Suggested User Interface Tweaks

QuestGAV · 06-01-2006, 10:15 AM

I'm a big UI guy. To convert a new player to a long-time spender is not an easy task and is made much more difficult if they're having difficulty understanding what is going on. I'll start by saying that I dislike the FM UI and found it a huge hurdle to enjoying the game - enough so that despite several tries over multiple versions I never purchased the game. I think it's great that OOTP has stepped up to the plate and greatly improved its codebase to improve its potential. With the greater capabilities comes more robust architecture. While that's great for people like me who already have a high level of investment in the game and are willing to probe its depths you can't expect new users to digest a 300 page manual to understand what's going on. Things should be more or less self-explanatory in most areas if SI is to reach its stated goal of reaching a larger audience.

That being said, there are many areas in which the UI can be improved to enhance the player's experience. I'm hoping that in this thread we can limit ourselves to UI tweaks and minor improvements. Large scale overhauls aren't what I'm looking for - but I think there are plenty of things that can be done just in terms of function (without really looking at form) to improve the initial experience.

I have to go to work so this is going to be shorter and less in depth than I'd like:
-When tabbing between text boxes, the contents should be highlighted so that typing overwrites the contents of the box. This seems pretty standard and would massively reduce the amount of time it takes to enter information when starting a new universe.
-Allow for the deletion of leagues when creating a new universe. I clicked the Add Minor Leagues button before editing my major league and then noticed after changing all the info on my major league that I had to edit them each individually to maintain the changes. In retrospect it would have been smarter to start over than copy over the changes from one league to 5 others but if we could have a way to take a league out without restarting the process it would be appreciated.
-Don't bounce to the top of the frame when making a selection from a dropdown box. I noticed this when choosing affiliates for the minor league teams but it happens elsewhere.
-Tabbing from the bottom of displayed fields in a frame goes to the next frame, rather than going to the next field within the same frame that is not currently visible. It should scroll down and take you further within that frame.
-This is picky, but the Add-A-Manager screen has dd/mm/yy for birthday instead of the North American form.
-Every fricking list of data in the game should be sortable by the column headers. What possible reason could there be for it to not be sortable? It is essential for the World Nation List and Nation Profile screens to be sortable in this manner, as well as any other screens like this I haven't come across.
-Make the city search not caps-sensitive when trying to associate a team with an exact city.
-Hitting the back button from a player profile to bring you back to the roster screen erases the position selection you had. The View and Filter are sticky, position should be too.
-Being able to use the arrow keys to scroll to the next player profile in a list would be quite welcome.

What UI issues drive the rest of you batty? Which issues above are fixable/not fixable?

onthepunt · 06-01-2006, 10:19 AM

One thing I know is that I cant stand the SI UI, if it wasnt for Skins I couldnt play FM because I find it just so ugly and clunky. I dont have OOTP to comment but im sure there are skilled skin makers who can completely change the look of the game, sadly I dont think Jesper Andersson is a baseball fan so I dont think he will make a brilliant skin like he does for FM but the cosmetic issues are easily changed if you know what you're doing

treedom · 06-01-2006, 10:53 AM

I'd love to be able to paste into text boxes. This would be useful when entering cities with non-English characters, so I can just find them on wiki or wherever and copy paste, instead of having to screw around with the alt-ascii codes.

Also, and this is a pipe dream, I know, but I'll mention it anyway...it would be frikin' AWESOME if we could get Opera/Firefox type mouse-gestures to ease navigation through the SION pages.

Eumel · 06-01-2006, 10:56 AM

Keyboard shortcuts: there should be more of them. I'd really like to navigate through lists with the cursor keys, for instance.

Also, I like to flip through player cards with the arrows on the top right. There should be something similar to the "close" button in OOTP6 that just brings you back to the last screen before going to any player card. Right now I have to use the back button several times. If I browsed a lot of players the history of the back button is not even long enough -- annoying in initial drafts, for example. To get back to the draft screen, you have to go through the league menu again.

In-game screens at high resolutions feel a bit empty -- you get all the components in their normal size with a lot of space inbetween. Maybe that space could be used for some extra info?

On the trade screen, when selecting a new team to trade with, the offered players of my team should not be deleted every time.

