New Social UI: First Impressions

Windows 8 was generally disliked by many because of a Microsoft decision to hide the Start button.


I dislike this, dont make things harder and remove things that aren't broken.

Mega said:

Windows 8 was generally disliked by many because of a Microsoft decision to hide the Start button.

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Thank you for reminding MA that we need colorful tiles in the EU user interface.

my main problem is:
when i write a message it still remains in then text field when i press enter to send it

need to delete it everytime when i want to type something new... laaaaaawd

As I've said in multiple threads now..
The blinking global/hof bar is just stupid. But not only the annoying bar is the problem, the eyesore colors of the new textures also need a makeover. When people play for an hour of so, maybe all the blinky stuff with very unnatural colors don't matter, but when people spend big amounts of time looking at the screen, its just tiring, and the UI is not "new", its mostly copied from old game UI's of other social interfaces.

Though this is MA's solution to any problems - mess up the thing that's not broken to draw the attention of people from it to another problem.

Also our chatter here will have no influence what-so-ever, nobody cares because most of us are masochistic addicts, who will adapt to any shit they throw at us and keep on playing after some whinning.

Capt.Dex said:

my main problem is:
when i write a message it still remains in then text field when i press enter to send it

need to delete it everytime when i want to type something new... laaaaaawd

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or you can just click down arrow

The text I type looks like its being crushed by the weight of all the other chat above it, its squeezed in at the bottom, almost as though it was an after thought.

Then when I hit return its still there (a team mate had to tell me the option to stop it doing that - spamming traders will love the feature though).

Not an issue for me personally, but another team mate complained that they were actually struggling to read it.

It all looks totally out of keeping with the rest of the design as well.

In summary, whoever at MA decided that this was a good idea wants relieving of their duties IMMEDIATELY.

Magyar_Republic said:

As with anything new there is a learning curve.

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How much of a learning curve do you think there should be for reading words a screen?

Although I think a number of things could/should be improved, I like it. It has a lot more options than the old version for customizing and offers more possibilities.

Will take some time, though, to get used to it.

Managed to turn globals and system messages off, so I can live with it now. Currently don't like the way it stores the last sentence you typed, hope that can be changed to how it used to be.

Used to be those who wanted the last sentence typed (for example Twin Peaks traders) had to press up arrow.

Most people aren't Twin Peaks traders though so 99% of players probably wont want to delete or down arrow to remove the last thing they typed (IMHO) each time.

Can we customise the colours, 8 years of being used to local being white etc is a bit hard to adapt to?

For those moaning about text in chat window not disappearing, and you need to delete it each time you type a new message...


Options - HUD- and there's a message about text, cant remember exactly what it's called, but lose focus or something, un tick it.

customise chat colour

right click main then click the chat channel - alongside it you will then see a palette of colours and can select. They are all equally wishy washy muddy pastels tho. But at least white is there for local or off-white for trade.

If I set my Resolution to 640 x 480, 4bit color will I be able to read this SHIT?
I think it is time for my hex editor to work its magic on these new UIs or go get new specs from the eye doctor.
Reminds me of the old days of having to use 3rd party for a little help. AUTOCLICK RULES !!!


PS: FONT

StarGlider said:

For those moaning about text in chat window not disappearing, and you need to delete it each time you type a new message...


Options - HUD- and there's a message about text, cant remember exactly what it's called, but lose focus or something, un tick it.

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Did that and each time I typed I triggered 4 pop up windows opening. Hence down arrow being a better option until MA fix it (I'll assume they will given a few weeks)


Granny - thanks for that, I had hit that by accident but didn't know how to get it back.

In summary, this is how I've found re-learning that which didn't require re-learning - in pictorial form:



I'll get there once the rough edges are worked out.

Haven't tried it yet but it sounds like they've been getting UI tips from the Windows 8 dev team.

edit: Ok I've used it now. It's fucking annoying, really fucking annoying.

The old system might have been basic but it was more usable. Sometimes adding more features doesn't make something better.

I could start off on a right now but tbh I just can't be bothered any more. But those red globals are worse than the ones appearing in the old chat.

edit2: Sod it. 10 minutes in and I'm swearing at the screen.

Found the auto fade, the chat window becomes completely unreadable
Why can't I delete the tutorial messages or move those sodding buttons from the top of the screen.

It's a nice idea but it needs some SERIOUS tweaking.

edit3: and why does the last message we typed in the chat window stay there so that we have to delete it to write something new?

edit4:

StarGlider said:

Options - HUD- and there's a message about text, cant remember exactly what it's called, but lose focus or something, un tick it.

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It's 'Options - HUD - Keep Main Chat Focus when entering text' which seems to be enabled by default. Turn it off and it doesn't remember the last line and appears to work more like it used to.

Love it, a very good improvement. Everything is so much better and easier now. Love the global chat possibilities too. Only thing they need to fix is more visible color options, and possibility to make the font bigger.

PS: For norske /join #Norway

SpikeBlack said:

edit3: and why does the last message we typed in the chat window stay there so that we have to delete it to write something new?

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Have to press down arrow each time until Mindark realise just how irritating it is - next week I reckon.

It's like MA said screw UI design. Why do we need a UI skin for the new interface? The old one worked just fine. The lack of options for a black background in text/chat boxes (ever heard of color blind people?) The red bar above chat box needs to have an option to turn it off (so annoying I logged out). Washy chat text colors do NOT properly contrast with the current light blue patterned background in chat box. You have 16 Million color palette to chose from and those were your best choices?

Why are the PM windows huge with that awful UI skin? Ever heard of playing in windowed mode? There isn't even an option to turn it off as far as I can tell. In the top left corner the 'Messages' button CANNOT be moved. This interferes with with seeing loot with Loot Windows Disabled.

