I've been having a hard time with the new ui, and have heard a lot of people make suggestions and comments about it's usability, specifically how much clicking has to happen to switch between tabs and subtabs. I love ui design and couldn't help but thinking about ways to play with the interface. I drew some sketches... just a couple of ideas.

HEHE this is actually a print of my thoughs about the new UI.
Mellow, you read my mind.

I took the liberty to make some small modifications on your templates mellow, here are my suggestions to ease the interface a bit...



and

Um, a quick search would have given you guys this:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11492

And my never-to-be-finished Flash demo:
http://www.itanialliance.com/interface/interface.html

Oh well. At least some concepts got into the new UI.

leber, your sketches don't address these screens, or the problems I see with the new interface...

right now, it takes for ever to manually buy a new ship, equip it and set the weapons groups.... and takes extra clicks to just unload cargo, compared to the old interface. I was just trying to work that out. I am not conscerned with style, these are just ia wireframe sketches....

I'd like to be able to drag-n-drop things into the empty ship boxes. I agree, buying a ship has become more involved, and I don't like that part of the new UI.

I *do* like the preset purchase version, perhaps we could modify the presets a little more:

1. Have presets that are universal and presets that change depending on the station you are at. Say, three of each. Three universal presets and three different presets for each station you have visited. Presets are empty until you "set" them by manually equipping a ship and then using the "Set" button.

2. Name your presets. Being able to have different names for the presets helps you ID them quickly and get into them quickly

3. A toggle for auto-reload weaps as you enter the station.

4. Pressing a "Buy Preset Ship" button automatically switches your ship and launches you out the dock.

You need a "universal" goods list like we have now in the new UI, but one that is collapsable/expandable.

You should be able to name your ships as well - so when you store them, you can easily see which is which.

How about the name you may be able to set on the preset ships also become the ships name..

And for the world inventory id like to see it filtered like this:

open/close all

-ITANI SPACE (bigger blue font)
.-Itan
..-Itan j11 (itani capitol)
...-inventory
...-blabla
...-blabla
..-Jallik

-SERCO SPACE (bigger red font)

-UIT SPACE
.-dau
..-dau k10 The massage institute (UIT entertainment station)
...-1000 luxury goods
...-500 oils and perfumes
...-2 million in creditcard debt

-GREYSPACE (um greyish)'

ok im sorry for the windowsy way of sortiug it, but hey, i find it to work pwetty well.

named presets would be great, in fact, I'd say that that your named preset could even become the ship name, so that your set up is like a conversion van... like a westfalia camper etc... it would be cool to see people flying things like a LeberPhase Maud or a Fipi HiveSwarmer Raganok MK3...

perhaps one element that the system seems to underuse are pull down menus, which are used in options but not in the station interfaces... Pull downs would drastically increase realestate, and give the opportunity to say, show all the presets for your guild... It would be sick to try other player's ship set ups.

I would also like to be able to group items in my storage container... or have more than one storage container... so that I can have a bin of ore, a bin of electronics, etc... sometimes the list is overwhelming and I would like to be able to simplify my view... orrrrr

Sort my views... all of the data shown in the stations, I am assuming, is similar to or an RSS feed, no? It would be interesting to have lists be sortable, so I can sort my items according to location, price, category, alphabetical, etc...

another thing I noticed, which was confusing for me, was that you currently ammo ALL your weapons in station, as opposed to just what's installed on your current ship... makes it hard, on that screen, to remember what you have installed. that was odd for me, but could be solved with sorting too... sort by installed, uninstalled, etc.

I also miss being able to see all my ships, universe wide, in the spinning graphical mode... it was a nice feature in the old interface.

I agree. I like a lot of the new features in the new UI, but there's too much unused space (the weapon ammo tab, for example), and the tabs aren't really in a good order at all.

I'll try to make some graphics to show some suggestions...

I like that idea, sissoko - I thought it would be nice for a map to pop up showing where that station is on the navmap when you click on a station or item in that station. I thought it would be a good idea to be able to sell items/ships from anywhere in the universe as well.

having the universe map next to the system map would be great too, so clicking on a system on the universe just automatically swaps the sytem map next to it..

Yes. Having some actual details and history regarding the systems and the "features" of the planets, stations, etc would be nice as well. Kind of like EV, where each planet had a little description (And a picture!) So you'd have the "Galactic" map on the left, the system map on the right, and as you roll over different sectors you'd get little bllurbs, descriptions, etc. regarding that specific sector.

Yah - I would imagine they would HAVE to be planning something of the like - considering there's so much friggin' space for text / extra pictures next to the map in the navcomp.

Say, sissoko / mellowvision... whats the code you used to post those pictures?