Eumel · 06-01-2006, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treedom

I'd love to be able to paste into text boxes. This would be useful when entering cities with non-English characters, so I can just find them on wiki or wherever and copy paste, instead of having to screw around with the alt-ascii codes.

I second that, as well.

Marc Duffy · 06-01-2006, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onthepunt

One thing I know is that I cant stand the SI UI, if it wasnt for Skins I couldnt play FM because I find it just so ugly and clunky. I dont have OOTP to comment but im sure there are skilled skin makers who can completely change the look of the game, sadly I dont think Jesper Andersson is a baseball fan so I dont think he will make a brilliant skin like he does for FM but the cosmetic issues are easily changed if you know what you're doing

Robert Burns is (Stone Skin) and is working on something

Jason · 06-01-2006, 11:01 AM

Good suggestions QGav & Tree.

CalvinHobbes · 06-01-2006, 11:14 AM

The only thing I've found cumbersome so far is trying to find the correct hex code for the colour I want. To make it easier, I've bookmarked a webpage that has most, if not all of them, but it would be nice to click a drop down from which you could choose your colour.

Not a huge deal, by any stretch, just something I was thinking of while I was searching for a hex database.

Hellion9 · 06-01-2006, 11:30 AM

This probably qualifies as "beyond the scope" but I would dearly like a change kit/away uniform text option. This would make viewing players with similar text colors much easier when playing as two red on blue teams (for example) can make quickly viewing the play by play a bit cumbersome.

I reversed several colors in my start-up game to alleviate this, but I think the option to have preset home and away color schemes would be nice.

Just a thought.

Gastric ReFlux · 06-01-2006, 11:32 AM

I just have one thing to say presently. Questgav's stuff is pretty good too, though.

PLEASE GIVE USERS A WAY TO DISABLE FADED LOGOS UNDERNEATH TEXT WE WANT TO READ.

Thanks. That's the only thing I have to shout about.

mlyons · 06-01-2006, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treedom

I'd love to be able to paste into text boxes. This would be useful when entering cities with non-English characters, so I can just find them on wiki or wherever and copy paste, instead of having to screw around with the alt-ascii codes.

You can, tree. Or at least I was able to with San José.

treedom · 06-01-2006, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlyons

You can, tree. Or at least I was able to with San José.

Holy crap, you're right. Why the heck did this not work for me yesterday when I was trying to enter "Trois-Rivières"?

Anyway, colour me appropriately embarrassed

and....uhhh...strike that one off my list.

Marc Duffy · 06-01-2006, 12:08 PM

That saves me logging

Everything else is now Bugs 1507 - 1514

Linenoise · 06-01-2006, 12:16 PM

Quote:

QuestGAV--Every fricking list of data in the game should be sortable by the column headers. What possible reason could there be for it to not be sortable? It is essential for the World Nation List and Nation Profile screens to be sortable in this manner, as well as any other screens like this I haven't come across.

What UI issues drive the rest of you batty? Which issues above are fixable/not fixable?

I was baffled at first as to why I could not sort columns for the data pages. Without this capability it is infinately harder to search for certain types of players (like FAs, for example). Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, fix this little issue.

In general I am not a big fan of the SI interface, it seems to reduce the feel of intimacy with the game as compared with the older UI. I'm used to the UI from previous SI games and since we are stuck with the SI UI I will learn to live with it.

Marc Duffy · 06-01-2006, 12:36 PM

It's logged now Linenoise.

Linenoise · 06-01-2006, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy

It's logged now Linenoise.

Now that is what I call fast service.

Something else that occured to me is that it is difficult (well atleast for my old and tired eyes) to follow a row of data. What I mean is on the Player tables I tend to sometimes drift up or down and usually have to trace the row with my mouse to ensure I do not deviate from the proper plane. What would be quite handy (and considerate to those of us with bottlecap lenses for glasses) is if we could either A) highlight a Row OR B) alternate the color of the Rows.

It probably wouldnt hurt to do this with the columns either but I seem to be mostly defecient in horozontal control moreso than vertical.

Dunno, perhaps I am the only one with this problem or maybe I just need to alter my screen resolution. But I figured it would not hurt to make the suggestion. Thanks.

