New UI - same as the old UI

[Bleak Midwinter]

I've just installed the Unity version and I have to say ... I'm disappointed to see the UI is so similar to the previous version. This seems like an opportunity for a clean UI with less space taken up with unnecessary decals, textures and so on. For example, in the Setup screen the buttons appear to have left/right arrows (indicating you can cycle forwards or backwards on things like the background decal) but they don't work as arrows at all.

What are our chances of getting a simple text-based UI with lists that come out, similar to that used on a website? By all means leave the graphically fancy option, but I'd like an easier-to-read interface for my hard-of-sight player.

[Andraax]

I've just installed the Unity version and I have to say ... I'm disappointed to see the UI is so similar to the previous version.

That's one of the things I like about the Unity version.

[Zacchaeus]

The UI is mainly determined by rulesets and rulesets aren't changing that much - hence the same look and feel is carried over to Unity. Changing the UI would require a considerable rewrite of the entire client and all of the rulesets. Also I'm with Andraax on this one too.

[boog]

I'm with Bleak Midwinter, looking forward to a UI release that uses a more modern style. The current UI is why I haven't been able to get my group on board with using it, it is the roadblock for us. Smiteworks finally got the unity beta out, so I have hope that the UI gets dragged in to the modern era sooner or later :)

[Andraax]

Since the UI is mostly tied to the ruleset, you are free to write your own ruleset that has whatever UI you'd like...

[Kelrugem]

There are already very often and large discussions about that (and I am in the camp for the actual UI, too, I like these "graphically fancy options" for a more immersive game :) but I understand when one likes different things though).

Just about the visual thing: Do you not like the simple grey theme as here?

30324

Or simple brown?

30326

(the functionality is of course the same, I'm only speaking about the visuals because you mentioned them, too) They look very modern in my opinion :) But I've seen in many discussions that what is modern depends on the user, too :D I never had the feeling that there is a general consensus about these things :D

[boog]

There are already very often and large discussions about that (and I am in the camp for the actual UI, too, I like these "graphically fancy options" for a more immersive game :) but I understand when one likes different things though).

Just about the visual thing: Do you not like the simple grey theme as here?

30324

Or simple brown?

30326

(the functionality is of course the same, I'm only speaking about the visuals because you mentioned them, too) They look very modern in my opinion :) But I've seen in many discussions that what is modern depends on the user, too :D I never had the feeling that there is a general consensus about these things :D

It's the functionality that I am referring to. The wheel menu in particular, when I or a player right click an area and get the wheel menu instead of a list of options in text form, it's a bit jarring. FG certainly has a lot going for it, but the interaction for new users requires a very sharp learning curve, one that my group and I are not totally on board with climbing. Having UI elements that behave like other UI elements in an OS, linx or windows or mac, would be a big step to getting us moved over.

Maybe the term I need to use is UX? Not my area of expertise, by any stretch, but I know that no other software I interact with behaves like FG, and that is stopping me from moving over to it. Like I said, I know the team is working hard, I just hope they clean the interface up at some point so new users don't have to spend hours/days learning how to work with the software before they can start gaming.

[Kelrugem]

It's the functionality that I am referring to. The wheel menu in particular, when I or a player right click an area and get the wheel menu instead of a list of options in text form, it's a bit jarring. FG certainly has a lot going for it, but the interaction for new users requires a very sharp learning curve, one that my group and I are not totally on board with climbing. Having UI elements that behave like other UI elements in an OS, linx or windows or mac, would be a big step to getting us moved over.

Maybe the term I need to use is UX? Not my area of expertise, by any stretch, but I know that no other software I interact with behaves like FG, and that is stopping me from moving over to it. Like I said, I know the team is working hard, I just hope they clean the interface up at some point so new users don't have to spend hours/days learning how to work with the software before they can start gaming.

Ah, sorry, I basically answered to Bleak Midwinter :) Therefore I answered about the visuals :)

I understand that one has to get used to certain things, personally, for me the radial was never a problem (except, at the very beginning, to find out how to close the program :D for this it would be nice to have a button in the options menu, too, because there I was intuively looking at then). Personally I like the radial menu but I understand that one has to get used to it. I view FG as a tool for DMs and therefore I expected to get used to some things as typical for tools :) Yes, maybe your approach would be better but I also see the problem with respect to coding, a lot of things would have to be changed to switch the behaviour there. I do not know if that is worth the costs and time, but I also already got used to it, so I am surely a bit biased here :)

[boog]

Ah, sorry, I basically answered to Bleak Midwinter :) Therefore I answered about the visuals :)

Oops! My bad :)


I understand that one has to get used to certain things, personally, for me the radial was never a problem (except, at the very beginning, to find out how to close the program :D for this it would be nice to have a button in the options menu, too, because there I was intuively looking at then). Personally I like the radial menu but I understand that one has to get used to it. I view FG as a tool for DMs and therefore I expected to get used to some things as typical for tools :) Yes, maybe your approach would be better but I also see the problem with respect to coding, a lot of things would have to be changed to switch the behaviour there. I do not know if that is worth the costs and time, but I also already got used to it, so I am surely a bit biased here :)


I don't doubt that it is a significant undertaking to uncouple the code for the interface from the code for the games, and that plenty of people have adjusted to it over the years :) I just hope the FG team takes on cleaning up the UI/UX at some point for us new users :) Regardless, cheers for a friendly online forum discussion :beers:

[Kelrugem]

I don't doubt that it is a significant undertaking to uncouple the code for the interface from the code for the games, and that plenty of people have adjusted to it over the years :) I just hope the FG team takes on cleaning up the UI/UX at some point for us new users :) Regardless, cheers for a friendly online forum discussion :beers:

yeah, we will see what comes in the future :) (:coffee: :D)

[LordEntrails]

Given the following two facts;
1) No UI/UX will please everyone, and in general no single approach will generally be perfect for any given majority of users.
2) The existing UI/UX is indeed appreciated and desired by a large group of existing users

I doubt the core rulesets will ever use a substantially different interface until our human-computer interface changes from a mainly keyboard-mouse one.

In the mean time, their is a lot someone can do with a community extension, and can even write their own rulesets that have generally any UI/UX they desire (with some limitations since not everything is accessible via the API).

Not intending to discourage anyone who wishes for a different UI/UX, just hoping to make clear some of the extent of the issue.

[Zacchaeus]

As an example there's this extension which does something which is apparently a thing in other UI's https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?51659-FGTabber-More-space-for-your-FG-client

[rkohli]

Not sure if I should post this here or under a new topic, but I had previously created my own background and decal for my campaign and these aren't showing under Unity. How do I go about recreating them in Unity?
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[Zacchaeus]

Not sure if I should post this here or under a new topic, but I had previously created my own background and decal for my campaign and these aren't showing under Unity. How do I go about recreating them in Unity?

Did you copy over your extension from Classic?

[Valarian]

I like the UI. The right click and radial icon content menu is fine with me. It saves me having to go to the top of the screen a lot as per windows standard interfaces. A lot less moving of the mouse back and forth. The radial icons are in place and with a few quick movements of the mouse, I've selected the option I want.

[rkohli]

Did you copy over your extension from Classic?

I made that stuff a while ago and can't quite recall how I did it. I hoped that copying over the campaign folder would be enough, but maybe I need some additional steps? I'll revisit it later today when I have a little time.

[Zacchaeus]

I made that stuff a while ago and can't quite recall how I did it. I hoped that copying over the campaign folder would be enough, but maybe I need some additional steps? I'll revisit it later today when I have a little time.

A background and/or a decal will have been created as an extension - you won't find it in your campaign. So check your extensions folder and copy the file for your background or decal into the extensions folder in Unity and make sure you select it in the campaign start screen. Absolutely no telling if it will work in Unity.

[lozanoje]

I've just installed the Unity version and I have to say ... I'm disappointed to see the UI is so similar to the previous version. This seems like an opportunity for a clean UI with less space taken up with unnecessary decals, textures and so on. For example, in the Setup screen the buttons appear to have left/right arrows (indicating you can cycle forwards or backwards on things like the background decal) but they don't work as arrows at all.

What are our chances of getting a simple text-based UI with lists that come out, similar to that used on a website? By all means leave the graphically fancy option, but I'd like an easier-to-read interface for my hard-of-sight player.

As already has been mentioned, the UI is mainly determined by the extension you are using. It is truth that Smite has never payed too much attention to the visual design of the different rulesets extensions. They are mainly ugly... and mostly functional.

But with Unity coming, some new extensions shows that the framework is able to create really beauty UIs. For example, the one of Vampire 5th; IMHO this extension is really cool, and the only difference is that a guy has created new cool images and tokens to look like the following:

https://i.ibb.co/BnvNSzd/screenshot-30.jpg (https://ibb.co/Z2vmkLt)
https://i.ibb.co/rbWfzPY/screenshot-31.jpg (https://ibb.co/mvxF2sk)
https://i.ibb.co/pxpjh1q/screenshot-32.jpg (https://ibb.co/rmJ2dQ9)

[The High Druid]

This is a good example of people liking different things - I much prefer the icons used in the wotc theme to the "cool images" used in v5

[Trenloe]

There's really nothing different between the FG Classic and the FG Unity UI graphical capabilities, a theme will look the same in both.

Themes take a lot of work and require different skills to those needed to create rulesets. As @The High Druid says, a lot of this is down to personal preference. I've seen in the past many hours spent giving a ruleset a specific look and feel and some people liked it and some people hated it (Rolemaster Classic, Call of Cthulhu 6e, etc.). Hence why a lot of FG devs don't invest much more time on the graphical look - after they've spent hundreds of hours just getting the code working. They'll leave this to others to make themes that they like - and this is done via FG extensions, with the process being the same for FG Classic or Unity.

