Character creation - Description tab - UI audit

[ZeroInternalReflection]

Describe the bug

The description tab of the character creation screen has several graphical and navigational issues. Some of these overlap with other character creation issues, but most appear to be independent. These include:

Crashes/Major errors: 1] The UI breaks when confirming character creation on small screens. There may be several factors to this, but I'm able to replicate it with:

1. Set terminal size to 80x24 (I was not able to replicate this on a tiles build)
2. Custom character
3. Give the character a background
4. Tab until you get to confirmation
5. UI breaks

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/89038572/172856808-1f88d53d-c2bd-4482-a94a-58956fcd39e1.mp4

This also happens with random characters:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/89038572/172857422-59e9fa9e-27af-4918-b718-2902771a909b.mp4

And can even be sensitive to resizing:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/89038572/172857465-fa9525a2-cbdc-4999-9331-8f7c5101c779.mp4

Display issues: 2] The header does not reset properly after closing the keybindings screen 3] Character backgrounds do not fold/truncate cleanly at medium window sizes (131x38 pictured): 4] Proficiencies, bionics, traits, skills, and backgrounds are inaccessible at small screen sizes: 5] The keybinding hint section will print over the Proficiencies list, and 6] The starting location/vehicle/addictions and profession do not truncate cleanly at medium screen sizes (106x26 pictured): 7] Long character names will get printed over on small screens 8] Background will print over bionics at medium screen sizes (110x26 pictured in Polish): 9] Keybinding hints get cut off in Russian (96x39 pictured): Accessibility issues: 10] The cursor is not set for screen readers Navigation issues: 11] The use of Tab to confirm is only used in this screen and the world creation screen, and should be changed 12] The use of / for select starting location isn't a great choice given how often it's used for filtering 13] Reaching the martial arts selection screen requires you to confirm the rest of the character. It is not possible to go back and tweak your character further once you reach it 14] No mouse support is available Further investigation required: 15] There's code for a 'select starting city' submenu, but I wan unable to find a way to access it Other: 16] There are narrative descriptions of scenario/profession/background along the way, but the 'DESCRIPTION" tab doesn't mention them. It would be great for RP purposes if those narrative snippets could be collected together at the end. Followup issues: 17] When modifiable items are arranged in parallel columns, navigating by Up arrow/Down arrow and modifying by Left arrow/Right arrow is an unintuitive choice

Steps to reproduce

1. Open the game
2. Set language specified (if applicable)
3. Resize window to size specified (if described as 'small', assume 80x24)
4. New game
5. Custom character
6. Tab over to 'DESCRIPTION"

Expected behavior

• [x] 1] It should be possible to create a character at all supported screen sizes Tentatively marking as fixed as I'm no longer able to reproduce. I'm not sure when this started working, though.
• [x] 2] The header should reset after closing the keybindings screen
• [ ] 3] Character backgrounds should fold/truncate cleanly
• [ ] 4] All character information should be accessible at all supported screen sizes
• [ ] 5] The keybinding hint section should not print over any character information
• [ ] 6] Starting location/vehicle/etc. should fold/truncate cleanly
• [ ] 7] If a maximum character name length is imposed by other parts of the infrastructure, it should be imposed here
• [ ] 8] Character information should not print over other character information
• [ ] 9] If there is insufficient room for the keybinding hint section, it should be hidden rather than cut off
• [ ] 10] The cursor should be set for screen readers according to accessibility.md
• [ ] 11] Tab should go to the next tab, either stopping at the right or looping.
• [ ] 12] The / key should be reserved for filtering
• [ ] 13] It should be possible to select a martial art before committing to the rest of your character choices (see also: #52667/#53534)
• 14] It should be possible to:
• [x] 14a] Select other tabs with left click
• [ ] 14b] Toggle certain values and go to sub-menus with left click
• [ ] 14c] Mouseover highlight submenus/toggle-able values
• [ ] 14d] Mousewheel scroll through submenu options
• [ ] 15] Figure out if the 'select starting city' submenu is still in use
• [ ] 16] Have a collected narrative for your character
• [ ] 17] Navigation keys should match the arrangement. If navigation is only by scrolling up/down, then the list should be a single column

