@Dee I have a suggestion about the magic/cleric spell book. Just a minor thing. Was wondering if there is a place to suggest things for this menu? If not maybe we can/should add a "all other menus" suggestions post or something?
Edit: I also wanted to bring up this feature request, http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/21652 Would this be the place for it or is this not counted as a menu/ui discussion?
@Dee I have a suggestion about the magic/cleric spell book. Just a minor thing. Was wondering if there is a place to suggest things for this menu? If not maybe we can/should add a "all other menus" suggestions post or something?
Edit: I also wanted to bring up this feature request, http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/21652 Would this be the place for it or is this not counted as a menu/ui discussion?
Thanks
Use the UI Improvement Suggestions thread to bring up issues with specific screens. Not every screen will need its own thread, but starting the conversation will help frame it.
Personally, I'm not a fan of getting the biography and class descriptions by two different methods. My preference is, as someone suggested, that the biography; class and kit descriptions all be combined. If Biography were moved to the bottom of the centre column and opens a new window displaying all that, then the 'overview' tab could be split to reduce the amount of information to be scrolled through in the right hand column. As a suggestion: 'general info'; 'skills/proficiencies'; 'statistics'.
Otherwise, great work @Pecca; the BG2 screen is beautiful!
Pecca's mockup is definitely better than the standard one. I still haven't figured out where the number of attacks is listed in the newest version of BG2EE (it used to be on the inventory screen but seems to have disappeared) and I am all for having HP on the main screen again.
It does seem a little busy (less so with the BG2 color scheme) but I'm not sure if that could be fixed without having to go back to having many different screens or a lot of scrolling again. Also, I much prefer the modded Progress Bar that AncientCowboy did so I hope any new version would be compatible.
@Mr2150 Oh that's where they stuck it, thanks. I guess I've kind of just given up on using the current record screen for the most part. I can play the game well enough without that info and I'm usually in too much of a hurry to track down everything. I admit, I liked seeing attacks per round when equipping weapons in version 1.3
OK - here's an interesting idea I just thought of...
The journal currently has a search box enabling you to filter the whole list of journal entries for a specific word or phrase. It's actually really useful.. Why isn't something like that built into the record screen?
Whatever format we end up with - and I hope they take the feedback on board regarding the changes we've agreed so far - rather than people hunting for specific things, why not have a search box somewhere where you can just type what you want to find and it filters the text box / finds it in the tabs for you. It would help alleviate frustration at not being able to find stuff.
I'm really liking these Making it Work threads. I'd like to suggest adding tooltips to the different status effects that pop up when you hover your cursor over it (so it would give you an exact breakdown of the effects on your character). I noticed in my last playthrough some status effects that I wasn't familiar with and short of going into my spellbook and searching for the spell that caused it, there was no way to find out what it did exactly.
A duration timer for the status effects could be nice too.
@Mr2150 That might be difficult to implement (no idea since I don't code things), but I for one would probably find it useful. Even with the old 1.3 screen I was always scrolling past the bit of information that I actually needed. I've played these games so many times and I still don't remember the order of stuff.
And I think more information on status effects would be useful as well. Maybe not necessarily a tooltip like gugulug5000 suggested but something. There are definitely some rare ones that I don't see often enough to remember and I always forget which ones I can rest away and which I need to dispel.
The portrait could become a button which opens a new modal dialog replacing Customize and Export.
Speaking of modal dialogs, I like the idea of tooltips but if they appear in front of other text it wouldn't look nice. Maybe there could be a dedicated explanation area on the record screen. Its text changes based on what you click. Click on Move Silently to see what it does. Click on ranger to get class information, etc.
The exact way of shortening those strings wasn't decided here, and I left it vague in the report (I just said it would need to be shortened). I would not however let the modding possibilities weigh too heavily in the final decision, since obviously any string anywhere in the game can be changed into something much longer. If the decision was made to adopt this record screen layout, I would suggest those mods to shorten those strings too (this layout expects any piece of information on the left side would have a space for a one line of text, if a string was longer, it would be resized to fit that space).
