I've started to play with some new directions for the UI of Weapon M and would love to hear some feedback. I'm torn between bringing over a docking framework like Jide or reimplementing the display in HTML and build the whole UI using a browser. On one hand, a docking framework is really flexible and could be tweaked to do just about anything w/o no coding, but on the other hand, an HTML UI would potentially work with mobile or any other computer with no installation necessary.

Anyway, here is the quick swing hack I did to at least add a chat panel:

I originally put the status panel on the bottom so I could put a map on the side and still fit everything on a 1024x600 screen. But I'm sure there are as many preferences as there are players. It would be pretty cool if it could be skinned with XML.

Yeah, this is why I was thinking of going with Jide for a flexible docking framework. I'm on multiple 24" screens, so a 1024x600 optimization isn't ideal.

I looked at Jide and didn't like it for some reason. Can't remember what it was. I looked at several docking frameworks at the same time.

The nice thing about having the status panel under the terminal is that if the map were put on the right side with something else (chat or a script console) below it, the right panel could take up all available space. I also wrote a simple docking panel that I planned to use for the map so it could be put on another screen. It's not used but it's in the source tree.

What's your reason for preferring Jide? I'm going to survey the various docking frameworks again and think about using one.