DUI v1.3.2 is in progress - here's the current plan for it.



Once this little release is out the door, I have two options; fonts or themes.

:: Fonts

Fonts means support for bigger fonts than the current "Large" alternative, which won't really cut it if your monitor has a too high resolution for it's physical size (pretty common on laptops for instance), or if your eyesight just ain't what it used to be.

For the Font version I need to make everything dynamic:

- All positions have to be relative
- Lists will have to have their no. items be dynamic as space requires
- Any framed elements will need dynamic frames
- New fonts will have to be made

:: Themes

Themes are just cool, and will enable you to switch themes in game depending on your current mood, or if you want a different one down in that dark dungeon. http://ui.darnified.net/wip/1.3.1/theme_switch1.avi

Luchaire has been pretty busy on the theme front:
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16769
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16439
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16434
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16906
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16897
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16387
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16895

For the Theme version I need to:

- Make some sort of theme system - config files, etc.
- Rig all colors and images to use the new stuff

Both are pretty extensive, and will require me to rewrite/invent a lot of code in all menus. The next big one will ofcourse have both of these - this is just which of the two goes first.

I've been thinking about these for a long time, and can never seem to decide which to do, so here's your chance to make that decision for me.

Oh yes you know I'm downloading this, fonts or themes. Although I recommend themes, because the fonts are very extensive already.

Fonts. I don't even run at such high rez (only 1024x768), and the fonts (dialogue, mostly) are still a bit smaller than I'd like. But I'd also like the UI font to match the custom font 1-- I just find a unified (in terms of fonts) UI "neater" somehow.

Themes... only because fonts seem fine to me.

Themes for me as well, never had a trouble with fonts nor the desire to change or improve them.

Keep up the good work.

I voted for fonts. My computer rig just aint powerful enough for those higher resolutions so the small font is just a little too small for my tastes at 1024x768. Having the new fonts i might be finally able to move off Major Jims UI

I've developed this UI on 3 different monitors now:

17" CRT - 1024x768
19" CRT - 1280x960
24" LCD - 1920x1200

All of them using the "Normal" size. Still, complaints trickle in at a steady pace with the "fonts being too small".

A common misconception seems to be "High Resolution". The UI will scale according to the resolution, and 1920x1200, though it sounds high, really isn't on a 24" widescreen monitor. On anything less, you'll get in trouble though. Unfortunately, most people doesn't even consider this when buying monitors/laptops, and hence think I'm responsible for messing up their game.

Nobody is saying, or at least I am not saying, that you've messed up my game. I certainly want the fonts smaller-- we all know that the default UI is gigantic, and noticeably so.

What I at least mean is that the fonts as they are now are slightly too small for visual comfort. It's like the difference I find in Windows when selecting font sizes between 12 and 14, or 9 and 11. If you take the 12 to 14 example, if you consider the default UI size to be 16 (obviously gigantic and ridiculous), and 14 still big, but too big (or rather not small enough), then I would normally try 12 (which is where DarNs would be in this example). But 12 is "too small"-- not so small that I would say "oh, don't be silly, who can read this?" (as, say 10 would be), but it is noticeable to me that in order to read it, I have to re-focus my eyes to actually read it, although at that size I can see the words distinctly and they are attractive, recognizeable as word units, and legible... if I refocus my eyes on them. The discomfort of having to do that is small and subtle, but distinct, and becomes annoying. If this was the font I was choosing for my browser, for example, I would then go to 13 (which I usually do). What the difference is, I couldn't say, as that one pixel can't really be that objectively important, but somehow it makes the difference between the font being "appropriately small but comfortable" and "appropriately small but not comfortable".

My eyes are about "average bad"; I've worn glasses nearly all my life for near-sightedness, 24-7, and have just "upgraded" to bifocals, woo-hoo, but have never had to, for example, use one of those Windows themes for the visually impaired. I would imagine that people with (even) worse eyes than I have would find things somwhat more uncomfortable than I do, but I think I can be taken as a baseline for "average bad eyesight", in that I can see moderately well (for a nearsighted person) without my glasses, unlike some people I know who wear glasses 24-7. It's not like I could defuse a bomb-- or indeed read the text I'm typing now, without them, but I can see all the fields and most of the buttons as individual objects on the screen, even if I can't identify the icons on those buttons.

I don't have an issue with the inventory font size; it's so readable as a font (although I don't like that font, and it doesn't match Kingthings Calligraphia that I use for font 1), and the UI as a whole is so attractive at that size, that the fact that I might like one point larger is only a minor niggle.

Font 1 is, of course, not a problem, as I choose it myself.

It really seems to be the dialogue font-- which may be the same as the inventory font, for all I know, but somehow in the context of the subtitles is just slightly too small to read without active re-focus on the text; I can't just cast my eyes down from the NPC's face and read the text without doing so.

