Simple interface fixes

[eNTi]

so i've talked a friend who was put off by the interface before he even finished the tutorial of the game and i wholeheartedly agree that the current state of the ui is a mess to put it lightly. it might have been adequate 10 years ago, but now i simply want more and there's some VERY SIMPLE things that can be done to the ui to make it much better to use.

1. Add shortcuts:
a. drag/drop stack --> whole stack
b. SHIFT + drag/drop stack --> one item from stack
c. CTRL + drag/drop stack --> ask count

2. Loot filter:
a. Right mouse button menu on item --> add/remove to filter list
b. Take all will move all items that are in the filter list to the characters inventory and drop the rest
c. Loot filter could be managed in the com panel beneath the "Ignore" list

3. Chat de-activation:
a. Enter deactivates active chat unless in RPOS mode

4. Count window interaction:
a. Enter activates "Ok" on focused window
b. ESC activates "Cancel" on focused window
c. Always on top of other windows. There's no reason why you should have any window to cover this one.

5. Character to character trade window interaction:
a. Keyboard focus in money field

6. Vendor trade window interaction:
a. Keyboard focus in count field
b. Switching to another item keeps the amount and focuses the count field, so that if you start to type the current value is overwritten
c. Clicking "Ok", checks if the character has enough room (strength) to carry all bought items

[eNTi]

[EDIT: Added 4c to start post]

[Manuel Moonez]

Great ideas!

[eNTi]

7. Inventory / Gogu / Storage containers:
a. Containers should all have the same behaviour
b. Sort buttons: by name, by tl, by type, free sort (no sort) -- this can be different for each type of container
c. Show only available container slots. The rest of the rows should not be drawn

8. Icons:
a. General:
(i) Different colors for different types of items
(ii) The text in the top left corner should be of the same color as the count in the lower left corner, only that the text for the amount should have the "light" version of that color
b. Modules:
(i) The first letter of every descriptive word of the module's name should be a 3 or 4 letter abbreviation in the top left corner of the icon. E.g.: PSI-MODULE-ENHANCEMENT should read "P-ME" in the top left corner of the icon
c. Rare parts:
(i) The lower right corner should show the type of the rare (e.g. ppu, apu, l-hc, t-hc, l-pc, t-pc, ...)

[hazzard]

1
4
5
6
7

Especially 1,4 and 7.

[hazzard]

Could someone please delete my last post? I can't find the buttons for edit or delete.


1. Add shortcuts:
a. drag/drop stack --> whole stack
b. SHIFT + drag/drop stack --> one item from stack
c. CTRL + drag/drop stack --> ask count
This is something I really would like to see. Reorganizing cabinets, looting, putting stuff into gogu and throwing stuff away would be a lot more comfortable.
Drag, drop, click OK button. Drag, drop, click OK button. Drag, drop, click OK button. Drag, drop, click...



4. Count window interaction:
a. Enter activates "Ok" on focused window
b. ESC activates "Cancel" on focused window
c. Always on top of other windows. There's no reason why you should have any window to cover this one.
Even if we don't get the shortcuts, this would be great.
a + b. It's the natural thing to do. See apartment elevator.
c. I sometimes don't hit the little OK button while I try to move stuff to my gogu. The count window "disappears". I fix it with reopening the gogu / container. Sometimes I was wondering why I couldn't move stuff, because "the window disappeared, so everything is fine".
Addition: d. Keyboard focus in count field. This would make it easier to get a certain amount of items.



5. Character to character trade window interaction:
a. Keyboard focus in money field
Would be nice to speed up trading / tipping in medicare.



6. Vendor trade window interaction:
a. Keyboard focus in count field
b. Switching to another item keeps the amount and focuses the count field, so that if you start to type the current value is overwritten
c. Clicking "Ok", checks if the character has enough room (strength) to carry all bought items
This would reduce the amount of time to sell junk. Totally like this. My friend didn't realize that it is possible to enter the amount without using the + button. ("What are you doing?!" "Selling 45 brains")



7. Inventory / Gogu / Storage containers:
a. Containers should all have the same behaviour
b. Sort buttons: by name, by tl, by type, free sort (no sort) -- this can be different for each type of container
c. Show only available container slots. The rest of the rows should not be drawn

a + b. I didn't expect a different behaviour for my gogu and my cabinets. The "sort order" for the gogu is random, whereas the sort order for the cabinets is "free sort". It would be nice to have sort buttons, but at least the gogu should use free sort instead of random.