Screenshots

No response

Versions and configuration

Tiles

- OS: Linux - OS Version: LSB Version: n/a; Distributor ID: Arch; Description: Arch Linux; Release: rolling; Codename: n/a; - Game Version: 90e1eb2 [64-bit] - Graphics Version: Tiles - Game Language: System language [] - Mods loaded: [ Dark Days Ahead [dda], Disable NPC Needs [no_npc_food], No Fungal Growth [no_fungal_growth], Bionic Professions [package_bionic_professions] ]

Curses

- OS: Linux - OS Version: LSB Version: n/a; Distributor ID: Arch; Description: Arch Linux; Release: rolling; Codename: n/a; - Game Version: 0.F-8820-g82afe217e14-dirty [64-bit] - Graphics Version: Curses - Game Language: System language [] - Mods loaded: [ Dark Days Ahead [dda], Disable NPC Needs [no_npc_food], No Fungal Growth [no_fungal_growth], Bionic Professions [package_bionic_professions] ]

Additional context

For clarification of some of my UI terminology (e.g. scroll vs. fast scroll, column vs. pane), refer to my general notes here

See also:

51179 - Slight issue with high skill overlapping skill name text

53699 - "Random Character," screen Unusable on Narrow Terminals

[Brambor]

I think some are solved:

• [ ] 1] It should be possible to create a character at all supported screen sizes

  • I thought this is solved, but re-reading it now, I am not sure as I am playing in tiles

• [x] 2] The header should reset after closing the keybindings screen

• [ ] 9] If there is insufficient room for the keybinding hint section, it should be hidden rather than cut off

  • as of #67936 it shall be wrapped
  • But I agree that if there is not enough space in Y, menus should either be scrollable, or hint should be collapsed. - only the DESCRIPTION tab doesn't fulfil that (Theoretically more of them don't, but it's fine). You can go really crazy with keybindings

• [ ] 10] The cursor should be set for screen readers according to accessibility.md

  • I think this is resolved, at least when I looked at the code, but I didn't test it
  • btw, the accesibility.md is now at https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/doc/USER_INTERFACE_AND_ACCESSIBILITY.md

• 14] It should be possible to:

• [x] 14a] Select other tabs with left click

• [ ] 14d] Mousewheel scroll through submenu options

  • this is everywhere except for STATS and DESCRIPTION

• [ ] 15] Figure out if the 'select starting city' submenu is still in use

  • note: this regards option SELECT_STARTING_CITY and context option CHOOSE_CITY which is different from the regular CHOOSE_LOCATION option (kinda complementary, you can have one or the other, but you never seem to have CHOOSE_CITY as OP is saying)

I don't know how to check or I don't get 17. An example where it is wrong would be useful. Actually, it is the DESCRIPTION, isn't it?

I believe it's nowhere else in character creation.

[ZeroInternalReflection]

Well, I'm finally getting back to checking on these. For the description tab, I'm calling 1, 2, and 14a fixed. I'm not entirely confident on 1, since I'm not sure when the behaviour changed, but it currently seems to work. Things are still a mess at 80x24, but it's possible to get through the screen

I don't know how to check or I don't get 17. An example where it is wrong would be useful. Actually, it is the DESCRIPTION, isn't it?

Yeah, 17) is specifically things like navigating from "Gender" to "Height" by hitting "DOWN". Not particularly intuitive.

The split of the information in that area is also a bit of an issue. Most of the things above the fold are user-modifiable, but "Starting vehicle" and "Starting addictions" appear to be read-only, At certain screen sizes, they are also duplicated below. Meanwhile, starting times are user-modifiable, but only through hotkeys, and are displayed below the fold.