[lozanoje]

This is a good example of people liking different things - I much prefer the icons used in the wotc theme to the "cool images" used in v5

I dont have that WotC theme in mind and dont know if that tokens are cool or not; in fact, the right panel is the thing I like less from VtM, I prefer much more the ones from SWADE. But I like a lot the VtM aesthetics: frames, images, decals; as you said, people liking different styles.

[rkohli]

A background and/or a decal will have been created as an extension - you won't find it in your campaign. So check your extensions folder and copy the file for your background or decal into the extensions folder in Unity and make sure you select it in the campaign start screen. Absolutely no telling if it will work in Unity.

Cool, that did the trick. Thank you.

[pollux]

It's true that a lot of the visual specifics are determined by theme and ruleset, but there are other ways that the FGC and FGU user experience is objectively weird by modern standards:


The dice color picker WORKS in a weird way, it doesn't just have weird art, The Smiteworks team knows this which is why they used a more standard color picker in the map-editor. Now there are two different widgets for color picking in FGU and they work very differently. This isn't ruleset or theme driven.
There are a couple of common models for pan and zoom in image windows, and FGC/FGU doesn't use any of them. Also not ruleset or theme driven.
The process for adding/removing items from lists is also unique, weird, and is not in any way "better" than more standard approaches. This is also a widget behavior that is not ruleset or theme driven.


These are things that various existing users may like or not like, but the experts that design UI's across the industry have spoken with more or less one voice... and they're saying something very different from what the FGC/FGU widget toolkit does. Also, a common refrain from non-users is that FGC/FGU have difficult to navigate UI's. Even if there are current users that like these behaviors, their numbers are dwarfed by the number of non-users that don't like the behaviors. Fixing this stuff is hard, and I don't fault Smiteworks for not tackling it during the FGU transition, which is already at the very limit of what the company has the manpower to achieve in a big bang... but making the UI more approachable to new users and massively reducing the number of times someone struggles to accomplish a basic task like resizing a window, picking a color, or adding an item to a list is a big deal and they're all issues in the widget toolkit, not in the rulesets (though it might take ruleset changes to improve them without breaking existing layouts).

[niknas]

These are things that various existing users may like or not like, but the experts that design UI's across the industry have spoken with more or less one voice... and they're saying something very different from what the FGC/FGU widget toolkit does. Also, a common refrain from non-users is that FGC/FGU have difficult to navigate UI's. Even if there are current users that like these behaviors, their numbers are dwarfed by the number of non-users that don't like the behaviors.
This. The response from all the new players to FG is how awkward the UI is compared to other software, complex or not. Sure, you may get used to it but is still sufficiently jarring every time. Now I have the problem of my players wanting to use DNDBeyond instead for all things character which disqualifies much of the automation stuff in FG. Ah well.

[Neovirtus]

This. The response from all the new players to FG is how awkward the UI is compared to other software, complex or not. Sure, you may get used to it but is still sufficiently jarring every time. Now I have the problem of my players wanting to use DNDBeyond instead for all things character which disqualifies much of the automation stuff in FG. Ah well.

I'm about as ardent a supporter Fantasy Grounds as you can get, but anyone who says the UI is anything other than unconventional and unintuitive is kidding themselves. Without fail, every player I introduce to the platform can't figure out how to type in a text box or change a stat value. That's... bad.

It's unnecessarily strange, and it is definitely the biggest part of the learning curve to using the platform. I truly do not understand the devotion of the old guard users to this aspect of the program. I get that changing it would be a lot of work, and probably isn't worth it in the short term but to say it isn't an issue is puzzling to me.

[damned]

the reason many people prefer the current method is because it works.
the easiest thing in the world to say is - it should be different
very few people even propose how a single part of the interface should be - they s=just say they dont like how it is
RPGs are incredibly complex. they have so many rules, exceptions to rules and exceptions to exceptions.
how to present an interface that is intuitive to use that can handle that is... not trivial.

in almost every case there is a good reason why something is done the way it is.
if you would like to see change - be specific. be very specific. and also think about how changing the UI for one thing can make the UI more complex if the rest of the UI does things differently.

[pollux]

very few people even propose how a single part of the interface should be


Windows should move only when you grab them by the title bar, not when you grab their body. The issue here isn't whether you or I enjoy grabbing the body vs the title bar. The issue is that it's not possible to provide a consistent body-grabbing experience because widgets in the body need to provide left-click behaviors of their own. Users get confused about which parts of the body they can click to move and which parts have a different behavior. If you click the wrong part, you might now know what you did or how to undo it or even if it needs to be undone. For example I frequently move map windows while trying to grab things in the map. Limiting the grabby/move area to the title-bar ensures there's no clash with whatever left-click behaviors the child-widgets have.
The dice color picker should look like the map tools color picker. No modern widget toolkit takes an approach like this for their color picker.
Adding and removing items from lists should not be a modal activity. There should be a +/- widget like on OSX, or selection toggles and action buttons like gmail, or it should be right-click driven. Again, no modern widget toolkit takes an approach similar to what FG does.
Fields on character sheets should gain a context-sensitive right-click menu. If the field is editable, that's an option in the right-click list. If there are a variety of click, double-click, drag, modifier click/drag functions for the field, they're duplicated here as menu items that are easily discoverable... so if you don't know how to interact with a field you can always right-click on it to learn more about what it can do.
Eliminate rotary menus. Replace them with "normal" right-click menus with textual entry names or text+icons. The rotary menus have no textual description until you mouse-over each item, which makes it very slow to explore them. They also artificially limit the number simultaneously visible menu items, leading to multi-level rotary menus... which further increases the effort required to explore them and to remember how to navigate them. They require more mouse movement and more complex (circular vs linear) mouse movement to navigate than "normal" right-click menus. No modern widget toolkit outside the video games industry uses rotary menus in mouse-driven applications because they are more difficult to navigate. The reason the video-game industry DOES sometimes use them is because they work really well for joystick/controller driven experiences... but FGC/FGU doesn't support that.


None of that stuff has anything to do with the complexity of making RPG applications, it's all basic widget interactions that all UI's need to perform regardless of the problem domain... and FGC/FGU's RPG use-cases are not unique with respect to these basic interactions. FGC/FGU aren't just a singular VTT... they provide a lua engine, standard library, AND GRAPHICAL WIDGET TOOLKIT for creating many RPG applications... and although our use cases for those widgets are not unique, the approaches the FGC/FGU widget tookit take to common UI requirements are often very unique. That leads to user surprise and frustration that isn't about TTRPG's being complex.

With the amount of time and thought the devs have put into creating these widgets, I don't think the problem is that they aren't aware of the ways in which they differ from industry standards, that they don't understand the value of complying with such standards, or don't have ideas about what improved compliance would look like. The problem is that messing with widgets breaks ruleset layouts. Some of these strange decisions go back to the very beginning of FGC, and as they built out new features they always found ways to build on top of those unusual behaviors rather than change them... but the result is not consistent with any external reference point and that makes it confusing to new users (or even casual repeat users). The good news is that for new functionality they're already leaning on the more conventional widgets that Unity provides... as shown by the map tools color picker and the map/los sidebar for images which are both wonderfully boring and unsurprising in terms of fundamental widget behaviors. Changing the existing behavior of frequently used FGC-era widgets like lists would be a lot of work, and I'm glad that Smiteworks didn't try to pile it on to the FGU transition. But I equally think the status quo causes new user pain on a daily basis and that it's a valuable investment to consider in the future. Possibly when FGC is retired it can become possible to add new Lua APIs that point to Unity widgets and begin the long process of porting rulesets over to use the new widgets.

[wyndhydra]

As a new user I couldn't agree more with @pollux's thoughts on the issue. Having no basis for what it is I have watched hours of videos to get to a point where I understand how/why things happen in FG. As a user of a computer for the last 30 odd years I feel like everything I inherently want to try is wrong for the toolset in FGU. I understand that it has likely huge development ramifications, but I would hope that it will be something that might be worked on slowly after the major bugs are sorted out.

[damned]

My replies are my opinions and thoughts and nothing more:

Windows should move only...
I agree, at least once a session I move a map instead of a token. Flip side considerations include: currently windows can be moved partially off screen and this could result in the toolbar not being available. That behaviour too would have to change. Does that result in reduced functionality? If you close an instance of FG that is spread over two+ screens on a smaller screen you could have same situation with Windows not being moveable. I imagine the moving on left click was done because of limited screen sizes and window sprawl necessitating more window moving but thats a guess.

The dice color picker should...
Used GU minimally but i see no reason not to use a common colour picker. Especially if they already have one...

Adding and removing items from lists...
What lists dont have +/- widgets? I see no downside to also having right click options to do the same.

Fields on character sheets should...
Non trivial change but that would be good.

Eliminate rotary menus. Replace them...
That is as much an Aesthetic decision as any other in terms of why they use the current system. The owners of FG dont want FG to look the same, they like that it has some character. There are few radial menus that need more than 6 options. Agree there are many poorly designed icons though they are better now than before.

None of that stuff has anything to do with the complexity of making RPG applications....
My comment wasnt about coding it was about how RPGs require complex interactions. Many are not either/or choices. Take STR in AD&D for example. Its done completely differently to the other 5 Attributes. AC can be made up of Armour and Dex and, well an infinite number of other things that can add to AC. But then you also have things like Bark Skin and Mage Armour and how they follow similar but different rules. How to manage those in a consistent way in a GUI? If you are going to make changes make sure the changes support things like that.
Most rulesets are created by different programmers with different experience and different strengths and weaknesses and different visions for their product. This also leads to different UI implementations. And some of these have been developed over a span greater than 10 years which means they have many legacy decisions and legacy design inputs.
If there were a bunch of pre-built standard widgets a lot of the differences would go away. And I dont think that this doesnt exist because of a lack of need but because that project has never gotten to the top of anyones priority lists. Small team, lots of things to do, gotta prioritise based on whatever their internal pressures/motives are.

