Free Space, meet Weird Tab-in-tabs.
Your honor, i made my point.
#Make Bases and Challenges their own first-order tabs
hard geode
amber blaze
dats where the custom tab order buttons are T.T
That system needs to be redone though anyways a little because people accidentally click haha
hard geode
i feel your pain of UI code being 80% of the codebase of this kinda game lol
amber blaze
ya.... Basically the least fun thing possible to work on and it's so much of my time haha
hard geode
is the godot ui render just html\css?
amber blaze
I dunno what it is under the hood, But it's just a container system. Margin container->horizontal box->button | button | button etc.
Or you can be lazy like I was on a few of these pages and just place them at x/y coords
hard geode
got it
i have a UI friend looking for folio work, may have some free things done for you if you like 🤔
amber blaze
In terms of light layout/ui design you mean?
hard geode
ye, or code\pseudocode if you're comfortable accepting pull requests
amber blaze
Even just design would be nice.
But I am going to (after this next content patch) set up a way to work with at least one other person on the code. If that's still a thing in a little while here then possibly
hard geode
wait, you don't have the whole thing on git?
amber blaze
Yes but tis private etc
hard geode
ah ok thank god
amber blaze
dont worry I have other cloud backups too haha
amber blaze
I think I might need to switch to icons for the tabs unless I figure out how to fully redo that top area so theres plenty more room
hard geode
🤔
crude dagger
Even just design would be nice.
But I am going to (after this next content patc...
Graphic designer here, if I find some free time might be able to get an idea for the menu done, tho not a whole lot of space to work with so is definitely challenging.
tepid oyster
I have a loadout called "Synth", and when I'm on the "Synth" tab and the "Synth" subtab, I get confused 🙂
crude dagger
I think I might need to switch to icons for the tabs unless I figure out how to ...
As a base something like this should give you more room, just a initial concept really.
There's a few options that can be thrown into settings (backup, load, save now, autosave enabled) but there'd be room to keep those anyway. For the mechanics 'menu' could just rely on tooltips on hover for the name until places are learned, or the bigger box underneath them could change on hover though just planned that to be the 'active' one.🤷
tepid oyster
Nice one - especially having loadouts stacked like that - great space saver and much easier to use.
With all the space saved, you could even condense misc and have enough room for the "mechanics" section to be 2 or 3x as wide - meaning you wouldn't even need to resort to just icons - you could keep text captions on tabs (or add icons + text)
tepid oyster
Something like this as a V1 redesign, it would require minimum effort - you don't need to design any new icocns (yet) or to change existing functionality (like the AI purchase to be able to move tabs), just move around the buttons that are already there
And it lets you get rid of all "sub-tabs" (Synth modules, crew upgrades, and ship / base / challenges)
Oh I forgot to place the "Buy Amount" button, but it could either live next to the < > arrows or even better, since it only applies to the "Core" and "Compute" tabs - just stick a copy of that button in each of those screens
I did a quick click-through of all the tabs and it seems that all the fixed-height tabs (non-scrolling) have an inch or two to spare at the bottom, which is good - because doing this would require making the menu area slightly taller. (~25%)
Oh and I forgot we need a bit more space to show resource/second (once unlocked) so we can do that by moving the instant gain popup below it instead:
@crude dagger I'm betting this is a classic developer interaction for you, you present a design, developer "adapts" it based on what's easy to implement vs what's more difficult, and ends up dropping all your favourite design elements :p
crude dagger
I don't have all the UI things unlocked yet haha, so yeah will miss some things, personally think the approx /s gains would be good in red and green so you know at a glance if you're losing any resource (before you get all AI upgrades).
Also forgot buy amount but that'd be pretty easy to place.
I did try to get rid of sub tabs but decided it would be difficult, I had them under the mechanics to start with but I feel it'd have been clunky to use then.
tepid oyster
It already is!
Oh wait you mean the 60-second average
Yeah right now the game has it as the same color (blue) - but there's a popup which is green/red based on whether you just lost or gained an amount
Yeah the long-term average should also display in color when unlocked - agreed
crude dagger
I started off with this concept originally. but then realised if you click on the Achievements or something it'd also display the sub tabs here which... ew... best solution I had to it was just create a new small UI across the screen that specifically holds sub tabs, but eh, seemed like too much work for a concept
tepid oyster
Yeah I think the only "sub tabs" that actually need to stay are what's on "Core" - the "All", "Weapons", "Defense", "Utilities" - but then these aren't really sub-tabs, just "filters" on what row items are displayed
So if the controls were slightly rewritten to look/act as filters, then there's nothing left that needs to be a subtab as far as I can tell
Oh the "Damage meter" was a recent addition that was implemented as a subtab, but I feel this can just as easily be a popup (like when you click the version number button)
crude dagger
Thankfully don't have it that much since I don't work in web design properly, but happens plenty with normal clients anyway haha.
I do still think some of the menu is bloated, but thats just subjective, I never use the save now, backup, load, auto save options regularly so I feel they can slide into settings. Design elements are different than what is there but that's just because I notice it starts hurting my eyes trying to read the red on light blue 😂
tepid oyster
Auto-save can definitely move to settings
I use save now a lot, but only because I save scum.
Like if I upgrade a resource in my base and that puts one of the drained resources into negative production, I'll shutdown and reload :p
I think folks use backup and load to scum challenges, and go back to their prior run if they ouldn't beat it. But you're probably right that it can move to settings since it's nothing time-sensitive
Ah but we do like to see back-up on the main screen because it turns green when you're eligible to earn 5 free AI points by backing up your save
Which I should have done before taking screenshots for my mockup, it sticks out like a sore thumb now
there, better
I bet the clash between the shades of blue from your mockup and the slightly different fonts and colours from screenshots of the game are just driving the graphic designer nuts 😅
crude dagger
The settings tab can still flash green - it's only once a day.
