Rename "one-way left field" to "turn-left field"

Started by Simon, January 10, 2018, 11:22:23 PM

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Simon

Rename "one-way left field" to "turn-left field" in the UI. Would be nice, but not necessary, to rename they keywords in the formats. This rename in the UI is a purely non-breaking change.

Reasons:

  • "One-way left field" is not precise. In isolation, you cannot infer that this name means something else than one-way arrow fields that turn walls into one-way walls.
  • "Turn-left field" is clear: It describes what the thing does.
  • "Turn-left field" is precise: No other gadget turns lemmings leftwards. While there are other turning gadgets like this flipping gate, nothing else always turns left and never right.
  • "Turn-left field" is different at a glance from the name for one-way wall arrows. SQron made tileset, accidently chose "one-way left field" instead of one-way wall arrows and, at a glance, concluded that he chose correctly.
  • Shorter.
-- Simon

Colorful Arty

I agree with this. This change would make it more intuitive to new people using these tools, the less confusing things are the better.
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GigaLem

Why not just "Turning Fields"
like "Left-turning Fields" "Right-turning Fields" and "Down-turning Fields"

Simon

I am fine with left-turning field, too. As long as left-turning field and right-turning field are still sorted adjacently in the list. :)

-- Simon

Nepster

I am happy to rename the force fields to "left-turning field" and "right-turning field", but I don't think the name is used much in the actual game. Currently I can only think of two placed the term "force field" is used in user-facing parts:
1) The tool-tips for turning fields in the piece selection of the editor.
2) In the graphics toolkit, when turning an object into a turning field.
More problematic are the occurances of the words "force fields" in preview texts of levels, because this is something the pack designers have to change themselves.

I will certainly keep the support for using the key words "FORCE FIELD" in the .nxmo files, but I might change the default text to something else.

Simon

Interesting. The game never calls them "one-way fields" anywhere? "one-way field" has been pervasive in discussions and it looked extremely standard.

Maybe less reason to change then. "turning field" is clearer  than "force field", but not by as much as "turning field" is clearer than "one-way field". I'll leave it up to others' judgements.

-- Simon

Nepster

Quote from: Simon on January 19, 2018, 06:11:44 PM
Interesting. The game never calls them "one-way fields" anywhere?
I checked again, and there is indeed one place, where the game gives the turning fields a name: When displaying the hint while hovering over the object in clear-physics more. However, in this case it is "FORCE ->" resp. "FORCE <-", which I don't consider to be too bad, but "TURN ->" resp. "TURN <-" would still be better.

And, yes, the "official" term used by namida and myself was (at least for some time now) "force field", not "one-way field". The later still occurs sometimes in old stuff, e.g. in the name "owf_left.png" in namida's new-formats psychedelic style.