Improving the UI (interface) feedback

[Kimiko]

Hello there!

I'd love to get your feedback on how you think the UI in Tabletop Simulator could be improved. I understand there are a LOT of controls and it's hard to get them all to fit how we want. So this is your chance to give us feedback on what you think would make using these controls much better. Please post all your ideas here. If you have images to demonstrate a point, please do post as the more info to help us improve the UI, the better.

Thanks!

ps. This is not a features thread for anything to add, just suggestions on making the UI better. Re-doing the entire thing is definitely an option. We'd just like to know from a user standpoint what would work best for you all.

[Owengraven]

Well for me, and I'm rather new to the game, I think it would be cool if you'd took inspiration from material design.

[url]https://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html[/url]

A clear, but not too bloated UI with a lot of options underneath seems good, like... simple so anyone can easely play and have access to basic options but the adepts can also go through all the more advanced features too.

I know UI design isn't easy at all, and I kinda like how the one now works, but having it material like would futureproof it for a bit.

Also maybe an advanced tutorial that learns you all the good stuff like pressing numbers to draw X number of cards and other things would be great (not directly UI but still)

[Owengraven]

I also think merging the games and workshop selection screen would be fun, like make it one big list with thumbnails.

[dizneyguy]

Brought this over from the 'Suggestions' section... but if I could I'd have taken this whole thread over there.

We need hotkeys to open some of the most used menus in the game, such as chest and options. There should be a slot for each menu in the button configure screen, or if that is too much clutter on the config menu you should add a simple command to bind keys to menus ex. " /bind [Button] [Action/Menu] ' /bind L chest"

And my 2 cents would be to add a hotkey for the script editor ... if the general mechanism ImCreep suggested for adding any key for any menu isn't in the cards.

[Banbury]

How about a property editor, that's fixed to one side of the screen. When you select an object, it's properties are displayed in the editor. It would unify the UI, as all objects handle similar. And the window wouldn't disappear from the screen, if you select something close to the edge of the screen. It would make working with many objects easier, since you wouldn't have to reopen the dialog every time, you select a new object. (Currently it's easier for me to edit the JSON directly, than using the UI.)
It also would make the life of your developers easier, as they wouldn't have to create a new dialog every time, they add a new object type.

[Jeff]

When a user purchases DLC, why not have that DLC be added to the "Games" section, instead of just staying in the DLC section.

Or, place a gold border or something to denote the user has purchased the DLC (without needing to hover the mouse over it)

On the Games screen, allow the user to have a 'Favorites' section, where he can 'star' his favorites and they could be displayed across the top, horizontally

The Workshop list could really use some help. a) when I sort it, it doesn't stay sorted between sessions. you could add an option to allow the sort to persist. b) workshop items could be organized. allow the user to create folders or categories for entries in the list c) when hovering on a workshop item, allow the user to press F2 to rename the item. or d) you could just rework the Workshop list entirely and make it a full page of thumbnails of the box art!

IMO, it would be nice to have Load Game on the Main Menu (saves the user a couple of steps).

thanks for all the great work. awesome simulator!

[LordAshes]

Although you can get around it with scripting, it would be nice for the right content menu to expose more of the common properties such as Position and Rotation. Currently when setting up the initial layout of a game the user either needs to manually position the objects (with no align tools available) or use scripting. While this works, it would be nice to be able to click on the object and enter the desired values instead of having to put it in the onLoad script, run it and then remove it.

[LordAshes]

Maybe having some align tools would not be back either. For example, Align Top, Align Middle, Align Bottom, Align Right, Align Centre and Align Left. This could then also be expanded to align function such as Space Evenly Horizontally, Space Evenly Vertically and Grid. I guess in a real (physical) game you would not be laying out the components exactly but in a virtual world some people may prefer an exact alignment to make the visual presentation look better.

[Big Daddy]

I cast a strong vote for touch capabilities that eliminate the need for a keyboard unless absolutely necessary. It completely changes what this platform can be for me and my colleagues (I have a 55" touch screen table I built - I'd be very happy to be an alpha/beta tester for current builds)

Also, side note: I saw one post that said you have to configure the current basic touch in the software, but I haven't found any option that "turns on" touch. Am I missing something?

Thank you!!!

[LordAshes]

The improvement to camera save positions are great but I wish that they had added camera tags/names/description.

Currently when the game loads it tells you something like "Camera #1, 2, 3, 4 available". Would it not be much better if we saw something like this instead:

Cameras available:

#1 - Top down of main play area
#2 - Top down of main play area zoomed out to include all player hands
#3 - Game box with additional pieces
#4 - Rule book

I would suggest that when a camera is saved it would prompt the user for a description which would be displayed on load to avoid having the players have to cycle through all the cameras to determine which camera is which.

I guess in the meantime game/workshop creators can add such messages to the onLoad section so that they will display to all players once the game is loaded. The downside of this is if more camera views are added or the existing ones are changed then the creator also needs to remember to update the onLoad messages.

[Berdryn]

I would like to see a more robust chat element for the UI. Where you have global, Game, team.. I think a new tab should be added for each private whisper to a player. I want this tab to have the game master and the player with the option to add other players and remove them. I'd really like to see a way to select and copy text from the chat window as well as a way to save all to a text file.

There is a RPG program out there made in pythonx and I think lua? OpenRPG has a strong chat system but lacks in everything else.

[Huffel]

I already posted it in the suggestions forum:
[url]http://www.berserk-games.com/forums/showthread.php?3141-Multi-language-support[/url]

I'd like to see multi language support. It would not have to be for all DLC but just the main game and support for multi language mods would be nice.