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Author Topic: many GUI laments  (Read 3433 times)

nomadic_leader

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many GUI laments
« on: May 30, 2017, 10:19:54 AM »

-The GUI should use radio buttons and checkboxes instead of too-subtle coloured buttons, which also don't indicate whether they're radio or checkboxe style choices

-The planets list in the intel tab should be multiple column sortable like an excel spreadsheet, so i can sort first by one criterion, then 2nd by another criterion, etc. (I think this is called hierarchical sorting)

-The tabs of the market/fleet interaction screens need to be like apps on a smartphone. When you flip to one window, the window you just left shouldn't reset its display, but keep the display that you were looking at. This should be pretty much universal and across the board.

-The planet info screen (showing all the moons in the system and their description) should be an additional tab on the map screen.

-The fleet tactical map; something must be done so you can actually comprehend orders, officers, ships, and names in closely massed engagements.

Rant about why this matters:
Spoiler
Since before most players (and designers) of this game were born, Xerox PARC, Apple, Microsoft, and now most *nix distros with GUIs have been consistently using certain types of GUI widgets like Radio Buttons (for mutually exclusive choices) and Check boxes (for non mutually exclusive choices)

These elements have become part of global 21st semiotics, as universal and widely understood as stop signs being octagonal and red, and the green light in the traffic light/semaphore meaning "go."

Imagine a country where instead of using the red octagon, they use a duck held upside down. Or on their traffic lights, dark green means go, medium green means change, and bright green means stop.

It would be confusing wouldn't it? Why reinvent the wheel? Especially if your new wheel doesn't work as well as the old one.

That's kind of what starsector is doing. It is not complying with universal semiotics, and what it replaces them with is not as good. So even aside from the unnecessary learning curve, it inhibits quick comprehension. Yes, after playing like 700 hours you probably don't have as much trouble with this anymore, but that's in spite of the GUI, not because of it. For people who are new or don't play so much, it's rough.
[close]

Radio buttons, tabs, and checkboxes.
Spoiler
Instead of radio buttons and checkboxes, starsector prefers these really subtle colour indications with no distinction of radio buttons vs checkbox choices.  So the first like 10 times you see them, you're stuck wondering "does black mean it's pressed, or not pressed?" Like the refit weapons selections.

In the market and shipyard tabs, the colours are also really subtle and the button design in general. They should also more clearly be boldly coloured tabs so you know which market your on immediately.

Examples:
These should be two sets of checkboxes


Those boxes on the right side. Some are mutually exclusive options, some aren't. They should be changed to radio buttons and checkboxes.


This should be more like tabs, with really bright colours or some way to show more obviously that you're in a particular tab. Orange lines with dark orange = selected vs orange lines with black = not selected. This distinction does not POP visually the way it needs to.

Edit: the developer pointed out that the market 'grid' changes colour depending on which market you're in.  I've never noticed that. Perhaps it's too subtle, perhaps the icons of the stuff is too well-drawn and thus distracting, perhaps most of the player focus is on their own inventory in the bottom half, not the market, or perhaps i"m uniquely obtuse? Maybe it needs to be toned-up a bit.


This too.


Maybe those options at the bottom of the screen should also be checkboxes? When you start playing the game and you see this row of blue and black squares, it isn't immediately clear which is selected and which isn't. Starsector already has checkboxes. They're really good. Bright blue. Everybody knows they're the best checkboxes. They win so much. Why not use them more?
[close]

Sorting of lists
Spoiler
Say I'm looking at the planets list in the intel tab, and I want to sort them first by hazard rating, and then by distance. So I'd see all the 25% ones first, and within the same hazard rating, they'd also be sorted by distance, within the same hazard rating. This would be nice, and could be done just by clicking one column first, then the next column second. See in this pick I'm unable to have it show all the 25% hazard rating planets together in order of distance as well. Or I'm unable to figure it out at least.

[close]

Fleet tactical map crowding.
Spoiler
The ships get into these furballs and it becomes difficult to see ships, officers, names, and orders assigned to them. This is kind of a mess, 5 years later. I also want to be reminded of which officers I have on which ship and see their skills from this map tab.

[close]

Smartphone App Style TriPad tab management
Spoiler
Those tripad GUI engineers. I just don't know.
When you flip from one tab to another, some of them reset their displays. Instead, it should be like an app on your phone; when you switch to another app, the app you left stays open on the window it was on. Imagine if your web browser went back to google every time you flipped to another app.

I made a bug thread about this in the market tab, and Alex said it wasn't exactly a bug. He did change it though. So I'd like to point out a couple other places it does this. What I mean is, in a storage/black/military market or shipyard, and flip to another tab and then flip back, it defaults back to open market. Alex has said he'd change this one.

The map tab retains your system vs sector prefs, which is good.

The intel tab retains your map/list view and filter preferences, but it DOES NOT retain your tab state of planets/intel/faction. It should. And it should retain your last sorting prefs, or your last faction viewed.

The planet info screen should be more integrated and accessible. Right now it only seems accessible through the right clicking something on the map. It should probably be an additional tab of the map screen.
[close]
« Last Edit: May 30, 2017, 10:27:41 AM by nomadic_leader »
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zaimoni

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2017, 06:47:35 AM »

The only one of these points I relate to, is the lists one.  The answer to that, is order-preserving sort.  Nothing else is an issue for a newbie like me.

