Suggestion: Confirmation window for dismantling production building

Or allow the player to Shift-Click to delete/dismantle without confirmation.

While useful when you want to click no, confirmation dialogs has a tendency to become really annoying fast when you press yes 99% of the time. So while I do see your problem, I would prefer finding an alternative solution before introducing a confirmation dialog.

I briefly thought about reordering the buttons so that dismantle was further away from enhance. The current order in a window is
Stop | Enhance | Destroy | Dismantle | Dbg | Center - Help
but I don't really have any suggestions for reordering.

I am actually of the opposite opinion: remove the confirmation for the
burn down feature. I feel awfully stupid repeating everything twice - I
also become automatic to click okay on often seen dialogue boxes.

Let's discuss this here and decide once and for all.

  status incomplete

I enlike the shift idea, however I would make it the ctrl key since that key is used when removing all flags on a road so that would make more sense.

And I have to say that I am also torn about having another confirmation window, which is why I am suggesting the option since some might find it annoying and others like me are just too trigger happy. The option menu as it is now is not too cluttery and therefore I don't see a problem with the addition of new options.

Or the rearrangement could work, perhaps put some distance between enhance and destroy so that they are "separated"?

I've only very rarely destroyed/dismantled by mistake. Putting the buttons further apart would probably reduce the possibility even further. Maybe the game should always confirm if a building has wares in it, or if it is a military site that is "holding" borders against an enemy?

If I destroy a quarry by mistake...no problem. But a training site full of expensive wares? Or a mine full of food and experienced miners? I'd be quite happy to receive confirmation to destroy/dismantle these sites.

I find that I most often dismantle unused quarries, unwanted lumberjacks or mines that are on exhausted veins. In all three cases I would not want confirmation to remove these.

#5
I have to agree with you that with the cheap buildings it really doesn't matter as the cost to rebuild them if you make the mistake is minimal.

My problem has been mostly with the mines and when I wanted to enhance them for some reason I tend to click wrong. It could be because of my pain meds making me drowsy and just not paying full attention however if the buildings are emptied out first then I can't really see a problem.

Yes - that's when I've done the same. It is the proximity to the upgrade button that has caused me to make mistakes. A larger window with the buttons grouped apart from each other would make a big difference.

Symmetry is important. Either for all buildings or none. a UI that is
too clever is a pita (MS office hiding some of your menu entries because
you do not use them - remember that? horrible!).

That said, an obscure option that only very few people change is also
not a good idea. Remember, this is a game not an editor. What I mean is:
let's find a solution that solves the problem for everybody not make a
half-baked solution and rescue us on the "well, you can turn it off"
tree.

One idea: make the change immediately, but wait 30 in game seconds
before dismantling/destroying begins -> the user has time to cancel it.
Of course this would not be ideal for military buildings because you
sometimes need to burn them down quickly when they are attacked. So this
is a half baked solution as well.

I buy the symmetry argument for sure!

The options I see are:
1. Use the ctrl key to bypass the confirmation window
2. Seperate destroy and dismantle and distance them both from enhance
3. Leave it be
4. Empty the wares opon destruction/dismantling
5. Make an option in the option menu to disable/enable confirmation windows.

I would preferably see 1,2 and 4 as something to be looked at. What do others think?

I made an ugly paint mock up of 2.

Distancing the enhance from the destroy/dismantle would make a difference, without having to increase the size of the window.

If UI changes are to be made to make the destructive elements more difficult to use, I would suggest two criteria:
The destructive buttons are always in the same place on any given window
The buttons are sufficiently far away from any other button to avoid mistakes

@#12
I agree, consistency is the key to intuitive gameplay for the users.

[Expired for widelands because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Okay, this had a pretty good discussion and I think the prudent solution is toofold:

1) make CTRL + CLICK burn down/dismantle immedately, otherwise show a window. This should also be done for enhancing.
2) separate the destructive buttons (burn, dismantle, enhance) from the others by a gap (see mockup in #11).

Those are easy things to do and are low hanging fruits for any new volunteer. Someone?

I'm going to pick this low hanging fruit up as a first bug.

Cool! Go for it.

https://code.launchpad.net/~hono/widelands/984197 has been created with the fix for part 2 of the solution.

Also attached a screenshot of the solution seen in-game.

Tested:
   * Buildings that have Stop & Enhance buttons - there is a separator before the Destroy button
   * Buildings that have Stop button only - there is a separator before the Destroy button
   * Buildings that have neither Stop or Enhance buttons - there is no separator before the Destroy button.

Please review / comment - I'll work on part 1 of the solution now (Ctrl-click to bypass confirmation dialog)

Buttons should only be grouped if they're related in some way. Destroy and Dismantle are related. Center and Help are a sort of "informational" so might be better grouped. Stop and Upgrade aren't related and should be kept apart (especially since Upgrade is not something that can be undone) but I suppose this bug is not really the place for discussion of button placement in a more general sense. Thanks for picking this up, it will make playing much more efficient!

https://code.launchpad.net/~hono/widelands/984197 has been updated. See also attachment.

I reread SirVer's summary #15 and he suggested separating enhance/destroy/dismantle from the rest, so I have done this.

As a result:
   * the Stop/Go button is on the left.
   * Enhance/Destroy/Dismantle are next, separated from any Stop/Go button by a fixed width separator.
   * Workarea/Debug/Center/Help are on the right.

Exception for Warehouses (and anything else that has no Stop/Go/Enhance/Destroy/Dismantle):
   * Workarea/Debug/Center are on the left.
   * Help is on the right.
   * Why: it looks odd having the 4 resource management controls on one line left justified, then the 3/4 other buttons on the next line right justified.

Proposing for review/merge.

Merged Mark's excellent contribution in r6475.

Ctrl-click does not work when using the Flag->Destroy Flag button on a site.

Confirmed as an omission - Ctrl-click handling needs to be added to FieldActionWindow.

Released in build-18 rc1.