UI design concept mockup

[5weokjlksd]

Here is a (very) rough mockup of an improvement to the UI. I know there are other posts about improving the UI but they are fairly old and I feel that the ui is still very inefficient for the user, who would rather concentrate on the game rahter than fiddle with tiny close window buttons and be hassled by an overflow of toolbars in their face.
Here is my improved concept:


As you can see:
- The buttons become tabs essentially, so that only one toolbar can be opened at any one time, unless it is control clicked, then it opens on the right of the other toolbar, or if the current toolbar is pinned (that smudgy grey square), then the other toolbars open on its right
- Other buttons that open windows may also be opened at the same time, but they are not on the sidebar
- Windows can be minimized, which would preserve the window, but make it not as annoying as a floating pinned window
- The bar is on the side because of window space on today's rectangular screens though could just as easily be on the top. This could be configurable
Also note: the b=toolbar buttons are rotated the wrong way, I just couldnt be bothered turning every one

[Ters]

For some reason, I find stacks of varying length tools bars look more ugly when vertical. And having mutliple toolbars open at the same time is a must for me, I don't want to control click to do that. I think an ability to switch individual tool bars between horizontal and vertical at during play could be nice, but I might be wrong.

(It's not easy pleasing the Simutrans commuity.)

[Yona-TYT]

I think I minimize windows look good

[IgorEliezer]

(It's not easy pleasing the Simutrans community.)

It's not easy to please any community. Trust me, lurk some other communities once and then, I dare say this place is a paradise.

[Dwachs]

Windows can be minimized by right-click on title bar.

[Bear789]

I don't like the idea of the single toolbar.
Having multiple toolbars opened at the same time in usefull; usually, I have terraforming always open, along with the way tool I'm using at the moment. Sometimes multiple way toolbars are usefull too, for example when you need to rework a rail x road crossing or when building a multi modal station.

[almaf]

Windows can be minimized by right-click on title bar.

Thanks for the tip. I already learned something new today. 

[isidoro]

What about a hand mode, in which when the mouse is dragged the map underneath moves?  It would suit new touch screen interfaces...

[ӔO]

What about a hand mode, in which when the mouse is dragged the map underneath moves?  It would suit new touch screen interfaces...

I've tried simutrans on a touchscreen i5 ultrabook and none of the touch inputs were quick to respond. Some of them didn't work too well or at all either.

I'll have to try it out in a store again, but I think you couldn't scroll around, since there is no RMB with touch, while pinch to zoom in/out sort of works.

For touch to work...

one finger touch: LMB
two finger swipe: scroll
pinch: zoom in/out

also needs some kind of toggle for ctrl and shift, which is possible, considering most devices will do 10 finger touch, but what is intuitive vs. physically possible while holding the device in one hand is another.

[prissi]

You can have those single row toolbars to test them. Just set "toolbar_max_width = 1" in simuconf.tab to see them ...

[sdog]

There's another advantage from having vertical toolbars: The titlebar takes much less space on the screen.

Perhaps getting rid of the titlebar for horizontal toolbars, replacing it with two handles at either end, allowing draging, minimizing and dragging?

[Fabio]

Title bar is ok IMHO, but resizeable bars would be nice, especially if they could remember their size next time you open them, also across different gaming sessions (setting saved in settings.xml).

[Ters]

It would have to be a setting per pak set, as different pak sets have different tools, and hence toolbars of different sizes. If people also vary their add-ons frequently, they might like to have a setting for each combination of add-ons also.