Button text is fine. Haven't noticed any problems with skill menu text (alchemy, armorer, etc). I still have the location text on, and that's a bit too big (unattractive), but not a big problem. The crosshair text is again a bit too small-- it's a little like the buzzing of a fly when you're trying to focus on something else (first thing I'm looking at is the icon to make sure I'm not commiting a crime, and there's this text that I can almost read under it, but I have to change my focus to it to do so).

And the H/M/F bars are also "too small", because they're not only thinner, but also shorter, so my scale perception (which is presumably not all that great in the first place, but that may just be me), gets kinda thrown for a loop (it's hard to see the difference between 10% and 30% of your health being gone, or judge how much of your Magicka pool any spell I cast has used or will use), but of course, I can re-scale them in the XML files (I think); I just haven't done so as yet.

Due to the color, thinness and size, the Durability bar is practically invisible/unnoticeable most of the time, but for one thing, I don't have a lot of use for it as yet, and I don't so much think that it should be some gaudy in-your-face thing all the time (or even part of the time). So if it encourages me to ignore it, I don't have a problem with that particularly.

That's what I understand when people say "It's too small", but that may just be me. On the positive side (and you know how much I love this UI), the whole thing just looks so elegant in its smallness, that that makes up for a lot of the niggles of it being slightly too small, and I at least would hate to impair that elegance in any way (which is why I don't "complain"). But if a happy medium could be found, well.... you would be my hero (yet again ).

The "Large" alternative would be your 13 I guess. The plan for the font version is to make sizes from this and up to font 1 size. That's as high as I'll go though.


Well, if you're wearing glasses with proper strength, you can ignore my "eyesight" comment. A lot of people seem to prefer squinting for whatever reason (vanity/comfort/money/denial/x) . This is from RL obsevations though, not mod users. This would help those as well.


The inventory font is font 2. Legibility hinges a lot on contrast I think, and black on tan works well.

I can't promise I'll match all font 1 choices for the smaller sizes, as that would really mess up the legibility, but I had maybe 3 or 4 options in mind (sans-serif, serif, petrock + TBD). I'll do a vote again as I did for font 1. There will be a tutorial on how to make your own font, which should satisfy everyone's font desires.



The dialogue font is font 3, ie. medium. 2 is small and 1 is large. You can try moving the text, or setting the background alpha higher to get the contrast up a bit.


Location text is font 3. Too big for location and too small for dialogue.


The "Scale" setting should take care of the H/M/F bars, and also help the durability bar somewhat (it follows weapon icon width). By default the entire hud is @50% of vanilla - you could try 60% or 75% for scale. A font version would enable scale for the text as well. I wish Bethesda could make a zoom for text, I really do.

That said, I have plans for some enhancements to the hud later. There will be numeric values for all the bars, which shows you exactly how much Magicka that last spell cost you.

Themes, since the fonts seem fine to me.

Yeah my monitors have been very very svcky in general. And most of my time playing oblivion has actually been on 800x600 resolution. Its only relativly recently i've been able to move up to 1024x768 :celebration:

I choose themes. Fonts are not a big problem. There exists a program that someone has written that allows you to import your own fonts into the game.

I choose fonts. (because "themes" means I have to get off my duff and finish the other half dozen or so themes I had started way back when... )

Well, themes are in the lead 2:1 right now, so I sense a very busy Luchaire in our near future.

I voted for themes.

The fonts are fine as they are imo.

I voted themes, but I'm good either way. The themes thing would just let me try out different themes a bit easier, or maybe make light and dark choices for different places.

*mutter*

In truth, I promise nothing. The new semester starts soon and from then on, I'm going to be extremely busy... I've sort of put off the dissertation as long as I could.

No worries. I have a few to get started with already. Hopefully I'll have a system in place where the user can download and add themes themselves as they become available. Note the "hopefully" part there, as I have no idea exactly how to do this - I just feel it should be possible...

A system to integrate themes better would make me very happy.

Fonts!

Ok, what happened to the results?

You edited the OP? That resets the votes only people can't re-vote again. :mellow:

Hm. I did. Lovely piece of crap this forum software is. Anything I can do short of starting a new thread?

Was wondering the same thing.

My thoughts: I recently tried your mod again (last time was like a year+ ago). The mod has great features... but I have to agree with the fonts thing. I run at 1680x1050 on a 22", and they're just too small for me. I think an ideal size would be bigger than the current but smaller than BTMod (which is what I still end up using). Of course if you make it scalable that wouldn't be an issue. Someone mentioned it before, but I think the biggest issue is the size in dialogues - the rest I can deal with.

You mean the npc dialog/subtitle text?