Forums » Suggestions
Make Android Condensed UI screen switching more obvious
There have been a lot of new players lately on Android who are asking the same question and reporting the same problem.
"How do I continue the training mission?"
In most cases, they report that when they click the mission "Info" button they only get a "Route" and "Cancel" button and that clicking Route causes nothing to happen. That's a different issue that I know you're aware of.
The problem here is that when directed to dock at a station to accept the mission, many new players consistently report that, "There are no missions when docked." This is because they are presented by the "Commerce" screen and for some reason they still don't know to use the "Menu" button (which I've heard looks like 3 vertical dots now) to switch screens in the Condensed UI.
I know that a pop-up screen was added to aid in reminding people of this when they login again at a later time, but there still seems to be a disconnect in the tutorial or training missions about explaining this particular aspect of the Condensed UI.
I know that screen real-estate is already at a premium on Android devices that need the condensed UI, but the only solution I can think of at the moment that might make things easier is to add navigation buttons to each screen.
[<< PDA] -- Commerce -- [Ships >>]
The only possible problem I see with this approach is that some plugins might want to attempt to insert themselves into the normal tab order. If such a navigation bar could read the tablist to get it's data that would probably be best.
"How do I continue the training mission?"
In most cases, they report that when they click the mission "Info" button they only get a "Route" and "Cancel" button and that clicking Route causes nothing to happen. That's a different issue that I know you're aware of.
The problem here is that when directed to dock at a station to accept the mission, many new players consistently report that, "There are no missions when docked." This is because they are presented by the "Commerce" screen and for some reason they still don't know to use the "Menu" button (which I've heard looks like 3 vertical dots now) to switch screens in the Condensed UI.
I know that a pop-up screen was added to aid in reminding people of this when they login again at a later time, but there still seems to be a disconnect in the tutorial or training missions about explaining this particular aspect of the Condensed UI.
I know that screen real-estate is already at a premium on Android devices that need the condensed UI, but the only solution I can think of at the moment that might make things easier is to add navigation buttons to each screen.
[<< PDA] -- Commerce -- [Ships >>]
The only possible problem I see with this approach is that some plugins might want to attempt to insert themselves into the normal tab order. If such a navigation bar could read the tablist to get it's data that would probably be best.
Where should these navigation buttons go? If they are along the top, then we might as well put the full tabs up there since they would take up the same vertical space. Vertical space is the hot commodity on phones.
If vertical space is at such a premium, then use the horizontal space. Something like this:
Ill admit I haven't played on android, though. Anyone have images of what the current condensed UI looks like? What's the typical display resolution?
Ill admit I haven't played on android, though. Anyone have images of what the current condensed UI looks like? What's the typical display resolution?
The condensed UI doesn't have the top part of the regular UI, that includes the chatbar and info box, nor does it have the top tabs for switching between parts of the station UI
Yeah, there's no chat bar line.
The res for condensed ui is 960x540.
The res for condensed ui is 960x540.
meridian's suggestion I think has potential. However, after considering a point I made earlier, if the switch screen buttons were to be left unnamed and only switch to the next tab in sequence, that would likely make it easier to integrate additional tabs from plugins.
Still, things are quite tight even in the horizontal space. I was paging through all of the screens and while most would likely not suffer upon losing around 50-100 pixels, some are seemingly immutable (e.g. the navigation map and ship selectors). Most could possibly even support losing 50 pixels on the top row, except those I already listed.
Still, things are quite tight even in the horizontal space. I was paging through all of the screens and while most would likely not suffer upon losing around 50-100 pixels, some are seemingly immutable (e.g. the navigation map and ship selectors). Most could possibly even support losing 50 pixels on the top row, except those I already listed.