Dialogue-based launcher.

[SundownKid]

My main beef besides the space Eileen takes up is that it basically undermines the flexibility of Ren'py by having a big anime mascot front and center. It works fine for the tutorial, but for Ren'py itself it doesn't exactly scream "this tool can make any game, with any art style" - more like "make anime-looking games with this!"

Nuxill's 2nd ver. is ok if you want to keep it simple, but IMO, it could use a less boring mono-color look to the graphics (my mockups are not final, just examples of placement/color).

[PyTom]

My main beef besides the space Eileen takes up is that it basically undermines the flexibility of Ren'py by having a big anime mascot front and center. It works fine for the tutorial, but for Ren'py itself it doesn't exactly scream "this tool can make any game, with any art style" - more like "make anime-looking games with this!"

That is a reasonable point. Perhaps have the dialogue-based interface without the character?

[nyaatrap]

In theory, important information should be placed at top-left on the window, and lesser ones are bottom-right. Because it's how people read letters. I feel uneasy to look at Eileen on the left side.. getting an impression like "look at me more then menus"

[Anima]

My main beef besides the space Eileen takes up is that it basically undermines the flexibility of Ren'py by having a big anime mascot front and center. It works fine for the tutorial, but for Ren'py itself it doesn't exactly scream "this tool can make any game, with any art style" - more like "make anime-looking games with this!"

That is a reasonable point. Perhaps have the dialogue-based interface without the character?

I disagree. Ren'Py is named for romance stories (renai), that hasn't stopped people from using it for non romance stories. Following that logic we should change that name to something more neutral like "2Dnonrealtime'Py".

Having Eileen in the launcher will not really stop any one from using Ren'Py for other art styles. It definitely would make no difference for the resulting game since the player never gets to see the launcher.

But to be honest, some arguments in this thread make a command line only launcher pretty attractive. Think about it, no need for a GUI design, less system load, smaller file size, no distracting elements, extendability and it's much more powerful in the first place. Since consulting tutorials doesn't seem to be a problem, studying man pages should be breeze. Only advantages as far as the eye can see.

Okay sorry for the sarcasm. But I think it would be really nice if we could be a bit more open to changes and take the needs of new users into account. A good GUI should never require the user to consult a manual to be usable. Of course the user will still need knowledge to make use of the program.
It would be nice if the current launcher had fewer options at once on the screen. That would make it easier to use. Separating the launcher into 4 different parts according to project phases might be a good idea.

• Create new project
• Edit project
• Release project
• Help & preferences

So I think Dejis mockup goes in a good direction. Most of the time I use the edit script button once and the launch button a few dozen times per season. (No I didn't forget the exit button, closing the terminal quits Ren'Py just fine.) The other buttons see only very occasional use.

[SundownKid]

I disagree. Ren'Py is named for romance stories (renai), that hasn't stopped people from using it for non romance stories. Following that logic we should change that name to something more neutral like "2Dnonrealtime'Py".

Except that an anime picture is recognizable to pretty much everyone, while no one outside the visual novel circle knows what a ren'ai actually is... keeping it at the level of prominence of the current version is probably a good idea.

Having Eileen in the launcher will not really stop any one from using Ren'Py for other art styles. It definitely would make no difference for the resulting game since the player never gets to see the launcher.

But for the new users who are trying out Ren'py, it would make a difference in whether they might want to use it to develop a game.

So I think Dejis mockup goes in a good direction. Most of the time I use the edit script button once and the launch button a few dozen times per season. (No I didn't forget the exit button, closing the terminal quits Ren'Py just fine.) The other buttons see only very occasional use.

IMO, that mockup gives too much space to the "create a new game" button, which most people will use only a few times. I think the buttons should all be sized according to how often they are used rather than laid out in a list-like format.

[PyTom]

I'm wondering if a simpler, more cartoony version of Eileen would be helpful here. (less obviously anime, and less complexity to draw the eye.)

[SundownKid]

I think that that would definitely be an improvement, but the size should also be reduced so she's only in a single quadrant of the screen (e.g. my first mockup or Nuxill's second). If it's not distracting, it shouldn't matter if there is or isn't an Eileen there.

No buttons should have the same size most of the time, the layout looks to uneven otherwise. (Buttons that do something radically different or irreversible are an exception.)

I meant that in the more... limited sense, not like making EVERY button a different size, that would just be weird.

[Anima]

Except that an anime picture is recognizable to pretty much everyone, while no one outside the visual novel circle knows what a ren'ai actually is... keeping it at the level of prominence of the current version is probably a good idea.

Having Eileen in the launcher will not really stop any one from using Ren'Py for other art styles. It definitely would make no difference for the resulting game since the player never gets to see the launcher.