Qrusher14242 · 06-01-2006, 03:41 PM

I'd love to be able to sort in the Hall of Fame. I have a ton of players now and its really hard to read all those stats without sorting.

AfWapo · 06-01-2006, 04:13 PM

The thing that has been bugging me is the scroll bars always reverting to the top after hitting the "back" arrow.

It would be great if the scroll bars would stay put where you left them. Instead, if I am wanting to look through players I have to keep scrolling back down through the lists every time instead of just being right there already.

Pretty annoying.... but nothing that can't be fixed pretty easily I wouldn't think.

jasons957 · 06-01-2006, 04:21 PM

I was hoping that the SI UI moved to baseball would include F3 Squad. F4 Email. F10 Sched. Ctrl-L League "Table". Stuff like that. It is a joy to play FM with all those quick keys. This game needs them. I read enough of the manual to figure out the right click for back, but that needs to be the tip of the iceberg IMO.

I'm chalking up the rest to learning curve right now. Great game, but need to be able to "get there from here" a bit faster. Prime example: I'm on an opposing player page. Want opposing player. Would like to right click menu and choose Trade for ....

06-01-2006, 10:15 AM	#1
QuestGAV Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 2,010	Suggested User Interface Tweaks I'm a big UI guy. To convert a new player to a long-time spender is not an easy task and is made much more difficult if they're having difficulty understanding what is going on. I'll start by saying that I dislike the FM UI and found it a huge hurdle to enjoying the game - enough so that despite several tries over multiple versions I never purchased the game. I think it's great that OOTP has stepped up to the plate and greatly improved its codebase to improve its potential. With the greater capabilities comes more robust architecture. While that's great for people like me who already have a high level of investment in the game and are willing to probe its depths you can't expect new users to digest a 300 page manual to understand what's going on. Things should be more or less self-explanatory in most areas if SI is to reach its stated goal of reaching a larger audience. That being said, there are many areas in which the UI can be improved to enhance the player's experience. I'm hoping that in this thread we can limit ourselves to UI tweaks and minor improvements. Large scale overhauls aren't what I'm looking for - but I think there are plenty of things that can be done just in terms of function (without really looking at form) to improve the initial experience. I have to go to work so this is going to be shorter and less in depth than I'd like: -When tabbing between text boxes, the contents should be highlighted so that typing overwrites the contents of the box. This seems pretty standard and would massively reduce the amount of time it takes to enter information when starting a new universe. -Allow for the deletion of leagues when creating a new universe. I clicked the Add Minor Leagues button before editing my major league and then noticed after changing all the info on my major league that I had to edit them each individually to maintain the changes. In retrospect it would have been smarter to start over than copy over the changes from one league to 5 others but if we could have a way to take a league out without restarting the process it would be appreciated. -Don't bounce to the top of the frame when making a selection from a dropdown box. I noticed this when choosing affiliates for the minor league teams but it happens elsewhere. -Tabbing from the bottom of displayed fields in a frame goes to the next frame, rather than going to the next field within the same frame that is not currently visible. It should scroll down and take you further within that frame. -This is picky, but the Add-A-Manager screen has dd/mm/yy for birthday instead of the North American form. -Every fricking list of data in the game should be sortable by the column headers. What possible reason could there be for it to not be sortable? It is essential for the World Nation List and Nation Profile screens to be sortable in this manner, as well as any other screens like this I haven't come across. -Make the city search not caps-sensitive when trying to associate a team with an exact city. -Hitting the back button from a player profile to bring you back to the roster screen erases the position selection you had. The View and Filter are sticky, position should be too. -Being able to use the arrow keys to scroll to the next player profile in a list would be quite welcome. What UI issues drive the rest of you batty? Which issues above are fixable/not fixable?

06-01-2006, 10:53 AM	#3
treedom Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2002 Location: Transylvania Posts: 2,900	I'd love to be able to paste into text boxes. This would be useful when entering cities with non-English characters, so I can just find them on wiki or wherever and copy paste, instead of having to screw around with the alt-ascii codes. Also, and this is a pipe dream, I know, but I'll mention it anyway...it would be frikin' AWESOME if we could get Opera/Firefox type mouse-gestures to ease navigation through the SION pages. __________________ A rake and a roustabout.