Only thing I really like is the offline messaging. Thanks for bringing us a feature most games have had since early 2000's.

Edit: Not sure why it's not bigger. Switched to PCF gallery. Also that was just a quick MS paint job. Sorry if some is a bit unreadable. Trying to contain my rage against crap UI design.




Gallery Link for better resolution
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=296695&catid=member&imageuser=50705

Tesla said:

Edit: Stupid flickr not letting me make it bigger. Also that was just a quick MS paint job. Sorry if some is a bit unreadable. Trying to contain my rage against crap UI design.

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Forum's gallery allows bigger images and the mods will remove the external pic anyway

Apart from that, can't agree more.

Probably been mentioned but I can't be bothered to search through but they don't keep the same way of increasing the size of the windows.

The size of private message and channel windows both can be adjusted from the bottom right only where as the messages window it's the entire bottom edge. Why can't we adjust it's width like the others? Either keep it fixed size or allow us to choose how big it is.

I know it's picky but from a usability stand point it should be the same for all the windows / panels.

Mega said:

Have to press down arrow each time until Mindark realise just how irritating it is - next week I reckon.

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Options - HUD - uncheck 'Keep main chat focus'

it's so convoluted and frustrating, need a manual to figure out how to do simple chat with Soc. Still don't know the difference between Society and Senior Society, or what ever. This is depressing. Now I can't even tell Soc M8's they may never hear from me again, cause I'm just not going to use the stupid thing

Wasn't this thing supposed to come out in 2012? (I remember one interview with Kim at late 2011 or early 2012 talking about this, saying "it's coming out soon" (correct me if i'm wrong)).
So, if that's the case, they had 2 years (possibly even longer, 'cause companies don't usually announce things like that if they're not already in development), so, 2+ years, and they came out with buggy crap.

Well, it is a step to a new direction, there's plenty of opportunity for this, but the initial thought is: How the fuck did this pass any testing in over 2 years, at any point, didn't anyone notice what could be wrong with it?

So, let me give my list:
1) Way too dim colors, very hard to read against that background (or any background, for that matter), give brighter colors.
2) Too little of color choices, can't make easily distinctified colors for different messages.
3) Very un-intuitive UI, no clear way of finding out how to do stuffs.
4) "Main" & "System" tabs not modifiable, you can't move them, you can't remove then, you can't disable some channels from them, not cool, i don't want them taking space there if i want to combine them. (You know, some people don't have 2500+ pixel wide screens and can't stretch the chat window, without it being too obtrusive.)
5) The flashing global thingie above the chat, way too distracting, and cannot even see the text when it appears 'cause of the buttons in the chat.
6) "Auto fade", nope, it does make the chat look tidier, and nicer to look, but you just cannot make anything out of the text, especially with these dim text colors, you'd need to be watching at a very specific environment to see anything from it (very much unusable at night times), add autofade with black background (or preferrably let us choose the background color).

Well, let's start off with those, there are more problems, that i've heard, but not specific to any one person, so guess those are just bugs 'cause they can't be arsed to test shit on more than 1 platform.

Cail said:

4) "Main" & "System" tabs not modifiable, you can't move them, you can't remove then, you can't disable some channels from them, not cool, i don't want them taking space there if i want to combine them. (You know, some people don't have 2500+ pixel wide screens and can't stretch the chat window, without it being too obtrusive.)

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Right click on tab header to disable the channels you don't want.

Nice new Social GUI but...

There must, repeat MUST be a way implemented to turn off the red banner global bar above the Main Social GUI window. That is more than somewhat annoying. It's actually irritating in the extreme.

Myk Scott Adanstar

Cail said:

(You know, some people don't have 2500+ pixel wide screens and can't stretch the chat window, without it being too obtrusive.)

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For those who have it must be even worse, because the text is already barely readable on 1920 width.

Nisha said:

Right click on tab header to disable the channels you don't want.

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Yes, but only System can display damages and skillgains so if you want something similar to the old chat you have to use System with Local & System switched on. But it's not possible to disable Local on Main! So you either have a useless tab that dubs System, or have to switch between 2 tabs to see all the info you used to see at once.

Nisha said:

Right click on tab header to disable the channels you don't want.

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Maybe you didn't read it right, but i'm gonna quote myself and bold the things you missed:

Cail said:

4) "Main" & "System" tabs not modifiable, you can't move them, you can't remove then, you can't disable some channels from them, not cool, i don't want them taking space there if i want to combine them. (You know, some people don't have 2500+ pixel wide screens and can't stretch the chat window, without it being too obtrusive.)

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You cannot disable some channels in either of those. (Private & Local on "Main" and System in "System").
I'd like to remove the System tab altogether, and make a custom one of my own for it.

jqkill said:

Options - HUD - uncheck 'Keep main chat focus'

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Causes 4 windows to pop up, hence had to go back to the other way. Down arrow, down arrow, down arrow. Boring, annoying, I'm used to it after so many VU's.

Zero user testing. Only Dev testing you see.

Cail said:

Maybe you didn't read it right, but i'm gonna quote myself and bold the things you missed:



You cannot disable some channels in either of those. (Private & Local on "Main" and System in "System").
I'd like to remove the System tab altogether, and make a custom one of my own for it.

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ah, ok, I see your point

SpikeBlack said:

Haven't tried it yet but it sounds like they've been getting UI tips from the Windows 8 dev team.

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If you click your own health bar, you will see 'Me'. This means they were thinking about Windows 'ME' when they designed the UI

If I don't say anything bad about the new UI will MA give me some loot?