The shades of blue being slightly different is annoying but I'd probably side more with the ingame version, especially the box stroke. Font I'm used to being different than the render.
amber blaze
Dang this is pretty nice. Making the top area taller would be slightly painful just cause of how lousily some of the screens are set up ><
I don't think the prestige needs its own space, those could just be normal tabs
tepid oyster
If you create two columns of loadouts then you probably don't need the extra height (and can make room for a 6th loadout purchase)
amber blaze
man, icons for the main tabs be very nice too, but argh
tepid oyster
haha, if you come up with an icon for each tab, and you put all the buttons in a flex container, then maybe you can add a checkbox that just toggles the button display between icons and text under settings
tepid oyster
Yeah, which, I think we have
amber blaze
what about the next 8 mechanic tabs tho?
amber blaze
<
amber blaze
thats like really grass cutting incremenetal or whatever the name was. totally bonkers menu navigation haha
tepid oyster
Alright hear me out. If you cut 2px of padding off the top and bottom of each button...
tepid oyster
What's your font so I can match it?
amber blaze
oxanium
crude dagger
Personally think still the main mechanics don't need text more than a hover tooltip, icons for each mechanic are already used so it becomes familiar fast, and the icon only does allow for so much extra room. If there's anything I can do just let me know though.
amber blaze
I will maybe try to work on this next week after I finish some gameplay stuff for testing, might hit you guys up more then
smh
crude dagger
It fits! At the cost of no social distancing haha.
tepid oyster
Who needs "s", everyone knows loadout has no plural form
I think everyone would have fun organizing their tabs into meaningful columns and rows
Like a little ui mini-game
I've been looking for something to do with all these AI points, I think buying loadouts 6-8 should cover it
You'll notice I left you a tiny bit of whitespace here for the "saved" popup to appear:
And maybe make the "version" button the same width as the others
Something like this, although there's still an annoying height difference among these buttons that can probably be fixed IRL
tepid oyster
It's going to look really empty and weird when the game first starts and 90% of the buttons are hidden. Maybe for bonus points you can try and script something so the buttons start out at an initial width/height and shrink as you unlock more :p
amber blaze
the buttons arent hidden, they greyed out with ???? on them
tepid oyster
Aah, it's been a while since I wasn't sitting at oec from one update to the next
amber blaze
oh its missing spot for "Setup Cloud Saves" button. hidden by default unless you enable in settings. but I guess I could just stuff it somewhere else
tepid oyster
Hmm, yeah maybe near where you have "Use legacy cloud save" checkbox in the settings, the button can appear below that if they have it checked.
And if they click "show FPS"...
Maybe here
tepid oyster
amber blaze
one more change this needs for futre is the resource area being better.... need room for more possibly. maybe just have to shrink and grid it, only display /s on hover or something?
tepid oyster
It's only the resource icons that are particularly tall. If you shrink those down there's room for 4 different resource types to appear on top of each other, and still show the gain/sec (which I find quite useful and glance at constantly)
The instantaneous gain/loss popups won't fit beneath the long term gain/sec anymore if you stack 4, but those popups could perhaps just as well appear to the left (overlapping the battle screen)
crude dagger
Personally if possible I'd have the /s be red or green under the actual number and smaller, have all the popups for amounts solely be displayed on the battle screen, then you've got a relatively nice compact max space each resource would take up.
How hard is it to have a section of the UI to have a scroll bar also?
Or ye just move resources to somewhere on the battle screen as a list probably work too
amber blaze
Gonna work on this sometime soonish, where to put the buy amount button tho?
crude dagger
Probably in resources make a little box
If I get a decent idea of what you're going for with the UI will be able to help more
amber blaze
Uh just setting it up mostly like that last images here with the resource area from a few up. I'll get a picture when I get that far
amber blaze
man, thats a lot of space devoted to loadouts that arent even really built in ><
amber blaze
@crude dagger @tepid oyster
I didn't put in the titles as digging up the space with it and dealing with text scaling and translations for it is too much trouble
Set up cloud saves can definitely go away and be in settings.
The dilemmas now are:
- how much space gets dedicated to loadouts when they relatively uncritical and possibly even not used by a lot of people
- This is a problem for the new content mostly but there's going to be at least 2 More resources that Need to be up top. I don't think we can fit 4 nicely in a single column, but there's not even close to enough space For a grid of them or something
- The runtimes could be moved, But it's kind of nice to have at least the current one there when you're doing the speed run achievement thing
tepid oyster
If you don't think you'll ever offer more than 6 loadouts, maybe stack them 2 columns x 3 rows, and move something above them (like the buy amount text+button, which doesn't have to be so tall)
The this run time can live next to the fps then, and the total time can be moved to the stats and info page
Sorry I can't mock it up right now, I'm on the road and only have my phone
For the resources, if you move the earning/second to be a thinner row below the main resource amount row, you could probably fit 2 x 2 resources in the space you left
Like
🥎 5.36e70 🏀 1.23e2
~ 9.67e57/s ~ 0.34e2/s
⚾ 5.43e25 ⚽ 8.67e11
~ 6.77e8/s ~ 6.32e4/s
amber blaze
lol excellent mockup
Yeah I guess doing just 6 loadouts with the buy amount in that same column would solve that
I'll try and just rework those resource things to do that and be a little smaller maybe
crude dagger
Looks fine to me, just some padding on the side
tepid oyster
Nice. Bet that's nice to have mostly done.