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Revert PC UI Changes


Michelle

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The PC now looks like an uninspired mess..

- Any Sprite Mods are now clipping through the entire PC
- Unreadable stats/name text is made common with any sprite mod's odd scaling
- Additional rows of PC boxes will scale the window, pushing Pokémon sprites further out of orientation
- Redundant party view in the PC
- Box "titles" aren't prominent at the very top, the text is thin & underwhelming
- The larger window makes multitasking more congested
- When no Pokémon is selected, the window has 20% dead space, this will be a common visual 
- No ability to highlight a "?" to view the keyboard commands used for intuitive PC interactions
- Box Names are visually 1 letter less & throws off any formatting using 5 characters
- The UI window has been scaled up, and causes visual stretching on any customizations
- Auto Sort function is incredibly unclear(does it sort selected pokemon? the box you're viewing? every box you have? it's not clear)

Solutions(Other than reverting):
- Disable usage of custom mod sprites within the PC
- Hide the additional party view outside of PC, while using the PC
- Embolden box title text, give it some shadowing
- Auto-scale the PC window to reveal a "selected summary" only when a Pokémon is selected, to remove dead space & congestion
- Revive the "?" to help new players with shortcut keys when using the PC
- Scale the Box titles to allow for 5 letters(characters), as there is certainly enough room for it, and warrants no format changes
- Increase the actual image size used for the PC
- Highlighting the Auto Sort button should offer a description as to exactly how it functions

 

Ultimately, a lot of redundancies, inconvenient changes, and unnecessary changes that are arguably a visual downgrade. I would hope for a complete reversion, but if these issues could be fixed or even addressed, that would be nice too.

Edited by Michelle
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I like the solutions, but reverting it makes no sense. It makes it easier for people to breed, move Pokemon, organize Pokemon, etc. The change is superb, but it can always be better. To null and void it doesn't seem like the right idea when it works so well and contains slight issues.

I like the solutions, but reverting it makes no sense. It makes it easier for people to breed, move Pokemon, organize Pokemon, etc. The change is superb, but it can always be better. To null and void it doesn't seem like the right idea when it works so well and contains slight issues.

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I guess reverting does sound a bit harsh without some elaboration. 😛

I do enjoy seeing the improvements, but they are just lacking a certain level of consideration the old PC layout had. I would much rather the old layout, plus these improvements. For example, if the old layout had a new small pop-up summary like the one sitting in the current PC window, it wouldn't necessarily need to adjust any window orientations or sizes. The pop-up summary would only appear when selecting a Pokémon, and could be hidden by selecting a blank slot.
 

I realize that envisioning how this could easily be done using the original PC layout is likely part of my own issues with these changes, but even still there are some objective issues with this new layout. Such as the dead space, no help "?", and no consideration for sprite mods.

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2 minutes ago, Eggplant said:

If you don't like the changes cause it breaks mods...

 

Imo this responsibility is on the modders, not on the game devs.

Just fix the mods.

There's literally 11 listed issues, thanks for reading the first line though, I suppose.
Also, it is indeed an issue with the devs considering mods allow for images outside of certain parameters or scales, and cause overlapping issues(not just with the PC). If there were restrictions in place, such as where these modded sprites are used, or sizes/orientations of sprites used, these would not be issues.

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My only issue is that I cant find a select all option. I used it a lot while shunt breeding to release/move whole boxes but now I gotta click 60 times to multi select everything. Is this functionality still hidden somewhere I cant find?

 

EDIT: just realised you can click and drag to multi select area. but if theres a pokemon on every slot then it wont work. u need an empty slot to activate it. allg 

Edited by ColesNightfill
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1 hour ago, ColesNightfill said:

My only issue is that I cant find a select all option. I used it a lot while shunt breeding to release/move whole boxes but now I gotta click 60 times to multi select everything. Is this functionality still hidden somewhere I cant find?

 

EDIT: just realised you can click and drag to multi select area. but if theres a pokemon on every slot then it wont work. u need an empty slot to activate it. allg 

You can drag from outside or between the slots to highlight without an empty slot to work with.

 

On 4/28/2023 at 2:29 PM, Michelle said:

Also, it is indeed an issue with the devs considering mods allow for images outside of certain parameters or scales, and cause overlapping issues(not just with the PC). If there were restrictions in place, such as where these modded sprites are used, or sizes/orientations of sprites used, these would not be issues.