[damned]

I would like to see something like:

When you minimise a Story entry it minimizes to (example) the f5 key. When you click the f5 key all minimised (not closed) stories will be in a pup up list.
Same for Notes, monsters, encounters, images, spells, whatever

For the most part, the longer Ive used FG the more I enjoy the interface.

[notrealdan]

I would also add that resizing windows in FG should be possible from any corner and side of the window, not only the bottom-right corner and the right and bottom sides.

[pollux]

Adding and removing items from lists...
What lists dont have +/- widgets?

The D&D 5e story list (and every other major top-level list) lacks +/- widgets in the default/view mode. They have an edit button that makes you enter/exit an edit mode. I hope the usability impact of that difference is immediately clear, but this is getting excessively long so I'll just baldly assert that modal interfaces are more difficult to use and understand.


Eliminate rotary menus. Replace them...
That is as much an Aesthetic decision as any other in terms of why they use the current system.

None of these choices can be binary-classified as "aesthetic" or "functional". They all have implications of both types. It may be true that the rotary wheel choice was made primarily with concern for aesthetic impacts... or a less charitable phrasing would be... made without concern for usability impacts. My contention is that the more important impacts to new users are the usability impacts, irrespective of the intent of the designers. Windows, OSX, GTK, QT, and wxWidgets all eschew rotary-style context menus not out of some aesthetic herd mentality, but because rotary menus are more difficult for novice users to navigate.


None of that stuff has anything to do with the complexity of making RPG applications....
Most rulesets are created by different programmers with different experience and different strengths and weaknesses and different visions for their product. This also leads to different UI implementations. And some of these have been developed over a span greater than 10 years which means they have many legacy decisions and legacy design inputs. If there were a bunch of pre-built standard widgets a lot of the differences would go away. And I dont think that this doesnt exist because of a lack of need but because that project has never gotten to the top of anyones priority lists. Small team, lots of things to do, gotta prioritise based on whatever their internal pressures/motives are.

I'm not an expert in the Lua scripting system in FGC/FGU, but I'm fairly certain that there ARE a bunch of pre-built standard widgets (and that it's not possible to create your own custom widgets... only to attach some limited script-behaviors to designated hook-in points. The crux of the issue is that even as an expert UI designer, one cannot use those pre-built widgets to emulate the behaviors of standard graphical toolkits because they don't support those behaviors.

It's ALSO true that ruleset developers without a background in UX can assemble the widgets into forms that add their own additional dimensions of non-intuitiveness beyond what is inherent in the standard-widgets, and I'm pretty much ok with that. The democratic nature of FGC/FGU's ruleset creation has allowed us to have support for so many rulesets that would otherwise never have been implemented... and weird UI in those niche rulesets is a totally reasonable tradeoff for that. But in marquis rulesets like D&D 5e and Pathfinder, it should be POSSIBLE to create boring and unsurprising UIs and it isn't today.


When you minimise a Story entry it minimizes to (example) the f5 key. When you click the f5 key all minimised (not closed) stories will be in a pup up list.
Same for Notes, monsters, encounters, images, spells, whatever

This sounds like another bespoke solution to a problem that the industry has accepted solutions for. Tabs and virtual desktops are well-established metaphors to address this use-case. We should build on those patterns rather than invent something new. But this is also a different kind of UI problem. It's a missing feature, the other things that I and others are pointing out are features that exist... but that violate user expectations.


For the most part, the longer Ive used FG the more I enjoy the interface.

I agree, but that's also part of the problem. D&D Beyond, Arkenforge, and Astral are setting a new bar for usability in the VTT space. They all lack an enormous number of features compared to FGU, and with the exception of DDB they lack revenue generating licenses. But they're getting new features every month, and doing so with an intuitive user-experience that makes novice users feel comfortable immediately rather than being an acquired taste. At some point in the reasonably near future, the feature gap will get small enough that FGU will have to compete with younger VTTs directly on ease of use. Doing so will be difficult, require time and investment, and is worth advocating for exactly because the people in this forum have learned to love the current interface. The people who couldn't learn to love it mostly aren't here to speak for themselves.

[superteddy57]

We do listen to our users and are currently working on streamlining the UI to assist in development and also user experience. If you have suggestions and ideas, we would love to hear it here:

https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

[The High Druid]

I very much hope we don't migrate to a world of right-click drop-down menus, or, if they are introduced it's in a fashion where we can retain the current system or move to the new via an option. One of the (many) reasons I prefer FG to the competition is that it doesn't look or behave like the front end of an access database, like some other VTTs I could mention.

[superteddy57]

Well currently I am working on two projects to help streamline some of the coding on the back end for developers with the sidebar and adding more functionality to the frames to reduce right clicking.

Standard Headers
32789

This will add buttons to the top of frames to assist cleaning up the frame and getting to commonly used features in the radial.

Standard Sidebar
32790

This project is more seen on the back end to simplify adding new library entries for the database to track. The sidebar only needs now to be defined in the data_library.lua file and will create the sidebar entry without any additional work. For theming it is now a single graphic to track and change to your whim. Also created additional functionality to focus the Library itself and the sidebar having it's own options.

These are but a few of the things we are attempting currently that hope to make things a bit easier on all fronts.

[wndrngdru]

Standard Headers
This will add buttons to the top of frames to assist cleaning up the frame and getting to commonly used features in the radial.

Standard Sidebar
The sidebar only needs now to be defined in the data_library.lua file and will create the sidebar entry without any additional work. For theming it is now a single graphic to track and change to your whim. Also created additional functionality to focus the Library itself and the sidebar having it's own options.


omg. :drool:

[damned]

The D&D 5e story list (and every other major top-level list) lacks +/- widgets in the default/view mode...
why does it do this? becuse not everyone has the same size screen you do. the widgets are not there because screen space is a consideration for many users. having the buttons there all the time consumes space.

My contention is that the more important impacts to new users...
Do you have quantitative data to support that? Every game i connect to the GM is running something that customises the look and feel of their desktop. I contend to you that aesthetics are important to a significant portion of the userbase.
I agree that a plain boring right click menu with text is faster and easier to use. Is that more important than something that is interesting and still has the same utility? I dont have the answer.

but that violate user expectations...
Its not just those that program in FG that like its UI to one degree or another. Its far from black and white.

D&D Beyond, Arkenforge, and Astral are setting...
No one product is either going to suit everyone nor capture the whole market. These other entrants are surely going to push everyone in this space to do better which is great.

Im not disregarding what you say. I am pointing out that your view may also not be as universally held as you think. Or it might be. Changing something to bring on new customers is a great idea but it might not be so great if it annoys your current customers.

[pollux]

The D&D 5e story list (and every other major top-level list) lacks +/- widgets in the default/view mode...
why does it do this? becuse not everyone has the same size screen you do. the widgets are not there because screen space is a consideration for many users. having the buttons there all the time consumes space.

I didn't suggest that +/- widgets are the only way to eliminate modal list management: "Adding and removing items from lists should not be a modal activity. There should be a +/- widget like on OSX, or selection toggles and action buttons like gmail, or it should be right-click driven. Again, no modern widget toolkit takes an approach similar to what FG does." There is no question in my mind that it's possible to design a non-modal add/remove UI without excessive use of screen space.

Also, while it's useful to consider why FG takes the approaches that it takes... why stop there? It's equally valid to question why other systems take the approaches they take. When there is consensus elsewhere, why does that consensus exist? When FG has a unique solution, what is unique about our use case that makes it necessary to use a bespoke solution that requires new users to learn something different. Screen real estate is even more valuable in Photoshop than in Fantasygrounds, but Photoshop doesn't use a modal interface to add and remove layers from the layer list. The reason that modal list editors are vanishingly rare in other applications is not at all because screen real-estate isn't valuable there. It's because it's much harder to discover functionality that is hidden behind modes, harder to remember where that functionality is, and that contributes to a negative experience for novice users.



My contention is that the more important impacts to new users...
Do you have quantitative data to support that? Every game i connect to the GM is running something that customises the look and feel of their desktop. I contend to you that aesthetics are important to a significant portion of the userbase.
I agree that a plain boring right click menu with text is faster and easier to use. Is that more important than something that is interesting and still has the same utility? I dont have the answer.

Why would a normal right-click menu preclude theming in a flavorful way? One could texture the background in stone and have fonts that look like engravings. One could animate submenus in and out of existence with a flame effect or highlight the selected menu item with a magical glimmer. The behavior of a widget can be familiar and still have a presentation that is visually exciting. The rotary menu certainly trades away usability, but it's not clear to me that it has any inherent aesthetic benefit over a themed standard menu.

If it did trade some aesthetic quality, I'm not sure what quantitative data you imagine could exist today to support either side of that discussion. The numbers that come to mind for me are only loosely related, but I do find a pattern:


0: The number of younger VTTs taking inspiration from our widget toolkit. If these were really superior approaches for whatever reason, aesthetic or otherwise... someone would be copying them. The fact that they're not reflects a consensus opinion that they're not as good as other options.
0: The number of major graphical toolkits that have adopted radial menus over list menus for mouse-driven UI's. I don't have quantitative user testing data, but MS, Apple, Google, and the Gnome foundation all do and used that data to design their own widgets.
4 of 4: The number of my own computer-literate players who struggle after many sessions to perform basic actions like window management and form-interaction.
Top 3: My wild guess at the frequency of people in other discussion venues who cite UI discomfort as a reason they don't use FG. If it's not a top-3 reason, it's definitely a top-5 reason.



Im not disregarding what you say. I am pointing out that your view may also not be as universally held as you think. Or it might be. Changing something to bring on new customers is a great idea but it might not be so great if it annoys your current customers.

Yeah, this I agree with wholeheartedly. I'm certainly not suggesting that my view is universally held, UI change is risky and it makes people angry beyond reason. But even among existing users there's no universal love for the status quo. But the bigger issue is that FG isn't the most popular VTT yet and the VTT market is growing right now faster than it has... ever? That means there are many more potential users than current users, and so in spite of the risk... there is a large potential upside.