06-01-2006, 11:14 AM	#8
CalvinHobbes Major Leagues Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Calgary Posts: 424	The only thing I've found cumbersome so far is trying to find the correct hex code for the colour I want. To make it easier, I've bookmarked a webpage that has most, if not all of them, but it would be nice to click a drop down from which you could choose your colour. Not a huge deal, by any stretch, just something I was thinking of while I was searching for a hex database. __________________ In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.

06-01-2006, 11:30 AM	#9
Hellion9 Minors (Triple A) Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 222 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	This probably qualifies as "beyond the scope" but I would dearly like a change kit/away uniform text option. This would make viewing players with similar text colors much easier when playing as two red on blue teams (for example) can make quickly viewing the play by play a bit cumbersome. I reversed several colors in my start-up game to alleviate this, but I think the option to have preset home and away color schemes would be nice. Just a thought. __________________ They still believe that they can hold the reins, but then they've got no sense of history.

06-01-2006, 04:21 PM	#19
jasons957 Bat Boy Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 17	Hotkeys, Hotkeys, Hotkeys, and ... I was hoping that the SI UI moved to baseball would include F3 Squad. F4 Email. F10 Sched. Ctrl-L League "Table". Stuff like that. It is a joy to play FM with all those quick keys. This game needs them. I read enough of the manual to figure out the right click for back, but that needs to be the tip of the iceberg IMO. I'm chalking up the rest to learning curve right now. Great game, but need to be able to "get there from here" a bit faster. Prime example: I'm on an opposing player page. Want opposing player. Would like to right click menu and choose Trade for ....

06-01-2006, 10:19 AM	#2
onthepunt Minors (Double A) Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 139	One thing I know is that I cant stand the SI UI, if it wasnt for Skins I couldnt play FM because I find it just so ugly and clunky. I dont have OOTP to comment but im sure there are skilled skin makers who can completely change the look of the game, sadly I dont think Jesper Andersson is a baseball fan so I dont think he will make a brilliant skin like he does for FM but the cosmetic issues are easily changed if you know what you're doing

06-01-2006, 10:56 AM	#4
Eumel Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Germany Posts: 499	Keyboard shortcuts: there should be more of them. I'd really like to navigate through lists with the cursor keys, for instance. Also, I like to flip through player cards with the arrows on the top right. There should be something similar to the "close" button in OOTP6 that just brings you back to the last screen before going to any player card. Right now I have to use the back button several times. If I browsed a lot of players the history of the back button is not even long enough -- annoying in initial drafts, for example. To get back to the draft screen, you have to go through the league menu again. In-game screens at high resolutions feel a bit empty -- you get all the components in their normal size with a lot of space inbetween. Maybe that space could be used for some extra info? On the trade screen, when selecting a new team to trade with, the offered players of my team should not be deleted every time.

06-01-2006, 11:01 AM	#7
Jason Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 3,855	Good suggestions QGav & Tree.

06-01-2006, 11:32 AM	#10
Gastric ReFlux Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Member #3409 Posts: 8,350	I just have one thing to say presently. Questgav's stuff is pretty good too, though. PLEASE GIVE USERS A WAY TO DISABLE FADED LOGOS UNDERNEATH TEXT WE WANT TO READ. Thanks. That's the only thing I have to shout about.

06-01-2006, 12:08 PM	#13
Marc Duffy SI Marketing Wizard Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Old Street, London Posts: 4,741	That saves me logging Everything else is now Bugs 1507 - 1514

06-01-2006, 12:36 PM	#15
Marc Duffy SI Marketing Wizard Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Old Street, London Posts: 4,741	It's logged now Linenoise.

06-01-2006, 03:41 PM	#17
Qrusher14242 All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: CA Posts: 1,253	I'd love to be able to sort in the Hall of Fame. I have a ton of players now and its really hard to read all those stats without sorting.

06-01-2006, 04:13 PM	#18
AfWapo Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 42	The thing that has been bugging me is the scroll bars always reverting to the top after hitting the "back" arrow. It would be great if the scroll bars would stay put where you left them. Instead, if I am wanting to look through players I have to keep scrolling back down through the lists every time instead of just being right there already. Pretty annoying.... but nothing that can't be fixed pretty easily I wouldn't think.