We'll likely be rescaling modded sprites in places where they don't properly fit in a future update.

 

On 4/28/2023 at 7:26 AM, Michelle said:

- Redundant party view in the PC

This is intended for keyboard and controller users.

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tbh the new functions are awesome, but the way they have distributed the interface is uncomfortable, especially for those of us who use phones

 

This is my personal opinion playing from a device with a 5.45-inch screen

 

Obviously the experience can be very different depending on the characteristics of the device and adjusting the interface for everyone seems impossible.

 

it's time to support mods that customize the android interface without having to root or weird things

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7 hours ago, Rache said:

You can drag from outside or between the slots to highlight without an empty slot to work with.

Well i guess this is only working on pc, it doesn't work in phone, hopefully it gets included because the only way to select all by dragging is to select an empty spot

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22 hours ago, Rache said:

This is intended for keyboard and controller users.

Thanks for addressing this! I was just wondering if the original party view could be hidden while PC is open(to simulate it 'moving' into the window). It is a bit of unnecessary visual noise to display 2 of them.

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On 4/28/2023 at 8:26 AM, Michelle said:

The PC now looks like an uninspired mess..

- Any Sprite Mods are now clipping through the entire PC
- Unreadable stats/name text is made common with any sprite mod's odd scaling
- Additional rows of PC boxes will scale the window, pushing Pokémon sprites further out of orientation
- Redundant party view in the PC
- Box "titles" aren't prominent at the very top, the text is thin & underwhelming
- The larger window makes multitasking more congested
- When no Pokémon is selected, the window has 20% dead space, this will be a common visual 
- No ability to highlight a "?" to view the keyboard commands used for intuitive PC interactions
- Box Names are visually 1 letter less & throws off any formatting using 5 characters
- The UI window has been scaled up, and causes visual stretching on any customizations
- Auto Sort function is incredibly unclear(does it sort selected pokemon? the box you're viewing? every box you have? it's not clear)

Solutions(Other than reverting):
- Disable usage of custom mod sprites within the PC
- Hide the additional party view outside of PC, while using the PC
- Embolden box title text, give it some shadowing
- Auto-scale the PC window to reveal a "selected summary" only when a Pokémon is selected, to remove dead space & congestion
- Revive the "?" to help new players with shortcut keys when using the PC
- Scale the Box titles to allow for 5 letters(characters), as there is certainly enough room for it, and warrants no format changes
- Increase the actual image size used for the PC
- Highlighting the Auto Sort button should offer a description as to exactly how it functions

 

Ultimately, a lot of redundancies, inconvenient changes, and unnecessary changes that are arguably a visual downgrade. I would hope for a complete reversion, but if these issues could be fixed or even addressed, that would be nice too.

As someone who has a somewhat in-depth understanding about the UI system in this game I would like to address a few of these points.

-Any Sprite Mods are now clipping through the entire PC
This is a mod bug. It has nothing to do with themes.

They always have clipped through every window they're used in, since about two or three years ago when the table guid files stopped being used. Now sprite mods will always be the size of the raw image, regardless of where it is displayed, even if a table guid file is assigned.

- Unreadable stats/name text is made common with any sprite mod's odd scaling
Refer to the answer above.

- Additional rows of PC boxes will scale the window, pushing Pokémon sprites further out of orientation
This can be changed via code extremely easily.

- Redundant party view in the PC
For accessibility reasons, as stated by staff

- Box "titles" aren't prominent at the very top, the text is thin & underwhelming
This can be changed via code extremely easily.

- The larger window makes multitasking more congested
This is directly affected by aforementioned code.

- When no Pokémon is selected, the window has 20% dead space, this will be a common visual
This is directly affected by aforementioned code.

- No ability to highlight a "?" to view the keyboard commands used for intuitive PC interactions
This has been removed from the game entirely. Has nothing to do with the theme itself.

- Box Names are visually 1 letter less & throws off any formatting using 5 characters
Not entirely sure what you're referencing here, possibly the old box size, not really sure.