Which is either a one-line change (present in the Java libraries already), or a bear that requires re-implementing around a gap in the standard libraries -- and since the last time I touched Java seriously was 2000, I'm not current on which case that is.
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SCC

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2017, 08:22:14 AM »

Check boxes: game is consistent on that every selected option is bright and every unselected is dark, even in actual check boxes. IMO it's not necessary to add check boxes to weapon filters or intel tab, you do can see that some options are selected (highlighted), while others aren't (dark). Additionally, in intel tab incompatible options are grouped together with some spacing between the groups, so you can activate 1 (and only 1) option from any and all groups.
I agree with list sorting and tactical map clutter; perhaps in the latter case such clustered cases should become more subtle and be highlighted when player hovers mouse over them.
About changing tabs returning them to default display: I actually use this as a shortcut to this default screen actually. I am too lazy to unset all filters in inventory, re-open reports screen and the like. I don't mind changing this, though.

nomadic_leader

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2017, 04:09:23 PM »

Everything is just too subtle.

Perhaps if the clicked options were actually bright colours... but instead they're really dark, alpha channeled colours. For a new user (and me) why is there any reason to think that strong black doesn't mean selected. These faded, weak looking colours could mean 'not selected.'

The spacing between different groups of options in the intel planet tab are also subtle. And they're all squares. Even though the "current system" is a checkbox, and the ones below it are three 3 groups of radio buttons. Which also doesn't make sense, since you'd think you could display stars AND planets together at the same time, etc.

When there's an established way to distinguish exclusive vs non exclusive options, why wouldn't you? Radio buttons and checkboxes have existed for 45 years and are universal; everyone knows them. There's no reason to introduce some new paradigm in a particular game. What is the benefit it conveys for the lost clarity?

What's the point?
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isaacssv552

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2017, 04:43:49 PM »

Everything is just too subtle.

Perhaps if the clicked options were actually bright colours... but instead they're really dark, alpha channeled colours. For a new user (and me) why is there any reason to think that strong black doesn't mean selected. These faded, weak looking colours could mean 'not selected.'

The spacing between different groups of options in the intel planet tab are also subtle. And they're all squares. Even though the "current system" is a checkbox, and the ones below it are three 3 groups of radio buttons. Which also doesn't make sense, since you'd think you could display stars AND planets together at the same time, etc.

When there's an established way to distinguish exclusive vs non exclusive options, why wouldn't you? Radio buttons and checkboxes have existed for 45 years and are universal; everyone knows them. There's no reason to introduce some new paradigm in a particular game. What is the benefit it conveys for the lost clarity?

What's the point?
I found the colour coding system instantly intuitive the first time I saw it. The downside to radio buttons and checkboxes is that they could clutter the interface if introduced to area that don't need them. Checkboxes and radio buttons are great for some things, but they aren't the only type of buttons, just the easiest to implement. In addition, many areas already implement the key behaviors of checkboxes and radio buttons. For example, selected market buttons are highlighted in a similar fashion to radio buttons, albeit with behavior customized to fit selection of a UI element rather than a string. This is quite similar to the behavior of standard menu bars, which highlight the selected category and display the options above/below.
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ZombieM0ses

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2017, 08:03:22 AM »

I agree that work certainly needs to be done to make the UI screens more innately parseable, but I disagree with this 'radio buttons and checkboxes are king' perspective - paraphrasing, obviously. I think that a whole button acting in a binary fashion (on color, off color) is already fairly intuitive in the right context. I agree that the map screen buttons are very, very subtle and it took me probably three hours of play to even realize it had filters. The checkbox thing would certainly be appropriate for the map filters (or some variant thereof; 'x' for example), but I don't see much reason to make it span the whole UI. The weapon mount selection pop-up isn't too bad, but I would make a couple suggestions:

  • 1) Make the weapon type and weapon source buttons have fairly divergent color scheming. I don't really see why the two rows share such similar colors i.e. 'ballistic' and 'buy legal'
  • 2) Make it particularly obvious when a given weapon is sourced from the black market. Perhaps changing the color of the text to a red of some variety might help
  • 3) Change pirates color theme to something not red. Honestly, it's often confusing on docking with their port to remember if I'm on the open market page or the black market page. It's even more confusing when I'm on the refitting page scrolling through available weapons. 98% of the time, I see pirates as grey, unknown contacts running with transponder off rather than a red contact anyway. Therefore making their color scheme red doesn't communicate anything important.
And as far as the map screen and intel screen goes, I agree that the filters need to be visually distinct. On the map screen, you could align them vertically and to the right to maintain consistency with the intel screen. On the intel screen planets tab, you could just make those filters checkboxes as well and that should be enough.

On a different subject, I'd appreciate if the names of uncolonized planets were always that bright blue-white color - the color associated with barren planets. To me, I see colorful names as an indication of faction association, which is mostly consistent throughout other features in the game and is also consistent with other games, especially strategy games. I don't need the name of a planet to immediately communicate the type of planet; That information is already parseable to a large extent via the planet's visual appearance.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2017, 09:43:15 AM by ZombieM0ses »
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zaimoni

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2017, 08:37:39 AM »

  • 2) Make it particularly obvious when a given weapon is sourced from the black market. Perhaps changing the color of the text to a red of some variety might help
 
Agreed, that might make it obvious enough to get past two hours of sleep shortage.  (At two hours sleep short I start having problems parsing the current UI.)
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TaLaR

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2017, 01:12:10 AM »

Somewhat tangent, but: some planets in background (volcanic, for example) are too bright during combat, to the point where it's hard to see what's happening above them. I'd prefer them (and any potential background) to be darker and not clash with objects in foreground like that.
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ZombieM0ses

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Re: many GUI laments
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2017, 09:31:19 AM »

Somewhat tangent, but: some planets in background (volcanic, for example) are too bright during combat, to the point where it's hard to see what's happening above them. I'd prefer them (and any potential background) to be darker and not clash with objects in foreground like that.

It sounds like an important issue. I'd urge you to make a separate thread about it though since it's not really related to this one and your reply has a decent chance of not being seen. This is more about the UX elements and interactions, whereas what you're talking about it more of an issue with the game art interfering with gameplay.
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