Rough draft #1 of station interface. Might actually be feasible using existing programming structure. Comments welcome.

http://www.coalitionofitan.org/itan_images/interface_rough_draft_01.jpg

235 KB JPEG file, large physical size.

yah i like it. buttons on the left, alot more common on teh intarweb. it was fairly easy on hte eye except for the chat colored buttons. let chat colors be user configurable and the buttons change accordingly..

Yeah there ya go - configurable chat colors so you can do whatever. Nice.

@dokutso use this [ img]http://www.your url.com[/img] (remove space in actual linkage)

Heh, yeah, I still like Leber's Organization better.

Buying things is a bit of a chore right now.

That's wierd - I've tried that [img] code a ton, but I can never get it to work on this forum... I'll have to try again.

I have no real problems with the new User interface. At higher resolutions there is alot of unused space, but then again your in higher resolutions *ding dong!*. There is a big reason for a spacious feel.... your in space. Tight menus in fantasy MMORPG's are there becuase your limited to that world, helping add to the feel of a small but exciting enviorment. Doing this with vendetta would make it look damn crowded... plus complicate things for new users.

http://www.coalitionofitan.org/itan_images/interface_rough_draft_01.jpg
This is nice, but damn crowded with to much crap I really dont need to play.

Perhaps configurable chat colors would be nice, and even a way to change the colors on your hud and UI like with ships.

I really wasn't trying to suggest any particular style, I was hoping to influence the way you buy, sell, and equip your ship. the wireframes were about consolidating those functions into the most quickly usable route, not about trying to change how the devs designed the look... and it required no additional data or processing, it simply put a few of the lists on the same page.

What would make it less crowded? I like the "instrument panel" feel to it. The colors in the chat window are perhaps a little garish at first review, but I like the idea of choosing your OWN chat color very much.

Mellow started this thread with an issue that needs SERIOUS attention - the ship purchase & config section of the new UI. I like his concepts a lot, his way makes things more intuitive for me.

Since this is the suggestions forum, I took the existing Beta2 and moved some things around to make a more pleasing & organized layout, since the way it's laid out now looks to me likt it's just been (no offense) "thrown together." But it's only a beta, I'm sure the functionality comes first, making it pretty will come later.

However, that being said, there are just some things that have to be looked at visually before you can get a feel for them, and a user interface is one of those things. Most importantly, I don't want to see a new interface just because it's "new." I want to see a revolutionary leap in how information is presented, and how the user can customize it. I'd like to see any new UI be able to accomodate the following features in some way without major pain:

• Newsfeeds of some kind, whether they are RSS or some Lua construct, that a non-programmer could set up and publish. (Can be turned off) Newsfeeds show up in that scrolling bar AND the full story is available in stations. There could be the "bounty channel", the "CtC Channel", the "B8 play-by-play" channel, etc.
• Keep the command line interface but subordinate it to the Graphical User Interface. Make sure that every action has a command-line equivalent
• Custom colors for chat that you can choose, and an options menu to let you choose those colors easily without Hex color codes so that individual users can do it.
• A way to SAVE your custom UI settings, along with "skin" files, and share them with others.
• A Story behind every station (with pictures!)
• Custom messages that can be left in stations for other players
• Leave provisions in he UI for the economy redux, such as player-owned stores, custom widgets, rental space, etc etc - don't close off something cool that could come with the economy or crafting just because there's no way to do it with the existing UI, necessitating another UI overhaul.
• Think about how a Station A.I. would interact with the player and what UI elements would be needed for that.
• Name-able stations, systems, sectors, bars, ships, etc.
• Customzeable character info with details like character's real name (not just their "handle"), their background story, their personal info (ht wt SEX) etc etc
• Side-by-Side galaxy map and system map, with a GUI element that allows saving , modification and retrieval of navroutes with a popup menu or something simple. Even better would be something that could be modified when you were still flying it, adding waypoints, or MOVING waypoints.
• Guild interface that hooks into other internet feeds - perhaps an RSS feed of guildmembers' locations, or an interface with the guild bank, etc. PLUS easy ways to vote, appoint, invite, expel, etc etc without the commandline.
• Detailed combat stats, with breakdowns of type of bot killed, you vs. player "____" stats, favorite weapons, how deadly a PK'er you are, duel rankings, etc etc The ability to just access the data and run custom reports on it would be cool. (OK, how many times has Shape killed me in a Rev C on the third Sunday of each month when I was flying a Valkyrie? 16 times? OK.)
• Detailed and INTERCONNECTED faction standings that make real-world SENSE. Possibly show what levels you need to get to to receive "Stuff" from that faction.
• A universal inventory - the new Beta2 one is pretty good, but MORE organization is better. More "levels" of categorization.
• The ability to create simple missions "on-the-fly" ingame, like procurement missions for other players, or assassination missions. The kind of mission with no special items as a reward, just money or regular stuff that can already be bought ingame.

I guess that's about it. Mainly I don't want the new UI to be a limiting factor for anything cool that's already been suggested in these forums.