- The UI window has been scaled up, and causes visual stretching on any customizations
This is irrelevant, the entire XML has been reworked essentially, over 1,000 lines modified

- Auto Sort function is incredibly unclear(does it sort selected pokemon? the box you're viewing? every box you have? it's not clear)
options sort what they're supposed to sort, albeit the scrollpane layout is really strange


To refer back to missing hotkey cheatsheet, a lot of these changes are client / server side. Very little is actually handled by the theme itself.

Considering it appears there's going to be another update in the near future, a lot of the developers intended functions are not currently implemented. There is also leftover code that is not used either.

Here's the new PC window that was added to the game and game's code, but is currently unused.

Unbenannt.png

One function that was definitely made worse was the removal of the edit field jumping to the monster that you typed in search. Now it only highlights the box the monster is in. That's my only gripe.

My best guess is that they could not implement the UI related content they wanted to match the client / server features in time. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they're in the middle of reworking this, and it's not feature complete. Why it was released in this state, I have no idea.

Edited by nurver9
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14 hours ago, razimove said:

while the new pc has a lot better QoL to the previous one, it just has a bad design imo, you guys should hire someone for UI/UX.

I'd love to help with that. Good/bad ui can make or break a game. After all it's what you interact with most of the time when you're playing.

 

There are some bugs that could be fixed even without giving us access to the code by adjusting like 2 lines in the default theme's xmls. E.g. the party bar having different sizes when locked/unlocked and the icons in the bag during battles moving around based on the amount of text that that item has.

 

You can tell they're trying to improve the ui by how many windows were being updated recently. They are just missing polish. No idea how to reach out to the devs though unfortunately

Edited by realmadrid1809
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10 hours ago, nurver9 said:

As someone who has a somewhat in-depth understanding about the UI system in this game I would like to address a few of these points.

-Any Sprite Mods are now clipping through the entire PC
This is a mod bug. It has nothing to do with themes.

They always have clipped through every window they're used in, since about two or three years ago when the table guid files stopped being used. Now sprite mods will always be the size of the raw image, regardless of where it is displayed, even if a table guid file is assigned.

This isn't a bug, or the fault of mods(though they can be tailored correctly). It has been working as intended, and there are no restrictions in place for these mods. As Rache addressed above, there will be fixes for this on the developer's end. The sprite clipping within the Pokedex/Summary before this update did not lead to unreadable text, and was hardly disruptive- no matter the image scale. This is no longer the case.

10 hours ago, nurver9 said:

- Additional rows of PC boxes will scale the window, pushing Pokémon sprites further out of orientation
This can be changed via code extremely easily.

- Box "titles" aren't prominent at the very top, the text is thin & underwhelming
This can be changed via code extremely easily.

- The larger window makes multitasking more congested
This is directly affected by aforementioned code.

- When no Pokémon is selected, the window has 20% dead space, this will be a common visual
This is directly affected by aforementioned code.

I am definitely not curious as to how it works, considering I've such a strong opinion on the subject, thank you though. The point was to suggest changing it "via code" to the developers, this suggestion isn't necessarily related to GUI concerns, as not everyone uses custom themes.

 

It is a bit odd to address my concerns with screen congestion with a reference to how the code is laid out, considering it is a visual element, and I'd provided my own solution for it in the same post.. but alright.

10 hours ago, nurver9 said:

 - No ability to highlight a "?" to view the keyboard commands used for intuitive PC interactions
This has been removed from the game entirely. Has nothing to do with the theme itself.

- Box Names are visually 1 letter less & throws off any formatting using 5 characters
Not entirely sure what you're referencing here, possibly the old box size, not really sure.

- The UI window has been scaled up, and causes visual stretching on any customizations
This is irrelevant, the entire XML has been reworked essentially, over 1,000 lines modified

I'm not talking about a theme, it is a helpful icon- it provides players with useful shortcut keys, and has no business being removed.

 

I am talking about the Box Name, the name of the box, that is now restricted to 4 characters rather than 5. Not sure how to make that clearer, sorry.

 

Again, not referencing code here, I am talking about custom created images specifically for the PC that are now unusable, and will need editing.

 

To be clear, this suggestion is in reference to the UI of the PC, including how mods, themes, and users interact with it. It is not limited to theme concerns, nor do I have any confusion about how it is coded. I appreciate the time you've taken to reply, but a lot of what you've written is far removed from the actual discussion here.

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11 hours ago, realmadrid1809 said:

I'd love to help with that. Good/bad ui can make or break a game. After all it's what you interact with most of the time when you're playing.