[Houndy]

Well currently I am working on two projects to help streamline some of the coding on the back end for developers with the sidebar and adding more functionality to the frames to reduce right clicking.

Standard Headers
32789

This will add buttons to the top of frames to assist cleaning up the frame and getting to commonly used features in the radial.

Standard Sidebar
32790

This project is more seen on the back end to simplify adding new library entries for the database to track. The sidebar only needs now to be defined in the data_library.lua file and will create the sidebar entry without any additional work. For theming it is now a single graphic to track and change to your whim. Also created additional functionality to focus the Library itself and the sidebar having it's own options.

These are but a few of the things we are attempting currently that hope to make things a bit easier on all fronts.

That looks great - when minimised would there be a list of the windows somewhere or would you still have to go through the side bars? For example, you are on a specific part of a story e.v. 2.1 and minimise it, will there be a link somewhere to go directly back to the 2.1 or would you have to go through story, and search again?

[Moon Wizard]

You would still need to go through the sidebars. We are working on one concept at a time, and trying to build them in ways that work for every ruleset layered on the base CoreRPG layer.

Regards,
JPG

[Houndy]

You would still need to go through the sidebars. We are working on one concept at a time, and trying to build them in ways that work for every ruleset layered on the base CoreRPG layer.

Regards,
JPG

Thats fair enough, so what is the difference between the minimise and the x button?

[Moon Wizard]

The minimize button will keep the window in memory, but minimize it to a small icon on the desktop. The ruleset defines which windows can be minimized; as well as which icon to use.
The close button will actually close the window (may or may not be kept in memory depending on ruleset settings again), and it will not be visible on the tabletop at all.

We want to look at window management improvements in the future, but have our hands full at the moment. And, some of the things we want to do require only ruleset code, while others require a combination of ruleset code and changes to the actual program itself.

Regards,
JPG

[Houndy]

The minimize button will keep the window in memory, but minimize it to a small icon on the desktop. The ruleset defines which windows can be minimized; as well as which icon to use.
The close button will actually close the window (may or may not be kept in memory depending on ruleset settings again), and it will not be visible on the tabletop at all.

We want to look at window management improvements in the future, but have our hands full at the moment. And, some of the things we want to do require only ruleset code, while others require a combination of ruleset code and changes to the actual program itself.

Regards,
JPG

And by desktop, you mean the FGU "desktop" (i.e. the table)? If so, that is what I meant by minimise a certain section, sorry if I wasnt clear.

So basically it works like a windows desktop, where if you minimise it, there is an icon on the bottom you can click to reopen. Such as story section window you have open (e.g. section 1.2 or whatever) will minimise to an icon and then clicking on that icon would bring that story section back up (because it hasnt been closed but just minimised).

[superteddy57]

Correct, it would function as if you used the radial to minimize the frame

[Houndy]

Thank you both! Good to know :)

What confused me, is that so far in 5e I havnt found any windows that can be minimised by right clicking and getting radial menu.

[Moon Wizard]

That's because it's not working in FGU currently; so it was disabled until it's fixed.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?50483-FGU-Early-Access-Known-Differences-and-Issues

As soon as I get the networking issues figured out, we'll start working on the functionality items.

Regards,
JPG

[Houndy]

That's because it's not working in FGU currently; so it was disabled until it's fixed.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?50483-FGU-Early-Access-Known-Differences-and-Issues

As soon as I get the networking issues figured out, we'll start working on the functionality items.

Regards,
JPG

Thanks Moon, its hard to keep on track of whats implemented and not, and what bugs are recorded, especially as I am new.

Thank you for your patience :)

[Moon Wizard]

No worries. I don't worry about having to respond extra; just trying to catch up from initial combo crush from Early Release and games moving online due to virus.

Cheers,
JPG

[Bleak Midwinter]

This thread has been very positive, I'm glad there's a lot of consideration going into it. I agree that basic functionality has to have priority, and that UIs are to some extent a matter of taste. As well as Pollux's comments about radial menus needing tooltips without hovering, what I'd like to see is more easy (i.e. not extension) customisability.

[Bleak Midwinter]

It's been over a year since I started this thread, and my concerns still stand. Throughout COVID I have run a number of FG games, and the reaction from new users to the UI is - with very few exceptions - very negative.

In addition to the very basic UX points that Pollux raised before about consistency of experience, there are other oddities.

E.g.
Why do you have to drag the button for a class on to a character to level up and get choices, instead of just adding in the level and getting prompted accordingly? (5E).
Why is there still a reliance on the / button to enter Edit mode, when it saves about one character's worth of space (that's not a space saving of value, not unless you're playing on an Etch-a-Sketch).
Why is the UI oddly unresponsive, particularly when trying to drag e.g. map hotkeys to Notes text, where to get the button you need to right click annd go to plain text to get the button to appear instead of some pseudo-list?
Where is the option for a readable UI font?
Why are Groups on dropdowns at the top of a menu instead of an easily addable columnn in all the windows of lists, necessitating awkward dropping of icons on groups that you scroll down?
Why is the Library not just a simple list, instead of a totally unnecessary set of icons that take up loads of room with open book/closed book?
Why isn't there an option to pre-load DM selected modules when loading, with players prompted to accept each time, so you don't have to talk people through the trainwreck that is the library module loading system? This last one there is no excuse for: it's absolutely ridiculous that this is not yet an option. There may be a handful of players with pay-per-byte internet who want to carefully plan what they do or do not download so they get a disjointed FG experience from the rest of the party, but the vast majority of players don't want to deal with that. They want to join a game, load what the DM needs them to load, and play.

Celestian's betterMenu extension shows that a modern UI can be done in FG, and it needs to be done - the menus are just alphabetical rather than categorised, which means someone needs to know what does what, but they are far better than the default.

I don't want to sound excessively hostile to FG - I've invested a lot of money in it, and its core functionality is heads and shoulders above everything else. I really want FG Unity to keep improving, and one of those improvements has to be the option for a modern, clean and user friendly UI that encourages new players.

[Zacchaeus]

Suggestions go in the suggestions box. Link in my signature.

As regards your first point - use the Character Wizard if you don't like drag and drop.

[Bleak Midwinter]

No link to a suggestions box in your signature, just to a support portal. Took me a few minutes to find the right page.

A neat little metaphor for the whole thing, perhaps - but submitted.

[Zacchaeus]

No link to a suggestions box in your signature, just to a support portal. Took me a few minutes to find the right page.

A neat little metaphor for the whole thing, perhaps - but submitted.

From the page in the link click on Fantasy Grounds Customer Support and then on New Feature/Improvement request. I've updated the link to take you to that page rather than the main page.

[ironsplitter]

To address some of Bleak Midwinter's concerns:
I found that Mad Nomad's Character Sheet Tweaks on DMSguild (if it is still there, not sure) changes the character sheet in wonderful ways, offering several quality of life features that are mainly UI based.

And for fonts I greatly prefer the Open Sans font from: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?57197-Fonts-from-Google-Fonts

[Jiminimonka]

lol - Disregard this post. ;)

[Bleak Midwinter]

Thanks! The Character Sheet Tweaks look like a good start. I tried the font but it doesn't work well with the FG - Dark theme alas!

[AlterZwerg]

Why are Groups on dropdowns at the top of a menu instead of an easily addable columnn in all the windows of lists, necessitating awkward dropping of icons on groups that you scroll down?
Why is the Library not just a simple list, instead of a totally unnecessary set of icons that take up loads of room with open book/closed book?
Why isn't there an option to pre-load DM selected modules when loading, with players prompted to accept each time, so you don't have to talk people through the trainwreck that is the library module loading system? This last one there is no excuse for: it's absolutely ridiculous that this is not yet an option. There may be a handful of players with pay-per-byte internet who want to carefully plan what they do or do not download so they get a disjointed FG experience from the rest of the party, but the vast majority of players don't want to deal with that. They want to join a game, load what the DM needs them to load, and play.

Celestian's betterMenu extension shows that a modern UI can be done in FG, and it needs to be done - the menus are just alphabetical rather than categorised, which means someone needs to know what does what, but they are far better than the default.

I don't want to sound excessively hostile to FG - I've invested a lot of money in it, and its core functionality is heads and shoulders above everything else. I really want FG Unity to keep improving, and one of those improvements has to be the option for a modern, clean and user friendly UI that encourages new players.

I get your points. I had players joining my sessions on FGU complaining "This looks like Diablo 2" and suddenly i realized what they meant.
The UI in it´s core is seriously outdated. I took my time with it and i get around well enough but i´m old enough to be familiar with this kind of UI so i didn´t bother with the looks.
I saw people flocking vom Roll20 to another new VTT which was not FG because "This looks amazing" and while i tried to convince them of the many merits FG has all i got was "This looks so old"
Smiteworks is not a big company and has to get it´s priorities sorted out to manage it´s resources accordingly - i get that.
The preview Doug gave regarding Lighting and Vision got me very excited and i´m looking forward to that.
But i hope somewhere in the future there may be a new, more modern UI for FGU as i don´t see any of this happen as long as FGC is holding FGU back.

[seycyrus]

Every day there will be a new host of recently-turned 13 yr. olds who will complain about the current UI, even if that UI was put out last week, because it looks "old".

[Jiminimonka]

I get your points. I had players joining my sessions on FGU complaining "This looks like Diablo 2" and suddenly i realized what they meant.
The UI in it´s core is seriously outdated. I took my time with it and i get around well enough but i´m old enough to be familiar with this kind of UI so i didn´t bother with the looks.
I saw people flocking vom Roll20 to another new VTT which was not FG because "This looks amazing" and while i tried to convince them of the many merits FG has all i got was "This looks so old"
Smiteworks is not a big company and has to get it´s priorities sorted out to manage it´s resources accordingly - i get that.
The preview Doug gave regarding Lighting and Vision got me very excited and i´m looking forward to that.
But i hope somewhere in the future there may be a new, more modern UI for FGU as i don´t see any of this happen as long as FGC is holding FGU back.

