GUI Annoyances

The pop-ups just need a delay before they appear, I think.

Layout: right-click on the header bar. That will pop up a right-click menu with the same options as the Layout and Filter screens, saving some clicking and mouse movement.

Icons: SJ has a mod to reduce the flag sizes. You can also reduce their size in Empire Options.

A lot of the beta testers were people who made mods for SE4. Its not surprising that they're already messing with that. And they are poking MM about stuff like this.

EDIT: as for "already talking about mods"..some of us were doing that as we were downloading the demo! heh.

The pop up help text is configurable with three modes; not enabled, just the title with hot key, and full description.

Icon Images are also fully configurable with three sizes, or they can be turned off. The default is the middle size.

The concept of customized layouts is awesome even if a little cumbersome to set. Once set and saved you don't have to redo them each game.

I completely agree that everything should be made smaller and easier to read like SEIV. I also think the unit graphics are pathetic compared SEIV.

i dont know, but I this is kinda dumb, playing the demo I couldnt find the star map for about two minutes becasue it was on the left side lol, and ever since its just bugged me ever so much because I cant shake the feeling that it should be on the lower right side of the screen

There's been a pop-up delay added in a recent patch.

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Not sure what you mean by that.

I think my biggest issue with the UI has become the inability to remove components from a design double clicking it. having to click and drag the thing is really annoying. Number two is not being able to change ship level while having a component selected (would be nice while placing armor).

removing a component is actually easy, press shift and click on the component you wish to remove.

Thanks, I missed that one. i'm happy now.

the whole ship design system is a bit buggy yet, shift is also used to place multiple components, so be careful with that.

What he means is that the pop-ups don't occur right away any more. They only pop up when you hover your mouse over the item for a short time. This is how it works in most other games, and it works fine; if you don't remember what an item does, its easy to find out, and in the meantime the pop-ups don't get in the way.

i get it now lol, thanks

Thanks for that Layout rightclick tip.

So, the lesson is ro try to rightclick all over the place. You never know when a useful popup menu will appear.

I'm sooo happy to have some rightclick menus back.

I would still like the simple action of not having to close one window before you open another.
When you click on a different window it should automatically close the first window and replace it with the second.

Once again users are forced to Click Cancel and then click the next tab on a list. *sigh*

that would certainly be nice

but they don't exist for all windows. Esc tends to close the current window, however. And the Shift+ is annoying for the main windows. I think those were one-press function keys in SE4. I guess it's time to look at the settings to do a remapping of these.

How difficult would that be? Is it as simple as modding a settings file, or would it be more involved than that?

You need to be more specific about which windows you are talking about. In some cases the lower window should remain open and in other cases it doesn't.

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Here are two examples, but many Screens are the same.

Construction Queues:

When the screen is open you can click on "Layout" and it opens the Layout Window.

I think you should be able to simply click on "Filter" button in the Right Hand Column without having to first Cancel or Okay the "Layout" window.

It should simply change the "Layout" to "Filter" window.

All Main Windows:
(i.e. Vehicle Design, Systems List, Planets List, Colonies List, Ships List, Construction Queues, Research, Intelligence, Empires, Empires Options, and Log)

There should be in every Window that you open a Icon List (like on Main Screen) where you can simply Click on the Icon to Switch from one screen to the next without having to Cancel and go out to the Main Screen to select the next window you would like.

This is not hard stuff I would think. It amazes me that it is not part of the game.
I know you can use Hot Keys but there should be a way with a simple single Mouse Click to change the view the user wishes to see.

This is what I am talking about and what I think the game dearly needs.

I agree. But there were also requests for "cancelability" of many things.

Keep in mind also, if you just close on a click then you can have a problem with accidently closing windows you don't wish to either... and it also means that you have to keep the background active as well which reduces performance.

You can use right-click on all these screens to apply filters/layouts on all the list screens. Or I believe Ctrl+L or Ctrl+R will cycle through them as well.

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I never asked for the cancel button to be removed, but to allow the user if they choose to Click on a different button in the right hand column it should change the window. Simple as that.

And yes there should be icons in every main window to select each in turn as one wishes. Ease of use means just that. Not having to remember Hot-Keys. Many people play many different games and to expect people to remember Hot-Keys is asking a lot I think.

Clearly it could be made much easier if these things were implemented into the game, and it would not take anything away from those that want to use cancel.

but the main hotkeys (at least) that is Shift+D, +R, +S, +P etc. should be active from any of these main windows. So if I have the research window open and type Shift+D it should close the research window and open the ship design window. I'm pretty sure SE4 worked like that.

You might think so, but it does not.

Even if it did, I still maintain that every window should have the icons listed across the top or bottom of the screen. That way (assuming it really worked) you would have your choice Hot-Keys or one Mouse Click.

For a game made in 2006 this is rather hard to understand. I am not a tester, designer, but a lowly user that recognizes the usefulness of this. How could it be missed by so many?

