EVE General Discussion

I am not a proponent of reverting to the old UI.... But I don't like the new UI either.

They are both bad.

Just a few months ago I joined Eve and the first thing I noticed about the game... believe it or not, was the UI. I can't remember how many times I yelled in frustration due to the UI. Being an already complicated game, Eve's UI really doesn't make things any easier.

Truth to be told, I was excited about the new UI changes, initially at least. I remember how I was always struggling with pinning down inventory windows that I wanted static, and it would always get altered when I open some random cargo. The Unified inventory gave me hope that the issue was finally going to get resolved.... only that it didn't. It created more problems with dragging and dropping than anyone could imagine.

The unified inventory team overlooked the most basic function of an inventory system: to move things around. In an effort to simplify the multitude of inventory windows needed, they broke this most important function. There is only 2 sensible way of moving things in computing environments, CTRL-X, CTRL-V, or drag and drop.

In a CTRL-X, CTRL-V environment, only 1 window is ever necessary to achieve what you want to do. Tree-view systems are intended to be used by these kind of system. The tree-view would provide easy and quick access to locations, and CTRL-X would hold your items until you reach the destination to CTRL-V it.

In a Drag and Drop system, it's always most efficient with 2 windows open. One source location, and one destination location. Just drag and drop. Simple. Using drag and drop in a tree view system is exceptionally inefficient, unless implemented like Mac OS X's column view. And even still... it does not compare to simply having 2 windows open.

That, is the core issue with the current unified inventory. To attempt to make 2 fundamentally incompatible system work together. As Eve does not have a CTRL-X, CTRL-V function, tree-veiw was a bound to be a mistake. [edit: I am told this function is already built in since day one] To their credit, they are beginning to understand it, and realized that they must have at least 2 windows to make a drag and drop system work. Thus they implemented primary and secondary windows; as a CTRL-X, CTRL-V system would not make sense in the game.

But this raises another problem. The source and destination locations are never static. Now you might want to move something from your cargo to the hanger, next docking you might want to move something from the corp hanger to the cargo. Which means a primary, secondary window will not really resolve all the issues....

What they need to do, is to implement the tree view in the NeoCom. Easy access of locations from the NeoCom, click to open static windows, drag and drop from as many sources to as many destination you like. An added benefit of this is that you don't duplicate the tree view in every inventory window - having useless elements taking up precious screen space. A refinement would be dragging items to the NeoCom and have the tree-veiw expand as your progress deeper.

I believe a system like this is what CCP is aiming to deliver but failed to put it down in the drawing board before started coding. Traveling without knowing a clear destination rarely brings you to where you want to be.

How the Unified Inventory should be like

Comments and improvements are deeply appreciated.

I regret that I do not have experience with POS management, due to my relatively short time in EVE. But I imagine the list in the tree view be made dynamic. It should only contain listings that are needed / recently used. For example, ship wrecks will only show in the list if you opened one from the overview or space and is de-listed when you close it. To retain it in the NeoCom, you would minimize it.

LOL

I should probably emphasize that you should still be able to double click a can in space and open up a simple window specific for that can, like how the old UI has it.

There's people that like the new UI and there's people that hate it, If fine with that i only would like to know is why i can't choose the UI i want


By other words i would prefer to have both UI exist and let the players choose the one they want

Eve does however support CTRL-X and CTRL-V in the inventory system and did so from the very beginning. I personally use it all the time.

Select some items (or CTRL-A if you want to select everything), hit CTRL-X, select another location in the inventory and drop what you cut with CTRL-V.

^This.


Can we also get CTRL+C to work?

Now that we have multiple windows thus killing the one window to rule them all premise, Can we have the old UI back ? or at least something resembling the look, feel, functionality of the old UI.

It sad because CCP where warned how unpopular this was going to be but ignored the warnings. It ruined the last expansion, we should have been talking about how great missiles are and arguing over war mechanics, not still chewing the cud over the damn UI.

It less intuitive has more clicks, and every time I open the UI window a puppy dies in the word, makes Tal sad.

Tal

You spoil all our fun you do

I personally would like to see an inventory manager that works like MMC.

Create a NeoCom object, then add inventory items (snap-ins) to that object.