Try some of the new themes like the Simple ones rather than that old leather desktop - because that doesnt look like Diablo 2 - and if they are old enough to remember Diablo 2 they should know better lol :)

[AlterZwerg]

Try some of the new themes like the Simple ones rather than that old leather desktop - because that doesnt look like Diablo 2 - and if they are old enough to remember Diablo 2 they should know better lol :)

I have to admit i ran AD&D2E (with the theme that comes with it as i like that best) and figured they would know what to expect from me... :D
It wasn´t about the theme but more about the whole UI experience in general. I´m a happy customer and from my point of view i don´t need much to change.
But in the last few weeks as i saw more discussions from people moving from R20 to Foundry it struck me that not everybody sees FG from my point of view.
For me it´s the best VTT out there as it suits all my needs and brings a lot of improvements i don´t see anywhere else.

But a lot of people judge from what they see in videos and here they get the impression that there´s this new and shiny VTT that looks so cool and is cheap and on the other side there´s this "old" VTT that looks outdated and is expensive.
They never realize that FG is superior in so many ways they´ll never know because they only see the shiny new graphics and tell me that FG is too hard to learn because the other one is so easy. (which it isn´t)

I tried Foundry to see what the fuzz is about and i have to say the UI is the only thing i like better as i find it more intuitive than FG´s.
The only other positive thing about it - they´re quick with refunds :D

But the design of FG´s UI is basically about 20 years old and it gets hard to reach people who´ve grown up with smartphones and tablets if they see it for the first time.
My first experience with computers was a C64 back in the 80s so from my point of view Diablo2 had a very modern design if you get my meaning. :)

[Jiminimonka]

I have to admit i ran AD&D2E (with the theme that comes with it as i like that best) and figured they would know what to expect from me... :D
It wasn´t about the theme but more about the whole UI experience in general. I´m a happy customer and from my point of view i don´t need much to change.
But in the last few weeks as i saw more discussions from people moving from R20 to Foundry it struck me that not everybody sees FG from my point of view.
For me it´s the best VTT out there as it suits all my needs and brings a lot of improvements i don´t see anywhere else.

But a lot of people judge from what they see in videos and here they get the impression that there´s this new and shiny VTT that looks so cool and is cheap and on the other side there´s this "old" VTT that looks outdated and is expensive.
They never realize that FG is superior in so many ways they´ll never know because they only see the shiny new graphics and tell me that FG is too hard to learn because the other one is so easy. (which it isn´t)

I tried Foundry to see what the fuzz is about and i have to say the UI is the only thing i like better as i find it more intuitive than FG´s.
The only other positive thing about it - they´re quick with refunds :D

But the design of FG´s UI is basically about 20 years old and it gets hard to reach people who´ve grown up with smartphones and tablets if they see it for the first time.
My first experience with computers was a C64 back in the 80s so from my point of view Diablo2 had a very modern design if you get my meaning. :)

Oh no, a C64 user! Atari FTW

[Megaprr]

Every day there will be a new host of recently-turned 13 yr. olds who will complain about the current UI, even if that UI was put out last week, because it looks "old".

I don't want to come across as hostile, but blaming the younger folk for a genuine shortcoming isn't the answer here. UI (or something along those lines) is clearly a problem. Otherwise this thread (and many others like it on external forums) wouldn't exist.

Good UI is UI you don't notice. I don't care if it was made a day ago or a decade ago. If it ever gets in the way then there's a problem. And boy oh boy do I notice FGU's UI whenever I work with it. It's clunky and cumbersome and sometimes really gets in the way of what I'm there to do - prep or play the game. And that's after nearly a year of working with it as a GM. My players (who haven't had to spend nearly as much time with it as I have) STILL have questions on how to do things. When people say it looks old, what they really mean is that it 'behaves' old. And they're right.

UI design is one of those jobs that gets very little recognition when done right, but man do people notice if it's done wrong. And I say that as an engineer that's worked on UI in the past. A software's interface is always the choke point for the user experience. So if it's lacking in any way then that sets the bar (or ceiling?) for how well/quickly/easily a user can achieve what they set out to do. That's massively important, even without considering the learning curve for new users.

For new users, any UI deficiencies become a real thorn in their side that will really impact their takeaway experience with the software as a whole. Convoluted menus and confusing interactions that behave counter-intuitively when compared to modern UI standards does no favors when trying to win over new customers (and all things aside, that IS one of the goals at the end of the day). You want people's first experience to be "Wow, this is nice, clean and straight-forward to use. Looks like it could work well for my group" if you want to win them over to buy your product. You don't want them bogged down on little annoyances as that'll drive them away. I know I'm placing a lot of emphasis on the sales part here, but it IS a driving factor for Smiteworks. And passion project or no, first impressions really do matter.

The weird thing to me is that a lot of the problems don't even stem from the UI itself, but rather are symptoms of the underlying behavior Smiteworks chose for how text is stored and handled. Needless to say, text is the most vital part of a VTT. And as is, the current handling of it feels like something you would have found in a game from the early 2000's. And I don't mean that appearance-wise. It's like they wrote their own custom word processor 15 years ago and never changed it to match modern standards. Text lines feel like they're treated like individual strings with janky 'formatting' being applied through hidden characters. Basic functionalities that you'd expect in all but the most basic modern word processors are missing. Things like consistent Copy-Pasting that carries formatting across windows (and I don't even mean the external kind), or maintaining your selection when you bold or italicize something, or a myriad of other tiny things that don't function as you'd expect in a modern processor. Tables are an absolute nightmare to use (and impossible to copy). From what I've seen, I don't even think FG uses rich text, which is frankly mind boggling to me. THAT ALONE would solve so many problems. Font types/sizes/color, etc. are all handled by rich text, and no way in hell can you convince me that a rich text library doesn't exist for Unity considering how widely used it is as an engine.

It's like they tried to reinvent the wheel and have ended up with a wooden cart wheel when the rest of the world has already moved on to pneumatic tires.

Yes, people are adaptive and can get accustomed to a lot. But whenever you force that on users, there must be a justification - like say a feature that demands it. Right now they're forcing people to adapt to things they shouldn't need to adapt to. Rich text has existed for god knows how long now, and changing to it wouldn't even have been a big deal for older users assuming they've ever worked in Word or Google Docs or any other word processor really. Even looking at this very forum I see the same problem. Let alone rich text, these don't even HAVE a jury-rigged system for italicizing or bolding (that I can see). That said, in this case I know it's quite old (despite the modernized aesthetic), so here I can forgive that.

In FGU on the other hand, it's embarrassing that they passed up that opportunity. They got the chance to make some real fundamental changes but instead just did what's basically a port. It's honestly mind-boggling to me that they wasted that. Yes, you could argue that would mean breaking all the stuff that already existed for FGC, and to an extent you might even be right (though I doubt rich text would be an issue). But that's what conversion tools are for. If the change is systemic, than making something that can port old content to the new format shouldn't be that difficult if you plan for that when doing the rewrite.

Anyways, my point is that adapting takes time, and is a crucial factor in setting the overall learning curve. Don't make it steeper than it already is with frivolous details that don't add anything. Save it for the important stuff.

I get that maintaining some UI consistency between FGC and FGU is beneficial so that curve isn't reset for the older users (that goes for any successor software. Not just FG), but that doesn't excuse carrying forward bad decisions or outdated methodology that came from a design choice made 15 years ago (possibly made by the limitations of the time). ESPECIALLY when they had the opportunity during a rewrite. You could even keep a lot of the UI just the way it is (though a lot of things like menu rabbit holes could use some serious streamlining in my opinion) or better yet make it settings based to keep the old user base happy.

[Jiminimonka]

The "problem" of course starts with keeping FGC users happy and maintaining 100% backward compatibility with old content as well. Now that is done, changes can be made to the UI, and probably are already planned out. It'll get there and in the mean time its not hard to explain the UI to new users.

[HywelPhillips]

Much though I love running games with FGU I concur with the point that the UI is something that casual users (i.e. players!) seem to struggle with.

There's a few things I can think of that might help:

1) Completely agree that the text system should move to RTF with an interface modelled on modern word processing tools, ASAP.

2) If FG is going to stick with the retro computer game aesthetic, it would be beneficial to implement a keybinding reference screen at minimum, and a way to rebind keys ideally. One should not have to trawl through the forum to discover that shift-rolling damage turns it into a critical, for example. Those key shortcuts and modifiers are great, but essentially undiscoverable from within the program itself.

3) Personally I would advocate a gradual move away from the retro computer game aesthetic by implementing a new alternative UI (with the option to keep the old one for Grognards). And as a starting principle I would ask "how is a new user ever going find out about this?" for the major capabilities. For example, Roll20 has a tool-button-bar and a sidebar that make it immediately obvious that you can click and experiment. You can see new players do it as you run their first game - you find them starting to draw arrows, etc.. Sure, for the full functionality (like drawing "wonky" paths with the measurement tool) you need to RTFM. But my experience is that people don't even realise that they can click and edit stuff on their character sheet in FGU sometimes (because of the lack of universal blinking text caret in all situations).

4) Clearly there is a case for going down the web app UI conventions route. Both Roll20 and Foundry have this as their basic design philosophy and it demonstrably works- people like it. So if you're going to provide any alternative UI, I'd start there. I absolutely agree that there aren't any truly universal conventions, so this is a job for a skilled and dedicated UI engineer to work on. But it's equally true that players are emboldened to experiment and discover the UI for Roll20 and Foundry in a way which many of them are not with FG's current UI.