I've never actually cycled through the windows in SE:IV or SE:V so I never really thought of this functionality nor was it ever brought up prior by other players to my knowledge. Although I don't think re-listing the main screen buttons is worthwhile for each window, but perhaps having the hotkeys functional at this screen or making a spacebar hit advance to the next list screen might be work good for this.

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I'm sure Aaron is very busy working on SE:V and doesn't tend to post very much. There's is only a finite amount of time each day to code, fix bugs, reply to e-mails, read forums and make replies.

There's a list of priorities which tend to get done ahead of others, although there's been numerous suggestions that have been made and added in patches for both SE:IV in the past and currently SE:V.

Anyway forward your icon idea to MM. There's a time issue involved because it would requiring re-designing some of the windows and mapping buttons but it's doable. Right now a quick ESC and mouse-click can really acheive almost the same thing though. Anyways, will it be higher up on the list then some of the bugs that need fixing? Not at this time, but down the line perhaps.

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Where is MM on this? I really wish they had a presence in these, "Official" forums. Users are more in the dark than not.

And I still say Icons are the way to go. You may think Hot-Keys are fine but this game needs to be made for regular, casual players and not simply the committed and hard core.

The space bar would stink if you simply wanted to see a certain screen and you were forced to bring up every window in between.

I also would say, MM needs to expand its testing to normal everyday users and not the people that know the game already.

I posted the idea of changing windows and not having to hit cancel in the SFI SEIV Forums but it went unanswered there as well.

SIDE NOTE:
GalCiv II did not have diagonal mouse scrolling of the main window. I was one user that asked for it. It took two patches after I asked but it is now part of the game and I think the game is better for it.
They are online talking to users and "really" listening to them and their ideas for the game.

This is what will make me keep buying their products; Listening to users, making patches, and feedback in the forums all nice touches that MM could benefit from.

As far as I can tell, since these are the Official Forums, I just told him what I am thinking and asking for in the game.

Stardock has the advantage of having multiple employees. MM is Aaron and that's *it*, aside from a few people who do contract graphic and sound work.

Just know that I do tend to forward a lot of bugs or feature requests to MM that I encounter in the various forums so your ideas and suggestions are not completely in vain.

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Aaron may have alot on his plate, I realize that but I dont know much about web coding and even I know it cant take more than a few seconds to change the release date on the website to reflect something closer to reality or at least to something less generic.
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Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum
Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe.

Thank you very much. Are you saying, he never comes here to read what people are thinking, or saying about the game?

Again, I do not fully understand. I figured since the game is now with SFI he would certainly have more money to hire people.
Also, I am sure could get people (like yourself) to help for free in non-critical areas (e.g. Manual Writing, Forum Contact, Testing, etc).

The GUI much easier to read on a higher resolution. 1280x1024 makes a lot of the bulky boxes much smaller. Condensing identical cargo and modules would help a lot in making the news reports smaller as well as the views to move/launch cargo/units and see what modules a ship has.

A delay in the display of the pop-up help would be nice, but I just turned it off in the end (before increasing the resolution - so maybe it would have been less obtrusive).

It would be nice if the Number Pad worked - especially when building units/facilities/ships. Just an aside: it would also be nice if when clicking on the input to specify a build number, that it highlight the current value so that you do not have to backspace. It saves hand movements and keystrokes.

I'd think Aaron stops by once and awhile, but I wouldn't imagine he spends much time browsing the individual topics. You're more likely to have success sending an e-mail with comments and suggestions.

While I think SFI is doing ok so far, I don't think many of the staff have the same level of experience with the series yet that is required to do some of the more detailed work. But perhaps for a "Deluxe" type release in the future, they'll be at that level.

I have no idea about the $ situation. I'm hoping it's ok for all sides right now.

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Yes, let's trust that enough money is made to keep the series alive for years to come.

I dont think Space Empires is going anywhere, I have a feeling this great group of games is going to be around for a long time to come.
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Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum
Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe.

Just at the MOO series to see what one bad release caused.

If you all remember the history of SEIII and SEIV you will recall very buggy releases, especially in IV. Aaron made multiple bug and feature patches. I don't think we have to worry about that.

I was not part of the SE world at that time so I have no basis for knowing what did or did not happen, but I am glad to hear what you say.

But, does SFI have to OK all patches before release or not?

I agree completely that it would be nice if when I wanted to place an engine or anything else, I could change the level on the ship with out dropping the item to change the level and then selecting the item again to place it on that level.
As to just removing an item you can do a shift-left click to remove any item, if you want to remove several items just hold down the shift key while you left-ckick on the items that you want to remove.

If you want to do that just hit the Upgrade button, and all components on the design will be switched to the highest level automatically.

Unfortunately, whenever you make a custom view filter for the construction queues or any other view, it is *not* available in new games.

Ironically, this may be less of an issue when there's just 1 person doing the development
Still, nobody wants the game to bomb like MOO3 did. I don't know the extent of SFI's acquisition of MM, but I think in this case it goes further than the typical distribution deal.

Custom layouts can be saved with your empire file. You just can't load empire files in the demo.

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