[AlvaroT]

Also vendor window:
shift click - buy/sell 5
ctrl click - buy/sell 10

[Alduin]

This is an awesome list! Please keep maintaining it!

[Jack Slater]

2. Loot filter:
a. Right mouse button menu on item --> add/remove to filter list
b. Take all will move all items that are in the filter list to the characters inventory and drop the rest
c. Loot filter could be managed in the com panel beneath the "Ignore" list

I understand why you would want it that way. There might be less items you want than items you don't want to loot so the list is shorter. But if you don't look close enough while looting you might miss something you haven't got on your list yet. Like trophies. Also the "Take all" Button would only work properly with mobs you have "listed" yet.
I'd like to have that feature but in my opinion it should work like an ignore list.

[Cursed Shadow]

If you have another active window than your inventory, you should be able to interact with your inventory stack using a quick-key that shifts it into the window open:

E.g. Cabinet, Trade Window, Vendor (Selling), Monster Loot, GoGuardian or Belt.

Drag and Drop is slow and it's possible to accidentally drop stuff on the floor.
Such an accident is made indefinitely worse by the fact that rare parts now stack.

So:

If stack is in trade/gogu/vendor/monster loot/belt/cabinet and I shift click it: move entire stack to inventory.
and in reverse, if it's in my inventory and I shift click it, it should move into respective monster loot/cabinet/trade/gogu/vendor window.


Another enhancement:
If someone trades you whilst you have an alternate window open, the trade should not succeed.
People trading others whilst they're looting monsters/their belts is an exploit, and should be fixed as one.

Another shortcut should be available to quick drop loot in monsters to the floor, this would make farming a much more efficient task. *especially if you're under fire*

[hazzard]

Trading with other players:
If the other player closes his/her RPOS, my own RPOS should stay open.

[Doc Holliday]

Another enhancement:
If someone trades you whilst you have an alternate window open, the trade should not succeed.
People trading others whilst they're looting monsters/their belts is an exploit, and should be fixed as one.



Alt-k. its a work around i know but it helps.

[Agent L]

3. Chat de-activation:
a. Enter deactivates active chat unless in RPOS modeEnter activates/deactivates/sends chat message. What else could it do?


4. Count window interaction:
a. Enter activates "Ok" on focused window
b. ESC activates "Cancel" on focused windowThis will create lots of problems with chat in RPOS. Also having a key close the RPOS unconditionally as it is now is quite important when you're getting attacked. (and I believe logout should be moved away from ESC, coz now both logout and close rpos is same key. I'm not talking about TAB, coz it also has a dual function of opening RPOS.)

Enter currently is reserved for chat. I believe it should stay this way.


5. Character to character trade window interaction:
a. Keyboard focus in money fieldYeah, it's a no brainer. But the problem of the number already in the window remains.[/QUOTE]


6. Vendor trade window interaction:
[...]
b. Switching to another item keeps the amount and focuses the count field, so that if you start to type the current value is overwrittenJust switching the focus won't make the text overwritten. The fact that windows text boxes work like that comes from the selection functionality, so you're requesting not a simple thing here at all. Selection is big by itself and if you introduce it, everyone will start asking why ctrl-c/ctrl-v doesn't work.[/QUOTE]

c. Clicking "Ok", checks if the character has enough room (strength) to carry all bought items HELL NO!
I am routinely buying to -800 free load and most serious ctors do same. You're taking away functionality here, not adding it.

The problems with buying comes from the fact when you ask for a stack of items, instead of buying 249 items ONCE, you're buying one item 249 times. So when you start dropping from overload, instead of dropping 1 stack, game tries to drop 249 items in very short amount of time. Which is not possible, so only 3 items survive the drop and rest vanishes.

This is the root of the problem (which also make ppl recieve about 1/83 of due BRT xp) and its what should be fixed, instead of adding yet another workaround of a problem created by another workaround.


