Add in-game config menus

[historic_bruno]

We need some user-friendly menus for setting options. For graphics, it might be nice to have a live scene rendered in the background so the user can see how each setting alters the appearance of the game. Probably it's best to design each menu page by hand, rather than trying to generate them. If there's more than a handful of settings, it should be full-screen instead of jammed into a dialog (see current in-game settings menu for example of what not to do). Tooltips explaining each option are essential.

We could have two modes for complicated settings like graphics: basic and advanced. Basic would only show simple options that anyone can understand (graphics detail: high/medium/low), while Advanced would show all the specific settings and numbers e.g. shadow map size and filtering, AO, particles, specular, normal mapping, parallax quality, gamma. Some options might not be available on the user's system so they should be disabled, explanations are good too.

Implementing this ticket depends somewhat on #1810 but we could start with mockups.

[fabio]

I added some comment about this here: http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16257&st=260#entry254556

[historic_bruno]

We discussed the idea of using XML a bit in IRC ​yesterday, the opposing view is that it's much more complicated and less readable than something like an INI file. The best argument in favor would probably be associating a bunch of metadata with each setting like your example (description, requirements, dependencies, etc.), but the engine still has to know how to parse it. Eventually we need to display a subset of the settings in a friendly way - not blindly generated from XML which would be ugly and awkward.

So it seems like a simpler config file and handmade menus might be the way to go; in other words handling the dependencies, descriptions, and requirements for each setting individually.

Is there a better argument for using XML or against using an INI style file?

[fabio]

Replying to historic_bruno:

Is there a better argument for using XML or against using an INI style file?

Thanks for the link to the discussion, it looks fine to me.

[Josh]

In r14766 I basically implemented the advanced options bit and I'm hoping to get the high/medium/low thing figured out by Alpha 16.

[Stan]

Pushed since not fixed yet.

[Raymond]

It is fixed, except choosing the resolution?

[Lionkanzen]

Replying to raymond:

It is fixed, except choosing the resolution?

Is not

[Stan]

There is no menu for high low and medium graphical options.

[mimo]

This is already completed, and remaining improvments are followed in #3737