5) If the existing interface is going to persist for any length of time, FG should add a tutorial mode (again in the manner of the retro games which the UI resembles). There should be a player intro tutorial taking them through the whole process, and ending them up with a generated character and maybe even running a quick combat for them as a (very very simple) AI GM so they can see the way stuff like targeting, the combat tracker, wounds, drag-and-drop, spell casting etc. works. I know FG supports many systems, so this can't be universal. But it would be enough I think to do it for 5E as that would cater to the overwhelming majority of newcomers, and the UI lessons apply for the most part whatever system they end up playing. I have so far run about 20 people through a "Session Zero" to introduce them to Fantasy Grounds, so I have some ideas of what this tutorial should provide . I made a YouTube video about it which I need to update now FGU I released, but that's not the same as having the program take them through a tutorial in their own time and get them to actually do stuff like drag-and-drop the dice onto the Ogre's head to see it roll to hit, then roll damage.

Cheers, Hywel

[seycyrus]

I don't want to come across as hostile, but blaming the younger folk for a genuine shortcoming isn't the answer here.

I'm not blaming the younger folk, if you think I am, you are missing the point of the statement. There will ALWAYS be the "new crowd" who claim that things are old. We live in a dynamic society. Trying to cater to the latest whim is a losing battle, especially if that whim is based on "it looks old". Looking old is NOT a reason to change a UI.


UI (or something along those lines) is clearly a problem. Otherwise this thread (and many others like it on external forums) wouldn't exist.

That's the point of my comment. I don't agree, at all. I think there will ALWAYS be people complaining about the UI.


Good UI is UI you don't notice.

Yeah, this is one of the latest management-type cliches. A trite little catchphrase that is not true because it is not based in reality.

Until we get fully functional AI, the reality is that a good UI is UI you can get used to.

That being said, I DO see that some of your commentary is valid. The question is, What priority should be given to address these issue.

[LordEntrails]

We've had this discussion before, many times.

One thing is clear, both from these discussions and from similar discussion on most every other software application forum, User Interface preferences are personal, there is no one solution that every user agrees on. And even 'objective' measures such as number of clicks, mouse travel distances, etc have subjective value.

If you don't like the current FG UI, until/if someone changes it for you, then you can change it with an extension like Celestian did with his Better Menus Extension.

[viresanimi]

@LordEntrail

That is actually very well said.

From my point of view, it is clearly a great UI, clearly inspired by world famous nordic design. Which is the best. Obviously. Because I am from Denmark. hi hi. But the point is well taken. It is highly a personal thing, what you like and what you don't.

And if people have a problem with the UI, try to NOT care about D&D & combat roll simulations on this platform. Then you'll find out what "neglect" feels like.

I am all for people making extension to change the UI and hopefully some of those that have the "issues" also have the talent.

[ddavison]

The feedback is good, even if much of it has been heard before. The more specific and actionable the feedback is, the easier it is for us to reference in internal discussions. We have debates internally about several of these design issues. A lot of design aesthetics go back to personal preference and we have different preferences even on our own team. Some of these we are in agreement with on already, but we haven't allocated the time and resources it would take to change it -- especially for any changes that would affect a large amount of our back-catalog.

In general, I would just say that if someone suggests changing the UI in a specific way, just chime in if you think that would be a good idea. If something is a good idea, but it looks like only one or two people are even discussing it, then it is not likely to bubble up to the top.

Your feedback is very much a large part of our success up to this point in time. It is greatly appreciated.

[HywelPhillips]

In the spirit of Doug's request, I would like to punt discoverability as a part of the UI which needs specific attention.

Concrete example. The image editing panel in FGU is in my opinion a really nice example of using common UI metaphors to make something familiar that rewards experimentation. If you've used photoshop or any one of its numerous spiritual descendants, the layers interface makes a lot of sense and immediately lets one start playing. Even though not all of the concepts from photoshop are in there (there's no blend mode for layers for example) the visual metaphor is pretty much the same. As photoshop is the dominant player, by far, in the image editing game, this means a large fraction of the audience will have come across this metaphor before.

You put new paintings in new layers. New FX go on their own new layer. The clickies on the layer list let you change visibility and the mouse hover tooltips tell you what each icon represents. Similarly, the modal buttons at the top take you to various editing options and the tooltips tell you what each one does. To my mind, this is a really great example of following regular UI conventions and it let me pick up the FGU image editing tools before there was really any documentation to speak of.

BUT... there are some things that aren't discoverable within the program. Needing to drag an image from the assets window to the image paint window to do image stamping, for example. That would be improved by a tooltip saying "drag stamp image here".

And how on earth would you ever discover option-click to mask/umask with a freehand tool rather than a box tool? I only found out about that from the forum (or maybe buried deep in the manual). Why is that not a choice in an icon, the way everything else is? More to the point, how would a user working just inside the program ever find that out?

To my mind this lack of discoverability from within the program itself is something which can be improved, and should be improved. If you are going to stick with modifier keys as the only way to access fairly fundamental stuff like changing drawing tool, I believe thought should be given for making those modifier keys easier to learn about. I'm not sure exactly how- tooltips when selecting the mode, or a keybinding screen as I suggested above, or something. Personally, I'd add choices like that as an icon in the toolset (and keep the modifier key for compatibility and speed). Then the tooltip could say "freehand mask mode (or option-click)" or something.

Cheers, Hywel

[gogots]

I take advantage of this discussion to drag some remarks to the new "Assets" window, which came with the Unity version.
I notice that it has big slowdown problems for me. This is probably due to the fact that it loads images and tokens of all the modules we have available for a ruleset, without us having to ask to open them.
A classic organization in folder and subfolder was nice, but the navigation is a bit laborious. The icons are very large, and it takes most of the time to reduce the size to display a maximum of elements in the window. Unfortunately, after having reduced the icons, they do not reorganize themselves automatically, so you have to change the size of the window...
On the other hand, if you close the window, your changes are not taken into account when you reopen it. However, finding the open window in the file we had left and organized in the same way would be very practical.

PS: I think that what is disturbing with the fantasy grounds UI is that it doesn't look like what we are used to see. So it doesn't seem instinctive, so new users find it laborious.

Sorry for my English.

[LordEntrails]

I will concur with gogots; the current approach to assets (that they all load when the campaign is loaded) is of concern to me. I have tens (maybe hundreds?) of thousands of mapping symbols that I haven't dared to load into FGU at this point. I guess I should try it and see, but I expect it to cause issues and I just haven't taken the time to do so.

[Megaprr]

I'm not blaming the younger folk, if you think I am, you are missing the point of the statement. There will ALWAYS be the "new crowd" who claim that things are old. We live in a dynamic society. Trying to cater to the latest whim is a losing battle, especially if that whim is based on "it looks old". Looking old is NOT a reason to change a UI.


I think maybe I focused too much on the aesthetic aspect of the UI in my earlier reply. Yes, a perfect UI for everyone doesn't exist, but clearly people complain more about FG than any other VTT. That does say something, and while people may often refer to the reason as 'it looks old', as I said in my comment I think that's on the behavioral side rather than the aesthetic side. You can stylize things a lot and still have no complaints about UI. Just look at modern video games. It's how it feels that matters, and evidently that still needs work.

In terms of aesthetics and UI elements I would agree in general to many of the things that have been said here. Discoverability should be up there on the list (though I'm happy to say that the recent loading tooltips have greatly helped), and for UI elements people have preferences. So long as third party tools exist to make UI changes, in theory everyone for the most part can be kept happy. That said, I say 'in theory' because in this case I don't think the problem lies with the UI look/elements themselves. The groundwork just isn't there for 3rd party extensions to be enough at the moment.

It's the crispness that's missing. The little things that people unconsciously look for. And that's not something you can mod in with an extension. Here's an example. Open any dialogue box in word and shake it. There is zero delay between the window and the mouse. Now do the same thing in FGU. See the lag? That's a problem. It makes the program feel sluggish.

The sluggishness is a huge deterrent. It's not a matter of how it looks. It feels like you're working on an 'old', slow computer. That becomes even more evident when you start working in larger campaigns and typing text starts lagging behind as well. Or scrolling. I don't have FG open right now but I'd be willing to bet there's a lot of things that start lagging behind juuuuust enough to become annoying without you realizing what's wrong. And then there's the occasional freezes when you're actually hosting. With my players in my session often times the application will lag out for a second from time to time. Possibly due to connectivity issues?

As for restrictiveness, the lack of options is a huge problem. Campaign prep feels like I'm working in a tiny box. Lack of rich text makes people unable to customize text as they are used to it (and I don't mean themes here), and that can be a big issue for people. You're used to all these tools to make your notes easy to look through for yourself and now all of a sudden in FGU you don't have them anymore. You're stuck with basically one formatting style. One header, one body, and a handful of use-specific types. You can't indent (aside from using a bunch of spaces). You can't change color (so no color coding things) or size or highlight or do anything to make text stand out other than using all caps, bold, italics, underlining, or a combination thereof. You can't paste in images, instead having to rely on links. Can I run a campaign without any of this stuff? Yes, of course. But each time I look to those tools and find that they're missing is another reminder that something is off, and is yet another pebble on the frustration scale.

I genuinely think that 90% of the UI discussions would go away if these two things were remedied, as in my humble opinion they are the main culprits behind why so many people complain and look for alternative UIs for FG. The default one doesn't feel quite right, and since it's stylized and happens to use relatively uncommon UI elements they subconsciously associate the two together and blame the style. You can get used to unusual UI elements, as we both agreed in earlier posts. But that becomes a lot harder when you have to swim against the current with what I talked about. And that's what I meant with my 'management-type cliche' - that you should always strive to make it as painless as possible to learn a new UI by building off of what people are used to rather than fighting it. It's not meant to be a literal perfect UI. If you're fighting people's instincts, forcing them to unlearn decade-old habits external to FG, then they will constantly 'notice' it every time it doesn't behave as it 'should' and you're going to be in for a lot of complaints.

All this aside, in the spirit of specific feedback, here are some some concrete features I would like to see.

