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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Shortcuts In Popups


JakeDrake

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This is to focus attention on the great idea from qonfused and elaborated by Snakeman of having more useful buttons, specifically shortcuts (gotos), for the intercept, research complete, and manufacture completed pop up screens.

 

Post your ideas of it here and the development team is more likely to notice it.

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Completely agree with that one, I'm sure they have already planned to fix it though since it was so glaring a inconvenience.

 

I'll just post some obvious ones:

 

After completed research, give options for reallocation scientists or viewing reports on same popup. If user views reports first keep the popup in the background, when they close reports allow to reallocate. In other words don't eliminated research popup unless cancel or reallocate is clicked.

 

As I think Snakemen posted:

 

After transfer complete or manufacture complete, button on popup to jump directly to equip craft/soldier screen.

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Oops, didn't catch this topic til I posted in the other one, but I'll say it here too what the hey. Just going to go back into the last game I was fiddlng with today, want to go in take a hard look again at the battlescape button arrangements and see if I can come up with anything there. But just on memory feeble as mine is :) I have no real hangup with the orginal's layouts apart from maybe the abort button being oriented right below the end turn button. I was thinking maybe if that one was floated at the top left corner of the screen (so it won't compete for instance with how enemy target (go tos) would be lined up on the right), but thats minor in a way since you have to "ok" the abort in the first place.

 

I'll review what was posted over there under the battlescape stuff and see if I find anything else to add there, then I'll check out the intercept/other menu stuff after this mission. I got a little free time coming up, I figure, why the heck not :)

Edited by Snakeman
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  • 4 weeks later...
What about a running list: This could be called up by pressing a bulletin board button on the panel. It would list all potential pop-ups. You could customize which pop-ups should still come up automatically. Also, when you close the pop-up you can either close and keep on the clip-baord or close and take off the clipboard.
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Not a bad idea that one. I'm sure most of us have seen programs that have a dialogue box of sorts like this ...i.e. The kind with checkboxes on them for "Don't show me this again," or "Remind me in X days," with things like software that has a trial period or needs upgrading and your too lazy just then :)

 

Anyway, the popups could use a similar approach I think, so the player can weed out what they feel is important among the alert messages/subsequent "go tos"

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How about for the time thing, you could have a "pause" option under 5 seconds and if a dialog pops up it goes to pause, and if you don't change it during that time it'll go back to what it was before it paused, but if you click on 5 seconds then it'll stay on 5 seconds.
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I'm not sure about this one, but I understand its appeal. Whenever a project was finished in the first one, and I had my game speed on 1 Day, I actually liked that when I closed the box, it automatically reverted to the slowest speed for me. It gave me time to make any other necessary alterations.

 

If any go to prompt took you to any screen that was off of Base View, I should think then that the game would be on pause for you until you clicked the Geoscape button once more. Assuming again that this game's apsects would be similar to the first in this respect anyway.

Edited by Snakeman
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What? I thought it always remembered the speed it was at. It never automatically went to 5 seconds for me...

 

I forgot which action(s) was associated specifically with this, but I am sure that I have seen my speed slow to 5 seconds when I closed one of those messages. I know for sure though that the UFO radar popup window has the choice to ok it and remain at speed, or center on the craft and go to 5 secs.

 

edit: Ok did a quick check. I am certain now I get this with manufacturing type popups. I set one base to build a fusion bomb, set it to 1 day on Geoscape and when it finished and I closed the box, it set me back to 5 secs.

Edited by Snakeman
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Actually, I believe you are both right. From memory, after a research completion if you clicked "OK" then it would retain the speed from before the research box. Manufacturing completions boxes seemed to take you to five seconds even if you clicked OK. In my opinion there were some major interface issues with the popups in xcom1. It is very confusing to the beginner when you are asked if you want to view reports or reallocate scientists, if you reallocate when you exit that screen you will not get the option to "view report" unless you go to ufopedia, however if you chose to "view report" from the popup when you exited that I think the dialog box would still be up. This will probably be fixed in V1 is my guess. If you want to help, think about what actions are almost always follow a specific pop up box. Post the name of the dialog box then the button you wish to see on that dialog box (with explanation if necessary). ex:

 

Manufacture Completed -> 5secs, Equip Craft, Equip Soldiers, Sell Screen

etc. etc.

 

If organized in some way these comments will be easier to read and therefore have a better chance of being understood and implemented by the developers. I'll see if these ideas can be moved to the workshop...

Edited by JakeDrake
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Now that you mention it, yes, I believe the 'reverting to 5 seconds' thing only occured with manufacturing popups, not research ones when you ok'd them.

 

In any case, I think that what I'm advocating at any rate, is that the game should simply pause no matter what when any of these things occur, since in essence, we are talking about implementing "go tos" that take you deeper within what was essentially screens off shooting from Base View or whatever.

 

In other words, Geoscape or pressing that should be the only element that speeds up time in game terms. Everything else is setting things up so that you can go back to that with the minimum of fuss.