Sorry ENTi, I do respect you, but it seems you haven't observed how the game works so far well enough. Your propositions are haphazard.

[hazzard]

4. Count window interaction:
a. Enter activates "Ok" on focused window
b. ESC activates "Cancel" on focused window

This will create lots of problems with chat in RPOS. Also having a key close the RPOS unconditionally as it is now is quite important when you're getting attacked. (and I believe logout should be moved away from ESC, coz now both logout and close rpos is same key. I'm not talking about TAB, coz it also has a dual function of opening RPOS.)

Enter currently is reserved for chat. I believe it should stay this way.

I don't see the problem here. Drag & drop opens this new window. So it should not be a problem to focus it.
The access interface for the apartments also sets the focus to the password input box and handles the enter key correctly. So, Enter is currently not reserved for chat. There should be no problem to use this for the count window.

Close RPOS: TAB.
I do not see the problem with this. If RPOS is open, this will close it. You only want to close the RPOS if it is already open. So I do not understand the problem you are describing.



6. Vendor trade window interaction:
[...]
b. Switching to another item keeps the amount and focuses the count field, so that if you start to type the current value is overwritten

Just switching the focus won't make the text overwritten. The fact that windows text boxes work like that comes from the selection functionality, so you're requesting not a simple thing here at all. Selection is big by itself and if you introduce it, everyone will start asking why ctrl-c/ctrl-v doesn't work.

Switching the focus to an other item (in other words: select a new item to buy/sell) can also select the whole text/number in the count field, ready to be overwritten. If this is a problem, I'm wondering why NC runs at all.
I do not understand the problem with copy paste. I never tried to copy paste a number to buy and sell stuff. Are you talking about chatting while buying? This is also no problem. It's common to select the window you want to work with.



c. Clicking "Ok", checks if the character has enough room (strength) to carry all bought items
HELL NO!
I am routinely buying to -800 free load and most serious ctors do same.
Exactly. Please don't stop us from buying all our stuff at once.

[Agent L]

I don't see the problem here. The problem is that in emergency situation (eg being attacked by a PKer) you'd need to hit ESC sometimes once, other times twice. If you you do it wrong number of times, you end up just standing there helplessly and receiving hits. This lack of reliable "back to action" key is present now, although not as dire. The problem is acknowledged because there even exist a duct-tape workaround: the move-in-rpos setting (which has side effects of ppl posting long streams of wwwwwwwww on chat).
On the second thought, we need this key to be implemented more than keeping ESC clean.


Switching the focus to an other item (in other words: select a new item to buy/sell) can also select the whole text/number in the count field, ready to be overwritten. If this is a problem, I'm wondering why NC runs at all.
In case you haven't noticed it - there never was a "text selection" mechanism in NC. All the things you take for granted in Windows: caret, selection, insert/overwrite, cut/copy - they are just not present (ok, caret is preset just invisible in most situations). Which means there is no mechanism to overwrite current selection. Problem about implementing one of these things is that will make ppl demand the rest of them and lemme remind us yet again - dev resources are limited.

What you are talking about is focus. Switching focus on lift interface works, because there is nothing in this window to interfere with new text you're entering. Unfortunately, in vendor interface doing this would mean the buy button would buy "0" by default.

[William Antrim]

I would like to see a button added to trading where the game asks you if you want the items to be put into your inventory or into your gogu. If you had to pay even a small "delivery fee" I would be happy with this. Sometimes I want to bulk buy my resources (specifically for crafting stuff) and I would love to see this implemented if possible.

[AlvaroT]

GoGo window could be enlarged as well, lets say 4x6 slots visible would be nice.

[Ziu]

Its possible to pull it to 5x10 already.
Or do you mean it should be bigger from the beginning because noone will play the game in 800x600 as the runners did in nc1?

[Cyco]

Hi.

What about coloured shields (red, blue, white) in the right corner ? Its easier to see that which color is left.

[Jack Slater]

Hi.

What about coloured shields (red, blue, white) in the right corner ? Its easier to see that which color is left.

They are coloured but it isn't easy to see. So yeah that could be improved.