Okay, it seems my silliness has successfully ticked off at least one person. And no, I have never done a single thing with code since my days in MI, that king of all oxymorons, unless it was some type of game. I'm far from computer literate and at this stage in my life I'm extremely confident that computer code is not something I will ever learn. I'm not a believer in reincarnation and have serious doubts that my genus will be here long enough after I kick off to allow me to re-enter life in a more computerized time than the one I grew up in should reincarnation turn out to be a reality.
I didn't realize that creating the site's tools was the responsibility of the paying customer. I also most adamantly don't believe anyone's scrot should
actually be messed with in any way that is not pleasing to the person possessing said scrot. And pulling any bodily organ through a nostril should never
ever be even half seriously contemplated by anyone. It's simply tongue in cheek for
I find this panels concept vastly inferior to BOB and wish fervently that I hadn't lost BOB in the first place. And yes, I'm confident that if I were actually computer literate that I wouldn't have lost BOB in the first place.
So let me take my tongue out of my cheek and do my best to put it as the always level headed and on no one's side but right,
deBlakstan would put it. The panel interface has some very good points to it. I particularly like how one can now receive all the information about any tert by simply hovering over it so that on a complex map such as Stalingrad, one can rather quickly and easily see with certainty which tert can actually attack or bombard which instead of simply having connected terts illuminate to show that there is a connection but not what it is, as with BOB.
That's a nice improvement. Not having that box of connections always pop up covering part of the map every time my cursor hits a tert in the lower left quadrant of the map so that I have to raise the map up where a lot of the upper part is cut off would be a great improvement and I will probably manage to figure out how to circumvent that sometime in the future. If there is a way, that is.
The succinctness and simplicity of BOB was one of the biggest assets of that program. It allowed the computer illiterate types like me a way to access a good deal of information without having our eyes cross and sending us off in a fog as trying to follow computer instructions tends to do to us. And we simple old farts don't do well with change, unless it actually makes things simpler and quicker for us without needing a long class or series of them to get to the simpler and quicker part.
Okay... so much for deB's way. Just can't keep my tongue outta that cheek! But here are some bugs, if you want to call them that, and things that are not improvements over BOB:
The chat window should stay where a person leaves it instead of returning to that position it's always found in. This position is, to the best of my ability to estimate, approximately one foot left of and below the lower left corner of the map. Having to cursor over and slowly drag the chat box back up and over next to the map every time you go to a game is far from an improvement.
The information that was available on one screen with BOB should be available on just one screen with anything that replaces BOB. Having to switch screens in order to see chat and then having to switch again to get the overview is a definite complication because all of that was accessible on one screen at the same time with BOB. Complications are not improvements.
And since none of the new kids can download BOB now, that's a concern for those in charge who are so concerned with and apparently focused on new players. I understand that BOB was a collaboration of the community but one would think that when so many people have come to rely on BOB that those in charge would seriously want to let them continue using it and would take it upon themselves to keep it available. Making a site where people come to
play more complicated is not an improvement unless it makes play all much more enjoyable. And all the chatter in the forum and elsewhere should most clearly indicate that the game play has not improved nearly as much as it has transgressed with the panels.
If I've ticked off anyone who's had anything to do with the creation of panels,
GOOD!!! Maybe that will get them to come up with ways to make the panel interface as seamless and inclusive as BOB was. But with the great loss of inclusiveness that the change from BOB to panels has caused, that formerly unnecessary switching back and forth from screen to screen to get what used to all be on one, I can find no improvements that justify it. Yes, the information on the Map Inspect box is nice but not so nice to make me want to have to switch back and forth from screen to screen every turn.
Make panels work as well as BOB and I won't complain. But "improvements" such as this will surely drive even more people away, just as the pogo dice have. And as deB said, those who run the site should be interested in making the customers happy if they don't want those of us who pay our measly $25 per year to continue doing so.