Reliable copy-pasting - as I already mentioned, this is a mess currently. You can copy-paste sort of okay within the same story entry or note (though the first line you paste will take on the formatting you had on that line prior to pasting, which is counterintuitive when compared to, say, Word). Pasting elsewhere totally messes everything up and you have to entirely redo all links, tables, etc.

Usable tables - as I mentioned in my last post, they are currently a PITA to build and impossible to copy. It would also be nice to be able to tab into and out of cells (currently it just takes you to the page header)

Zooming in (text and/or interface resizing) - if you have vision problems this is huge. I can't tell you the number of times I've CTRL+Scroll wheeled my notes only to be disappointed by the lack of support for that.

Reliable cursor movement - I know this works in some places, but I did notice last session one instance where I couldn't use CTRL+Arrows to move around text. Though I can't recall exactly where. I'll have to do some more digging on this one.

Better Formatting - see rich text stuff

[DM_BK]

I don't know if it was stated before but a lot of the UI stuff is inherited from the way this product was originally designed, long ago. And by a completely different set of people. Believe me, it's worlds better then it used to be.

I think a lot of the UI design is retained now because it's part of the product identity and you do eventually acclimate to the way FG does things. If they change some of these things it would not longer be Fantasy Grounds...it would be another VTT. Which may annoy all the people that have used it for years already and learned its various ins and outs.

On zoom thing....if your on Windows you can use Win key plus the + key to zoom in. Hey, it's something!

[Jiminimonka]

I don't know if it was stated before but a lot of the UI stuff is inherited from the way this product was originally designed, long ago. And by a completely different set of people. Believe me, it's worlds better then it used to be.

I think a lot of the UI design is retained now because it's part of the product identity and you do eventually acclimate to the way FG does things. If they change some of these things it would not longer be Fantasy Grounds...it would be another VTT. Which may annoy all the people that have used it for years already and learned its various ins and outs.

On zoom thing....if your on Windows you can use Win key plus the + key to zoom in. Hey, it's something!

Yes, the UI has improved over the years, and is improving faster with FGU.

[Ludd_G]

Just to add another perspective on possible solutions going forward, I find that when using Cubase 11 (and some Photoshop) the very first thing I do in a new installation is to map my most used menu tasks to key-binds.

In the case of Cubase this is into the dozens of self defined shortcuts that mean I hardly ever have to use the menus. This makes using Cubase much much quicker and over time actually save alot of time. If this could be implemented in FGU it would totally change the frustration I feel with the UI choices that have be made.

A simple example: why can't I have 'line', 'cone', 'square', 'circle' and 'remove pointers' bound to the keys that make the most sense to me? It would be so much quicker. And why are we only allowed to use F keys for shortcuts? Anything should be assignable to the keys that make sense to me, and often this allows me to set them up to be more easily usable with one hand-span when using modifier keys. At them moment anything using the modifiers and F keys above F6 requires 2 hands to use, which means leaving the mouse, which is slow and clumsy. I just can't understand why there is no user definable key-binding for all the menus, including the 'right-click' radial menus?

Sorry if this sounds like a rant, I'd just really like to feel that FGU was looking slightly more fit for the future. It's feature set is by a long way the best, but, unfortunately, for me and many others it's usability falls far below that level.

Cheers,

Simon

[Zacchaeus]

I suspect this might be because of focus. You don't want to draw a pointer on a story entry or an encounter - or even an image in general. You only want to draw it on a map; and FG doesn't know that what you have open is or isn't a map. Similarly you don't want to add a table or a text paragraph to an encounter or treasure parcel - you only want to do that in a story entry. The right click is a context menu and works really well for when you want to do an operation only on a certain thing. I'm guessing all this mind you and I'm not really fond of keyboard shortcuts. Even if I do ever pin things to the quick-bar then I'll click it to operate it rather than using an f-key. So, for me, the less keyboard stuff I have to do the better. Currently it's almost all mouse and that, for me, is great.

[Ludd_G]

Hi Zacchaeus.

I definitely see your point and I think that's where options are really important. In none of the software, in which I make heavy use of shortcuts, are the menu/mouse driven functions degraded in any way, and that is how it should be. But for us who are more used to using key-binds to improve our productivity within a program it is really noticeable when this is not an option.

With regards focus, that's fine and obviously using the 'window' specific key-commands are predicated on the relevant 'window' being in focus. This is also true in Cubase and I imagine many other programs which use different 'windows' within the program. It doesn't seem to pose a problem with them and I'm not sure how it would in FGU? If the correct 'window' is not in focus, key-commands specific to that 'window' just don't work.

Thanks for your thoughts and input, always appreciated.

Cheers,

Simon

[Zacchaeus]

Yeah, I'm guessing. From what the devs have said in the past the 'windows' in FG aren't windows - they are templates which are controlled by the rulesets. Each ruleset has it's own set of templates and that's part of the difficulty - the fact that each ruleset is different and so there may not be universal solutions available. Changing some of the things that people seem to be concerned about will require a major rewrite of not just the underlying code but also the ruleset code as well. I don't proscribe to the view that the UI is perfect but I do subscribe to the view that it is very good and that you do need to take the time to learn how to use it properly - and I think that may be the biggest issue is that people don't take any time to learn and just expect it to work like they think it should work - based on what they see in phone apps. But I do expect to see some new stuff down the line; so much resource has gone into Unity (and is still going into it) but the point where resources can be redeployed into other things can't be far off and I'm fairly sure that the UI and the way things are done will gradually shift. And the devs do listen.

[Ludd_G]

Yeah, I suspect Cubase's 'windows' are of a similar type, not true windows just specific functioning areas within the program's true window that can be brought into focus (I fear I may have misled my point by calling them 'windows'). And I personally, with many many many hours working in FGC/FGU, still find it hugely frustrating and unintuitive every time I run a session, let alone when I try to walk new players through its functionality and UI.

Anyway, as you say, now Unity is out, and after vision and lighting is released, hopefully there will be some programmer hours spare to look into these issues. So, dear programmers, please can I have some key-binds? :)

Cheers for the conversation,

Simon

[rpbarrett111]

Thumbs up.

For me, I'm sorry, but the UI is . . . aesthetically displeasing, and it lacks knowledge of color and design theory. Compare to D&D Beyond - that's your competition now, not just Roll20.

I typically don't like to jump off with some opinion about color theory, or whatever, but the catcher in the case of FG's UI is that, with as odd and (ahem . . .) amateur as it looks, is that one expects the sacrifice in form to be compensated in function. But the function isn't all that much there, specifically in terms of the UI.

What's the deal with the group lists/drop downs? Why am I dragging to a point size 8, tiny little text line when I drag something to a group? That's pretty much defeating the purpose, isn't it? I can't count the times I've dragged something to the wrong group just because the damn group menus are so weird. They don't work like any other Windows application, that's for sure. I don't even know how to describe it. One doesn't typically use drop downs for dropping down onto themselves, you know? Why not just a normal folder navigation pop-up style? Drag to an open window, instead of some point on the drop-down that keeps jumping back to the top all the time?

How come I can't link to a group? If I make a group of maps, "Dungeon Custom Maps" why can't I link to that group? Why am I stuck every time scrolling down through all the content that's just there for my source material? I stupidly named my campaign "RA - Base" and now I have to scroll down all the way to R? It's just the most royal pain in the butt. I would love to be able to link to groups, because then I would create an image map, put shortcut links on it to all my groups, and use that for my players and groups, so my PLAYERS don't ever have to deal with Rob2E's awesome list of extensions, all my NPC extensions, etc. There needs to be SOMETHING to spare the players from that special wonderment.

I know there are theme extensions being published very painstakingly by Smiteworks . . . and predictably, they're really hit or miss with people. Some like them, some don't. Me, I like parts of some of them, and would love to be able to mix the parts. I really, really, really hoped FG Unity would just have them builder functionality built in. THAT would be customizable themes. Select images and colors, and boom, there's your theme. Save it. Load it up. Should be available to the players, too - shareable. Theme changes could be used to set the mood. People do this now, with community extensions, or they have, but why not make it part of the functionality. It's as if the whole thing is built strictly with CSS, or something.

The infuriating chat window. Why can't it pop-up in front of other windows? Why can't it truly be resized and moved around? Heck, why doesn't it hide when no one is chatting and give new messages in a notification pop-up? Dunno. For that matter, why can't I close the chat window on my PC and have that part running on my phone app instead? Now, there's ambition.

Look guys, I'm not into holding any opinion back when I've got like $1,000 sunk into this FG thing. D&D Beyond? Totally free - with a million cash grabs for fun. Roll20? Just free, free, free, and spend some if you have the urge. FG? Investment. Up front. To function.

I work with this software day and night (installing Rappan Athuk as a living 5e megadungeon with all the bells and whistles.) I have to honestly say, if there is one disappointing thing about FG Unity, it's yes, that the visual PROBLEMS are still there - like the drag and drop stuff, the ancient, clunky seeming Assets and Library interfaces . . . The tiny *** character portraits - without easy drag and drop function, straight from the web, for the players to use easily with their own chosen images . . . That sort of thing.

Think dragging and dropping thumbnails. Think Character Portfolio, or something, where multiple images of a certain character can be presented as a gallery. Think thumbnail file lists, too. So much more attractive. (An image preview extension already exists, and it's fantastic.) Think a shifting slideshow of changing backgrounds set up by the DM to be evocative of the story. Think labels on maps that click right to the story record. Mad Nomad's Improved Encounter extension rules.

So, I mean, in my opinion, you're almost there because you have all the function - but yes, you need to work on the form. FG still feels very pre-Windows 3.1. It's like using an old Commodore 64, for Pete's sake.

I mean, I try to look at it from the perspective of a very first time noob player. When I as DM find the lists frustrating, long, full of stuff I'm not gonna necessarily use right now but still need to have loaded . . . well, I know the first time player is feeling lost, overwhelmed. I try to do everything I can to alleviate that. It would be hard enough to get a new player into something absolutely top-notch gorgeous, like D&D Beyond.