But for the new users who are trying out Ren'py, it would make a difference in whether they might want to use it to develop a game.

Well, it's more a factor of knowing Japanese or having read on the site about the names origin. And new users will probably play the tutorial anyway. So they get confronted with those infectious anime graphics. Most people will learn about Ren'Py by playing a Ren'Py game in the first place. I simply do not see it as having any significant effect on the development process in any way. Eileen is simply the Ren'Py mascot/avatar. A part of the brand identity if you want.

IMO, that mockup gives too much space to the "create a new game" button, which most people will use only a few times. I think the buttons should all be sized according to how often they are used rather than laid out in a list-like format.

No buttons should have the same size most of the time, the layout looks to uneven otherwise. (Buttons that do something radically different or irreversible are an exception.)
Besides, creating a new game is one of the two options a new user needs easy access to. (The other is the tutorial of course.)

I'm wondering if a simpler, more cartoony version of Eileen would be helpful here. (less obviously anime, and less complexity to draw the eye.)

Maybe making it skinable would be the best way? Either with an direct option or simply replacing an image file.

[SundownKid]

Having themes for the launcher itself is a cool idea - they could be selectable from preferences. But, having that change the entire design as well could be too time consuming...

[PyTom]

I'd love it if people would take some time to throw together a few mockups of this latest round of ideas. I'm a very textual person, so visual design is hard for me.

I think it would be cool to at least make the sidebar character configurable. The new launcher will be screen-based, and will ideally separate design from content. (But I don't know how well that will work in practice.)

[SundownKid]

So, is the new launcher going to be larger, like 800x600, or stay at the current size?

[SleepKirby]

I'd personally go for something around the current size (540x440, as seen in <Ren'Py installation directory>/launcher/options.rpy; not sure if there's a particular reason for that exact size though).

I find it's pretty convenient to have a small launcher window. When I'm working with Ren'Py, I usually have (1) the launcher, (2) my code editor (Notepad++, jedit, etc.), and sometimes (3) the game open as well. In fact, ideally the launcher and the code editor would be wrapped up in the same program, to essentially create a Ren'Py IDE... but that would require quite a bit more work to implement. But having the launcher be small enough to fit both the launcher and code editor onscreen can come close to that nice IDE feel.

Also, I was under the impression that we'd want to display fewer options on each screen of the new launcher, compared to the current launcher (at least compared to the current launcher's main menu). So hopefully, if things are done right, 540x440 shouldn't feel too claustrophobic.

Actually, I just thought of something. The majority of the time when I'm working in Ren'Py, I really just use the launcher to click Launch. I type some code, Launch, try the game out, then edit the code again, etc. Does anyone else end up doing this too? If so, two ideas:
- Maybe you'd be able to toggle the launcher into a super-compact view that only shows the Launch button?
- Could a global hotkey be used for the Launch function, so you could Launch by pressing that hotkey even when the launcher isn't the currently focused window?

[PyTom]

I'd like the launcher to be 800x600 or bigger.

While most screens will have less options, there will be a few screens with an arbitrary number of options. For example, I'd like a screen with every label in the game - you'd then click on the label to open it in a text editor.

[papillon]

99% of the time when I run the launcher, it is to immediately click the 'Launch' button. I may well never look at the launcher again until it is time to select Quit.

How many people have enough different projects running at the same time that it would be at all rational for them to have to choose 'Work on an existing game', 'Yes, that game, the same game I work on every day', and only then be able to hit 'Launch', every time they run the thing?

By all means make it friendly and welcoming for new people but please allow experienced users to set options so that they can get straight to what they're doing.

[SleepKirby]

While most screens will have less options, there will be a few screens with an arbitrary number of options. For example, I'd like a screen with every label in the game - you'd then click on the label to open it in a text editor.

At least for the label screen, I personally think a viewport that can be scrolled vertically with a mousewheel would do pretty well, even if we can only fit ~6 words per row like in your mockup. (It's worth noting, though, that labels can easily be a lot longer than 1 word, especially when the programmer is trying to make labels unique across the game. My story labels are typically prefixed with the day number/name.)

There are additional ways to make label searching more efficient, whether we have fewer or more labels simultaneously in view:

- You could sort labels in a few ways: (1) alphabetically by label name, (2) by filename while keeping the original label order within a file, or (3) by filename while sorting alphabetically within a file. Methods 2 and 3 are mainly for games which organize their story script into multiple files; 2 would be used when the story file is already pretty well organized, 3 when the story file is not as organized or somewhat large/complex.

- A simple search function could help too: search "yuki" and it'll show labels like "meeting_yuki", "yukis_house", etc.