn't want to see them for some reason?

Regards,

Guckytos

That's an easy feature to add. Would you personally rather not see the symbols? The reason I ask is that I don't want to add options to the program that no one actually cares about. It's not laziness; rather, I just want to limit the amount of configuration that the user is confronted with. If there's a 'right' way to do something, I'd rather just do that than clutter the UI with superfluous options.

--Chris

Vincent wrote:Chris,

This looks indeed like a great addition.
Then, to avoid an overloaded screen, maybe the symbols should be displayed only when the observers is at close distance from the surface.

Hmm . . . I think that the symbols clutter the screen much less than the labels themselves do. So I don't know that it would help much to show the labels without the symbols.

--Chris

chris wrote:Hmm . . . I think that the symbols clutter the screen much less than the labels themselves do. So I don't know that it would help much to show the labels without the symbols.
--Chris

Just for what it's worth... I completely agree with Chris here.

Here's an example showing the default Earth locations file. Cities are indicated with a tiny x and no symbol is present for oceans and continents:


--Chris

chris wrote:

Guckytos wrote:Chris,

that sounds like a really good idea, but I think Vincent has also a good point here.

Vincent wrote:Chris,

This looks indeed like a great addition.
Then, to avoid an overloaded screen, maybe the symbols should be displayed only when the observers is at close distance from the surface.

Perhaps the symbols could also be made to be switched off, if someone doesn't want to see them for some reason?

Regards,

Guckytos

That's an easy feature to add. Would you personally rather not see the symbols? The reason I ask is that I don't want to add options to the program that no one actually cares about. It's not laziness; rather, I just want to limit the amount of configuration that the user is confronted with. If there's a 'right' way to do something, I'd rather just do that than clutter the UI with superfluous options.

--Chris

I think the location symbols would be a VERY good idea, since if I just read the name, I often have no clue what it is that this name corresponds to.

chris wrote:Hmm . . . I think that the symbols clutter the screen much less than the labels themselves do. So I don't know that it would help much to show the labels without the symbols.

--Chris

Hmmm, seeing these two answers from you got me thinking again, which is sometimes dangerous

Why not make a complete turn around on the location symbol stuff?

If far away only show the symbols, and then, when getting closer start to blend in the labels? Thus the screen wouldn't be cluttered with lots of text when further away, but you would be able to look/locate the symbol of what you are looking for (mountain or city or ...).

How does that idea sound?

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

Guckytos

chris wrote:Hmm . . . I think that the symbols clutter the screen much less than the labels themselves do. So I don't know that it would help much to show the labels without the symbols.

chris wrote:Here's an example showing the default Earth locations file. Cities are indicated with a tiny x and no symbol is present for oceans and continents:

location-labels2.jpg

Chris,

It seems that you've decreased the size of the symbols. They look smaller in your second shot.
This looks far better. Now, I agree that it's not worth showing the labels without the symbols.

Vincent wrote:

chris wrote:Hmm . . . I think that the symbols clutter the screen much less than the labels themselves do. So I don't know that it would help much to show the labels without the symbols.

chris wrote:Here's an example showing the default Earth locations file. Cities are indicated with a tiny x and no symbol is present for oceans and continents:

location-labels2.jpg

Chris,

It seems that you've decreased the size of the symbols. They look smaller in your second shot.
This looks far better. Now, I agree that it's not worth showing the labels without the symbols.

That's just the cities--other features are still indicated by larger symbols.

--Chris

The patch is available here:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... bols.patch

Quite a few files are affected, though most of the changes are minor.

--Chris

Custom symbols/colors would be liberating for modmakers who want to have their own symbol and can't find what they want in the ones provided.

(Support for svg would be really handy because modmakers can make scalable symbols without the downsides of bitmap scaling.)