EVE Information Portal

Post II
8 UI key points

litle things we love because

We asked for them
You listened to us
We waited for them
They changed things for the best
Bad things were there before
Now good things are here
Just like real world cockpit improvements
Spaceships UI implements matters
They're the real deal, no need for fancy mp3 looking theme
Just things that you're not ashamed...
And we're happy about...
Them working and looking as intended !

Post I

It would be nice to have the space-view in a window and be able to arrange all the other ui-parts around it

And then independent scale all windows.

The day that spreadsheets became charts.

I started with a clean screenshot of space and added interface items one by one. After whittling away all the blank space, what was left was best displayed as a widget or a chart.

Tables aren't bad, in fact I think the information needs to be there in table format if they player wants to see it. The main issues are tables that are not interpreted into charts.

Other elements of UI turned into widgets when I started stripping away the blank space. Like the market widget, above the market activity feed.

Rows and Columns

A big issue with the windows we see is that columns and rows are bound to the same window. Rows display horizontally, and columns display vertically. Making them inseparable gives you a height and width, which guarantees you'll end up displaying things in a square format. Stop that.

These "do everything right now" windows are also bad because whole parts of the windows don't need to be displayed until an item is selected in the left side of the window. It stays blank until it's populated. Then after it's populated, it stays there until the window is closed or the next item is selected. Huge waste. The price windows should also have a "replace with new window, create additional window when SHIFT is pressed."

Market is the best example of where this can be removed. This is an example of the market selection where the specifics don't show up until they're needed--and then they should open a new window. The market categories should behave like the skill section of Character Sheet, where just one section is selected at a time, and the rest collapse. Better, yet, the inactive categories should disappear until the selected one is collapsed again. That widget should be movable, by the way.

Columns are also best manipulated starting at the top. So the side-neocom thing, stop that. I want to start at the tops of columns, not have to jump left and right between buttons and scroll bars, etc. Start at the top of the screen.

Eliminate F11 windows

I've combined probe scanner and star map with the game viewport (you know, the one we want to see) with an overlay. It's impossible to get the icons in space to coincide with the probe scan and star maps, but you can still mate the swivels anyway, so that when you turn the probe map, your camera faces that direction. This eliminates the bottom window in the F11 menu completely. Allowing the star and constellation maps eliminates the need for the others.

What you do with F10 and F11 now is set them as background windows to the viewport, and set them to a Toggle modifier key to activate them and bring them to the foreground, and subdue the viewport. What this allows is actions for the player between scanner sweeps, etc.

Local is clunky

This is probably the best example of completely wasted space, in the form of a table that has a column married to rows. In fact, I don't particularly care about the names of the pilots in local, I just want to know their standings to me. Just give me the count, by standings, or corp, fleet, etc.

For players who really want a player name display, perhaps in smaller systems where traffic is light but worth pouncing on, the standings colors can be a way to set standings as display a priority, and also a toggle to display the various standings at all. Whether it's lowsec or nullsec, (or highsec but **** them) it's likely that all the player wants to see are particular standings.

System count, obviously. I've tried some ideas for displaying the important info, like a delta ticker and a pie graph. The exceptional thing about the pie graph is that it can be placed within the current system icons, for a look into the local of next door systems. You could also add it in the form of lights to a stargate, since we align the camera down it anyway (which is jarring, but whatever). As if to say "jump is happening, this is the status of the system you are jumping to."

At EVE vegas in '12, soundwave said that spaceships right now are about as smart as a 70's buick. Change that.

Market could also use a delta graph of liquid vs escrow vs buy / sell etc.

I have more, but I need to build the graphics, still. I feel like if I don't put it into visual format, you won't get it. CCP. ten years and we're still playing Excel.

remove:
-concealment
-empty, wasted space
-un-marry rows and columns
-delay appearance of windows as long as possible
-retract them as soon as possible

-tables are bad, unless they're interpreted or visualized with a chart or widget

-preserve immersion
-improve awareness

btw, why can't we align to probes? would be useful when we get a basic hit, and make responding to a warpable scan result sooner.

also, why did you keep this art stuff a secret until Sisi? I wish we had some way to stop you from spending so much time on a reskin.

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A lot of Neocom windows have a search function at the top. My gut tells me the People & Places search function is the most comprehensive, and the best candidate to become a unified search field, to display out to the side of the Neocom buttons.

also give it a key bind that when pressed, will open a small search window with the input field active... so that I can start typing and press enter without looking. toggle it off too.

Another thing worth removing is mouse travel.

I spent about an hour on the test server today to try out the new UI. I really like it a lot. I ended up using the setting for Hologram the most. I like how well the contrast is on everything. I especially like the opaque background when using a window. It's cool when it goes back to semi-transparent when not used. Reminds me of Smart Glass. Glass that changes from transparent to translucent when activated with voltage, light or heat.

I also really liked how when I pin a window to get more transparency then I use that window and it goes sort of translucent on the background to increase the contrast of the text.

One thing that was nice to see was when the Sun was behind a window, the window was pinned, and I could still read all the text on the window. That is something I've been wanting in EVE for a long time. I haven't tried that in other than a couple systems. Not sure how it will look with the various types of suns in EVE.

Thanks CCP, keep up the great work.

The icons on the NeoCom....... Those I don't like very much. They'll definitely take some getting used to. All the windows now look more futuristic, but the NeoCom with it's icons just looks too plain and dull.

that was exciting, thank you. just to clarify, do you mean the visuals hidden here behind this massive table

I have spent some time on the test server, for what it's worth here are some of my thoughts on the new interface/style:

1. Every window is translucent and it made things hard to read (for me). It also was hard to read the show info windows when in space because of that effect.

2. I could not change any windows in a way that wasn't translucent, that by itself annoyed me. You should be able to change the windows.

3. The tool tips obscured some tabs and also my overview. Due mainly to where I have my windows, but I should be able to change the size of the tool tips themselves.

4. I personally do not like the new icons in the station tab (reminds me of Apple products), but that is just a personal preference. But can you give us an option to change them. Options are good.

5. Please can you give us an option to get rid of the new notification "button". I know you can move it, but no matter where I move it, it gets in the road of other windows. I just want it off my screen but I can't because there is no option to do so. Once again, options are good.

Overall I like the new style, but please give us the option to change things. Especially the translucent effect. I should be able to pin windows and make it a solid background or something to that effect.

On a personal note and totally unrelated: I am completely colour blind and one thing that really annoys me is the ewar module icons. At the moment they are colour coded (and always have been) and for people who are colour blind it makes it almost impossible to use them. I can not tell the difference of any of the modules as they are at the moment. Please if you're going to change anything please change those icons somehow.

Just my opinion for what it's worth.

Okey, feedback.

1. Mail window - i don`t see "reply", "forward" and other buttons for work with mails. JPG
2. I don`t see channel name, "attributes" and "communication" words in blue, pink and pink themes.
3. Intuitively not understood icons in neocom. Frendly UI?
4. True black-green UI theme?
5. Multicolored icons in neocome are best. Its simply for find and understanding


P.S. Some new ideas about neocom icons: one, two

It’s been four days since the last Dev post.....

CCP have gone into their “People have pointed out issues with our new shiny feature, so instead of fixing the problems they mentioned, we are going to hide away and pout” mode early this time.

This will be closely followed by their “Well, we will change a few little cosmetic things, but then tough sh!t, you are having it anyway” mode.

Good times

I am looking forward to this change!