 

So just to give one example of this change from old game to new game for me in this pop up scenario would be:

 

Allocation of Research: Instead of the game resuming from there as before, it should take you to the research screen, only this time when you ok or exit out of the popu up, your within Base View. This way you can control better I feel when time resumes, since you have to click Geoscape consciously to do so.

 

On the other hand...

 

Short of the above however, I'd just as soon have an extra button seen among the other game time options to the Geoscape menu since this is where we'd see the popups anyway. In terms of streamlining how these "go tos" in the popups may get sorted, it sort of makes sense that the game should pause after you've exited those prompts to avoid accidentally running at speed when you didn't want that just then.

 

I mean sure, 5 seconds for after exiting the manufacturing prompts was manageable because that was such a short space of time elapsing, but because this wasn't equal across the other message types (UFO radar intercept messages aside), what occurs time-wise or not (paused) should occur with all other alert types that make sense for it. So bascially, yea, some consistancy there would have been nice if they'd all shared the same outcome.

 

Anyway, if the game can be paused, it shouldn't matter if this screen or that was off of Base View. If you can do what you need to do from within the prompts, and exit them, all you need is pause. When your done, click whichever time you wanted to resume at.

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To get to your second part however, yes, I liked your Manufcaturing example JD.

 

Equip Craft, Equip Soldiers, Sell Screen are worthwhile go tos relating to the activity. I would just add that the popup should not dissappear after you've dealt with one area, such as Equip Craft. It should back you out of that, back to the popup with all the other selections in it you came from, so that you can manage the others and finally close the prompt so that time resumes right then in there when competed.

 

Either this, or simply have the following selections not chosen, follow you to the Equip Craft page, so that you can click them from that screen, and so on down the line, although they're only there when it came from a Geoscape alert message. In other words, if you clicked Equip Craft from within Base View, you would not get the Manufacturing tab following you there as an option.

 

Crap, I need to make screen shots to make this make more sense I think as I go, otherwise I'll forget my own points I was trying to make ;)

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Keep in mind that in XCom there was no pausing on the geoscape whatsoever while control was still in the players hands. Personally I believe this feature added a lot to the feeling of the world in progress, constantly changing and not waiting even for you the player just like reality. 5 seconds is <i> completely </i> manageable and pausing only serves to rip the player out of the experience of the game and so should be reserved for option menus only.

An alternative to a seperate button to switch to five seconds at a popup is simply to allow the player to change the time buttons while the popup is visible.

 

As for the popups not disappearing, I also agree. Unless OK or an X is clicked the popup should not disappear.

 

Another example:

 

Research Completed -> 5secs, Allocate research, view reports, manufacture

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I hadn't thought to add a speed button from the alert prompt windows, not a bad one that.

 

Well, one could argue for the consistancy of elapsing time after closing all alerts, but some may want that inconsistancy with certain ones (which may or may not be important to them anyway), so a tailored game speed after closing each message type starts to make sense. Research, Manufacture, + any Training alerts that might come up that aren't tied to monthly alterations such as Psi Training probably also fall here.

 

In any case, the speed setting could either be in button form (may clutter the pop up with too many buttons), or perhaps be a drop down-two-click affair to set it any way you like and with any luck, the game will remember from then on out until you change it.

 

Alternatively, rather than set this from within the popup could be...(and I'm just guessing here how much functionality is in place in the game to allow for right click selecting things) to right click the available speed settings from the Geoscape View its self. One right click on any time choice, the drop down could appear here and look something like this...

 

i.e. Right clicking '5 Seconds' shows you the popup categories by function - All Research, All Manufacture, All Training (alert messages), then tick off each one you want the game to remember the resumed speed you wish to be at when you close out the dialogues.

 

Anyway, either would work I suppose, I guess what it comes down to is whichever method is the best in terms of less clickage...factoring in of course the fact that if the game can remember your selections, what the click count is after that point just to navigate popups from each category.

 

What it won't address of course is what you do from within them. From within them you can take as much time as you need I suppose :)

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Hi guys. I think it has been an understood idea amongst the Xenocide team that the interface of UFO Defense was not the most intuitive. The kinds of features you are discussing are some of the many that we do intend to improve upon. However, hammering out the specifics of button placement and choice in the interface is something we cannot even test until we have at least a functional game. Also, if this thread is moved to the workshops, none of the other regular forum members will be able to discuss there ideas any further without becoming Recruits. For now, the thread JakeDrake started in the Workshop Programming Active forum will be moved to Unsorted and brought up again sometime in the future. If any of you are interested in helping Xenocide with what we are working on now, please feel free to sign up as a Recruit and check out of the list of priority tasks available in the Tasks Tracker (link at the top of the forums). If you are uninterested in that, you're free to continue discussing your ideas here.
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Write documents for instance ;) ... All stating for example known problems as in this case and posible solutions, so we can have this documented while we work in the UI. If you didnt figured out by now, I can always find holes in the development where anyone can help.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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Well, unless or until I can think of a way to help more directly with the project, I'll just stick to sharing any thoughts I have here and let you fellas determine where they might best fit in this or future versions :)

 

That is fine with us :Leek: That is the point of the Labs - to flesh out ideas that can possibly be included in V1.

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