 

There are some bugs that could be fixed even without giving us access to the code by adjusting like 2 lines in the default theme's xmls. E.g. the party bar having different sizes when locked/unlocked and the icons in the bag during battles moving around based on the amount of text that that item has.

 

You can tell they're trying to improve the ui by how many windows were being updated recently. They are just missing polish. No idea how to reach out to the devs though unfortunately

I wouldnt mind to actually help aswell, but they wont let anyone help, that would hurt their pride, cant let that happen.

Edited by razimove
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6 hours ago, Michelle said:

This isn't a bug, or the fault of mods(though they can be tailored correctly). It has been working as intended, and there are no restrictions in place for these mods. As Rache addressed above, there will be fixes for this on the developer's end. The sprite clipping within the Pokedex/Summary before this update did not lead to unreadable text, and was hardly disruptive- no matter the image scale. This is no longer the case.

I am definitely not curious as to how it works, considering I've such a strong opinion on the subject, thank you though. The point was to suggest changing it "via code" to the developers, this suggestion isn't necessarily related to GUI concerns, as not everyone uses custom themes.

 

It is a bit odd to address my concerns with screen congestion with a reference to how the code is laid out, considering it is a visual element, and I'd provided my own solution for it in the same post.. but alright.

I'm not talking about a theme, it is a helpful icon- it provides players with useful shortcut keys, and has no business being removed.

 

I am talking about the Box Name, the name of the box, that is now restricted to 4 characters rather than 5. Not sure how to make that clearer, sorry.

 

Again, not referencing code here, I am talking about custom created images specifically for the PC that are now unusable, and will need editing.

 

To be clear, this suggestion is in reference to the UI of the PC, including how mods, themes, and users interact with it. It is not limited to theme concerns, nor do I have any confusion about how it is coded. I appreciate the time you've taken to reply, but a lot of what you've written is far removed from the actual discussion here.

- This isn't a bug, or the fault of mods(though they can be tailored correctly).
It absolutely is, the game does not dynamically scale sprites depending on what widget container they're in. The table guid file is no longer utilized.

- It is a bit odd to address my concerns with screen congestion with a reference to how the code is laid out, considering it is a visual element, and I'd provided my own solution for it in the same post.. but alright.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how TWL/libgdx work to display the user interface in this game. This again circles back to the fact this content is a work in progress, showcased by the fact the CODE IS UNFINISHED IN THE XMLs AND THE PC GRAPHIC / SUMMARY PREVIEW SHOWN ABOVE IS CURRENTLY UNUSED.

XML CODE (that anyone can modify.) controls the layout of the widget. As you can see, we've already edited ours:Unbenannt.png

- I am talking about the Box Name, the name of the box, that is now restricted to 4 characters rather than 5. Not sure how to make that clearer, sorry.
client / server side change, has nothing to do with themes / xmls, but the GAME ITSELF, it is not UI (TWL) related.
 

-Again, not referencing code here, I am talking about custom created images specifically for the PC that are now unusable, and will need editing.

To be clear, this suggestion is in reference to the UI of the PC, including how mods, themes, and users interact with it.
The reason I replied to was to attempt to explain the state of files currently, as someone who is obviously familiar with them, like @realmadrid1809. In other-words, some form of constructive input besides "this looks bad."

-It is not limited to theme concerns, nor do I have any confusion about how it is coded. I appreciate the time you've taken to reply, but a lot of what you've written is far removed from the actual discussion here.
This circles back to not fully understanding how TWL/libgdx works, it seems like there is some confusion here. Most of what you outlined can be changed VIA XML CODE (by anyone- and will be, because as stated previously, this is obviously a work a progress, supported by the new unimplemented assets.) (further supported by the screenshot of our custom PC window, which does not scale depending on its container content.)

The features handled by the client / server would be the missing hotkey cheat sheet, ability to jump to searched monster and the button character limit. These are the real things that need to addressed- again, the reason why I "replied about the code" is because everything else is trivial. It can be changed- and WILL be changed, again, supported by the unimplemented assets.

I think a little light did need to be shined on this topic, as in fashion with the replies here- everyone thinks they're an armchair developer, why don't the devs revert this, why don't they just add this, etc.. It's much more involved than that.

 

Edited by nurver9
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