I was counting on the fixed height, so the text can scale only to certain degree. The idea, originally presented by Dee, was that the left side with static information is fixed. Having one line per information also limits the string lenght, thus the font size too.
Okay I was thinking about revising the final mockup a bit. There are two problems with it. First, the left side is a bit crowded, the information there could use more space. Second, the "tab" buttons on the left have the same graphics as other buttons, but a different function (changing tabs instead of opening new window) which is not an ideal design. So to solve these two problems I was thinking about introducing icon-based button graphics for the tab buttons. The idea was discussed before here and I don't know exactly why it was dismissed, but I tried to visualise it and I think it works pretty well. The three tabs - overview, biography and statistics can have pretty clear icons, so it can be made obvious enough what they represent. I chose an ususal record icon "head" for the overview, "feather and ink" for the biography, and technical "cogged wheel" for the statistics.
What should be the behavior of the left side text when changing font size ? Scale the text, in this case the list will have scrollbar, or use a fixed font size ?
As someone who likes to use a larger font, I would want all the text to be the font size I choose in the settings. I would rather see a scroll bar than see a fixed size font. What good is a font size setting if it only changes some of the font sizes in the game.
That being said, the screen layout should be optimized for the default font size, but still allow for larger fonts.
I agree with cmk24 there. It would be nice that if ou use a larger font, the font indeed is larger, though that would mean that those with larger fonts would have to scroll a bit.
I like the general idea of the tabs, but tabs should be attached to whatever you're tabbing. If you want the tabs at the bottom, they should be upside down. Alternatively, they could be at the top. How to make that visually pleasing, I'm not sure. Also, they should be a little brighter, I think, to emphasis their existence, because I easily missed them.
@lefreut sorry no, I didn't work with the blue graphics at all. I guess it shouldn't take much time to create it though, but I don't want to promise anything at this point.
Comments
Edit: I also wanted to bring up this feature request,
http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/21652
Would this be the place for it or is this not counted as a menu/ui discussion?
Thanks
Otherwise, great work @Pecca; the BG2 screen is beautiful!
It does seem a little busy (less so with the BG2 color scheme) but I'm not sure if that could be fixed without having to go back to having many different screens or a lot of scrolling again. Also, I much prefer the modded Progress Bar that AncientCowboy did so I hope any new version would be compatible.
Record Screen > Combat Stats > Third 'block' in the text box.
The journal currently has a search box enabling you to filter the whole list of journal entries for a specific word or phrase. It's actually really useful.. Why isn't something like that built into the record screen?
Whatever format we end up with - and I hope they take the feedback on board regarding the changes we've agreed so far - rather than people hunting for specific things, why not have a search box somewhere where you can just type what you want to find and it filters the text box / finds it in the tabs for you. It would help alleviate frustration at not being able to find stuff.
A duration timer for the status effects could be nice too.
And I think more information on status effects would be useful as well. Maybe not necessarily a tooltip like gugulug5000 suggested but something. There are definitely some rare ones that I don't see often enough to remember and I always forget which ones I can rest away and which I need to dispel.
Speaking of modal dialogs, I like the idea of tooltips but if they appear in front of other text it wouldn't look nice. Maybe there could be a dedicated explanation area on the record screen. Its text changes based on what you click. Click on Move Silently to see what it does. Click on ranger to get class information, etc.
So to solve these two problems I was thinking about introducing icon-based button graphics for the tab buttons. The idea was discussed before here and I don't know exactly why it was dismissed, but I tried to visualise it and I think it works pretty well. The three tabs - overview, biography and statistics can have pretty clear icons, so it can be made obvious enough what they represent. I chose an ususal record icon "head" for the overview, "feather and ink" for the biography, and technical "cogged wheel" for the statistics.
Where is the level up button?
That being said, the screen layout should be optimized for the default font size, but still allow for larger fonts.
I like the general idea of the tabs, but tabs should be attached to whatever you're tabbing. If you want the tabs at the bottom, they should be upside down. Alternatively, they could be at the top. How to make that visually pleasing, I'm not sure. Also, they should be a little brighter, I think, to emphasis their existence, because I easily missed them.