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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Resolution change and window positions
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Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
The Conference
#1 - 2017-02-14 08:12:21 UTC
I use a multi monitor setup to play EVE and a tiling window manager which automatically resizes all application windows so the whole screen is filled.

This all works very well except for one thing. If the EVE client is resized either because I move it to the other monitor with a different resolution or if I open an additional window, the whole UI elements in the client get replaced in very weird ways.

It would be nice to have some more control over what happens with the UI elements like overview, chat window, inventory, etc if the client is resized. I’m not an UI specialist but I am sure this is not a new problem and surely there are already solutions for this.

What I imagine is some kind of UI customization mode where you can lock borders of different windows and/or the client border together, maybe define which element will be resized and which one will maintain size.

Evil RatKid
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#2 - 2017-02-14 09:36:58 UTC
Eve will automatically reduce the scaling factor if you make your window smaller but it won't automatically increase the scaling if you make the window bigger.

I believe the game should save the UI scaling chosen by the player in settings and use it whenever the window is large enough for the game to render correctly.
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
The Conference
#3 - 2017-02-14 09:54:49 UTC
I don't talk about UI scaling. but about the positioning of the UI elements if the geometry of the client changes

Evil RatKid
Cade Windstalker
#4 - 2017-02-14 14:30:46 UTC
This is actually a pretty massive pain to do.

You're right that it's not a new problem, but it's one that has to be solved again every time for every application, especially one like Eve that isn't built on someone else's UI framework but instead runs entirely custom code.

Basically what needs to happen is for someone to go in, work out the various possible relationships UI windows can have to each other, and then figure out what they should do when the UI is resized. This gets especially fun when you consider that people can resize the UI to the point where all the windows won't even fit anymore and sometimes even an individual window may have been larger than the UI was to start with.

The kind of customization you're talking about, where the user gets to define what happens to windows, is just a ridiculous pie in the sky idea. Never mind all the testing and work involved in making sure that doesn't horribly break someone's UI to the point that it can't be used, that's just a lot of work to setup a config like that.

Seriously, I recommend just not using something that dynamically resizes your client windows like this, it's never going to work well...

The one workaround I can think of is to arrange your windows for the smallest resolution you use and leave them there. IIRC they should keep that position when the UI gets bigger. Won't be pretty, but it will work.
Mina Sebiestar
Minmatar Inner Space Conglomerate
#5 - 2017-02-14 15:10:14 UTC
Did not experienced this issue but I never used different monitors in multiple setups for eve.

You choke behind a smile a fake behind the fear

Because >>I is too hard
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
The Conference
#6 - 2017-02-14 17:00:13 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:

Basically what needs to happen is for someone to go in, work out the various possible relationships UI windows can have to each other, and then figure out what they should do when the UI is resized. This gets especially fun when you consider that people can resize the UI to the point where all the windows won't even fit anymore and sometimes even an individual window may have been larger than the UI was to start with.

The kind of customization you're talking about, where the user gets to define what happens to windows, is just a ridiculous pie in the sky idea. Never mind all the testing and work involved in making sure that doesn't horribly break someone's UI to the point that it can't be used, that's just a lot of work to setup a config like that.

Well I am not talking about a one size fits all solution which CCP has to work out, but simply some tools to define the behaviour of window elements.

Stuff like:
- lock window border to client or other window border
- window will resize horizontally/vertically if client is resized / window will maintain size
- possibility to add invisible elements to define the behaviour of free spaces

This way everyone can make the specific window configuration work for the resolution he/she uses. If you define no additional behaviour it can continue to fuckup the positions like now, so nothing breaks for them, everyone is happy.

Evil RatKid
Cade Windstalker
#7 - 2017-02-14 19:28:29 UTC
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
Cade Windstalker wrote:

Basically what needs to happen is for someone to go in, work out the various possible relationships UI windows can have to each other, and then figure out what they should do when the UI is resized. This gets especially fun when you consider that people can resize the UI to the point where all the windows won't even fit anymore and sometimes even an individual window may have been larger than the UI was to start with.

The kind of customization you're talking about, where the user gets to define what happens to windows, is just a ridiculous pie in the sky idea. Never mind all the testing and work involved in making sure that doesn't horribly break someone's UI to the point that it can't be used, that's just a lot of work to setup a config like that.

Well I am not talking about a one size fits all solution which CCP has to work out, but simply some tools to define the behaviour of window elements.

Stuff like:
- lock window border to client or other window border
- window will resize horizontally/vertically if client is resized / window will maintain size
- possibility to add invisible elements to define the behaviour of free spaces

This way everyone can make the specific window configuration work for the resolution he/she uses. If you define no additional behaviour it can continue to fuckup the positions like now, so nothing breaks for them, everyone is happy.


Yes, I'm telling you that CCP creating a one-size fits all solution is actually *easier* than letting players define things. If CCP builds a one-size fits all solution they can prevent users from defining configs that may break their UI to the point that it can't be used without closing the game, wiping all their customization, and reloading.

Building a customizable UI like you're talking about takes all of the work of the one-size solution and then on top of that you need to define all the config options, their allowed parameters, and then either test everything and disallow things that break the UI horribly or release it as-is and deal with support tickets from people who have broken their UI to the point they can't fly their ship.

To take your fairly basic example here, what happens when I resize my client window small enough that it's now smaller than the minimum size of a stack of locked windows?

What elements lose size vs not when I shrink the window horizontally? What if it makes things overlap?

This may not sound any worse than what we have now, but if you make a feature players will use it and expect it to work. Right now there's no feature here, it's players doing something with the client that isn't really advisable.