Oh, hey, I forgot - why is the right hand column in all my drop downs cut off? Like, where it says the source for image record? Those are crammed way over to the right and cut off. Annoying and sloppy looking. Sorry - old time graphic designer here. It's not great, guys. Potential is there, but no, the UI is not polished or EXTREMELY functional.

Now, don't get me wrong, because FG is a POWERFUL program, to be sure. It just needs someone like me doing every possible thing wrong and looking at things from every possible angle - like with the image map thing. I mean, this program is half made for making image maps. Simple text labels on maps should be a thing. Totally. You HAVE a PS style graphics interface with layers. Why the hell not make a text layer for labels? Just stuff I think you only miss because, a) you probably don't have Wizards of the Coast's immense art team, and b) you just miss things when you are up so close working out the details.

If you guys added sounds and voice chat I would say you had all the functionality of Roll20, and then some. Functionality is no prob. But if you asked me about ease of use? I think Roll20 is honestly better (plain as it is,) and that's a sad statement. D&D Beyond is MILES ahead of both you guys on sheer pleasing visuals and ease of use.

In general, I think every aspect of FG's interface should be modular and customizable. DM's and players should be able to link directly to homebrew content, and make at least a player interface that does not include, oh, maps from the DM guide, for example. Does anyone ever use the maps from the DM Guide? The ones provided just to show what a map looks like? Why do I have to scroll past it all the time then? I'm not here to have fun scrolling. If I add some extension or source material to something like Kodi, for example, I'm not stuck looking the damn thing all the time. No, I can customize my home screen with just the stuff I might actually click on. The other stuff? Yes, it's loaded - in the background somewhere. That, I think is how it's supposed to work. But nooooo, I have to scroll past the bloody PHB Player Customization Pack, or whatever. That means NOTHING to a beginning player - except that the player now has to ask me, "I see four different entries for Class, which one am I supposed to use?" This might seem like small potatoes, but when you have to do all this scrolling every session, it really is NOT smoothe.

I want the only Class link my players see to be the one I put there for them to use. I want the only Images and Maps that come up on their menus to be the ones I have put forth - not the entire Monster Manual, just because, yes, we want to USE the Monster Manual in game. There needs to be a whole intermediary level there, in which it's MY campaign stuff only. Roll20 has this great - campaign records on one tab and reference images and materials on another. I don't have to deal with the whole dang library unless I go digging. What's most present to me at any given time is just the campaign at hand. That's the level the players would be functioning on most of the time. Share my modules with them? Yes. Have them pick their way through the enormous list of them every time? No way. Can't believe it has to be said.

Thanks for your time! For my money, FG Grounds is still the one. I'd just like it to be easier to use - and then I'd like it to be better looking. Those two things go together.

Me, I prefer a very Frank Frazetta-esque fantasy art style, so I'd probably use a bunch of that type of thing in constructing my own theme. Sigh. Cute stuff is not for D&D. It's not some kind of GAME, or something. No talking winged cats here, thanks. No cute goblins. They're cannibals man, c'mon.

[Jiminimonka]

Those are all good points. I am sure that part of the reason for FGU was to update everything. So it'll get there.

[DM_BK]

@rpbarrett111

There's nothing you have said here that's wrong. A lot of your issues are with product identity. This is the way it's been done, for good or bad, since long before you used FG. Of course there is always room for improvement but at it's heart, it's going to be the functionally (UI and operationality) much like it was years ago and much the same as it is today.

In 10 years from now people will question the UI of Roll20 (and other VTTs) much the same way you are today with FG. It will seem SOOOO strange compared to future-modern standards.

I guess what I am saying is adapt or move on. I am not saying that in a hostile way. With any new and alien seeming thing you either make the personal choice to invest in adapting to the New Thing or your decide to move on to something that requires less of an adaption investment to utilize. Because 90% of what you have said is unlikely to change now or ever (I don't speak for the people making this product; simply my observation)

But I will tell you that if you play on FG for a while, your brain will adapt to the funky way it works and you will find that it does serve the majority of your needs. I say this because I faintly recall, long ago, all the new players that questioned how utterly strange the thinking was behind how FG works and how every one of them eventually got used to it. So I challenge you, give it time to grow on you and see if you and the people you play with make the leap to the utterly strange world of Fantasy Grounds.

[Karnas]

@rpbarrett111

There's nothing you have said here that's wrong. A lot of your issues are with product identity. This is the way it's been done, for good or bad, since long before you used FG. Of course there is always room for improvement but at it's heart, it's going to be the functionally (UI and operationality) much like it was years ago and much the same as it is today.

In 10 years from now people will question the UI of Roll20 (and other VTTs) much the same way you are today with FG. It will seem SOOOO strange compared to future-modern standards.

I guess what I am saying is adapt or move on. I am not saying that in a hostile way.

I'm sorry, but this is just not good enough. You and I may have adapted, but you know what I hear every time I run a game for my buddies? "Oh noes, muh inteface", "Oh noes it's so convoluted", "Oh noes, why can't we do in in Roll20?"

Every time. Virtually nobody I know actually WANTS to play FG. One of players flatly refused to even install it when perspective of checking installation paths appeared. My other party now constantly buzzes in my ear about how Foundry is great and Foundry is the new prophet.
I feel like I'm some kind of cultist, standing at the altar with an obsidian knife in one hand and a bloody campaign heart in the other holding it over my players.

I like features FG gives me, but I'm pretty damn sure my players don't like playing in FG.
And if we're being frank here, it's a real damn problem. Because, well I probably can just find myself new buddies and play exclusively from Fantasy Grounds Discord and LFG forum, but where would this bring us?

I know that Unity wants to maintain backwards compatibility with Classic, but at some point SOMETHING has to be done, because otherwise all these Foundries and Astrals and what have you will just trot along forward, while we still waiting for dynamic lighting.

[Ludd_G]

I'm sorry to say that I'm in total agreement with Karnas.

And can I just say it's really really really unproductive and disheartening to be constantly patronised and spoken down to when we take the time to point out legitimate areas of concern, which we do in an attempt to improve a program we desperately want to continue to succeed and grow. If no one pointed out usability issues (and yes this is about usability, not the functionality which we know and appreciate is the best out there - it's the reason we're all still here bothering to push for improvements to secure the program's future after all) nothing would change and FG would die when the other VTT start to catch up in terms of that functionality.

Please stop telling us to accept or move on, that's would be a disaster for SW, and I'm absolutely sure is not something their team would ever want. If no one says these things then how would anyone know there is an issue? Would the team just end up sitting around scratching their heads in bemusement as their market share contracts to the point when FG becomes unviable, while the forums are full of a smaller and smaller contingent of non-critical supporters? That's exactly how hobbies, and companies, die.

And absolutely if Roll20 etc. are still using the exact same UI from 2020 in ten years time I imagine they will also be losing market share to both new VTTs and any present ones that kept up with developments and progressions in UI design.

Sorry for the rant, but not the content.

Cheers,

Simon

[Zacchaeus]

I think you all need to read post #68.

As Doug says feedback (of whatever kind) is important. And is listened to. As he also says some things people want to see are very niche and so unlikely to get much attention. But the more people that want to see a particular feature the better. So it's good if there's specific things which people can enunciate rather than just saying they don't like things in general. There is never going to be a great sweeping change to the UI; but there will be a gradual change with little things built on other little things. It's baby steps for the UI; the main changes will almost certainly be to the core ruleset (and yes these changes mainly need to be made to rulesets - not the client) and so rulesets built on that also need to change and that can be a lot of work for the devs and possibly also community developers. So, patience is the key and make specific suggestions using the community portal.

[Ludd_G]

Exactly, so when we are then told to suck it up and pipe down or move on that's not really in keeping with providing the developers feedback. This is a thread specifically to articulate our concerns with the current state of the user experience, hopefully providing the developers with some useful feedback and maybe an idea or two, so when people then come into said thread and try to basically shut it down, how does that help the developers?

[Zacchaeus]

Exactly, so when we are then told to suck it up and pipe down or move on that's not really in keeping with providing the developers feedback. This is a thread specifically to articulate our concerns with the current state of the user experience, hopefully providing the developers with some useful feedback and maybe an idea or two, so when people then come into said thread and try to basically shut it down, how does that help the developers?

It doesn't. Which was why I made the post. I'm agreeing with you.

[Ludd_G]

Many many apologies. I misinterpreted and thought you were pointing me and Karnas back to post#68. Sorry, and thanks for your post.

[Jiminimonka]

I like the idea of Rich Text formatting (across the board), including being able to change text colour.

[Weissrolf]

SW need an UX designer.

[rpbarrett111]

SW need an UX designer.

Yeah. That's where I'm coming from. I apologize to all for being unduly harsh. From my perspecitve, hey, I come in as a noob to FG, but not a noob to the world. It's kind of shocking and worrying to me that D&D Beyond has sort of appropriated the VTT thing with a Disney size art team. Worrisome, because FG is the real deal for gaming in a much broader range of games than just D&D. I'm an old guy. I'd like to see the hardcore gamers win - not the bigger corporation(s).

FG is like an operating system, and I can see it' s quite powerful, especially once one tacks on some of the addons from SW and the community. Incredible, really. Like a several other community sourced type of things, FG is an awesome creation.

I'm coming from the standpoint of, hey, hire a digital painter. I don't think it's bad to say the thing can look a lot better. It's constructive. Like I say, take a look at the competition, because they're killing it.

Looks carry over to function of course . . . which got me thinking - they're really going in a nice Adobe Photoshop sort of direction with the map layers. Very perfect for the VTT. And so, I I would think InDesign or Adobe Acrobat then are nice inspirational models for a UI interface . . . how to present this large mass of interelated tools. They've had decades to work that out and the analogy to FG is thorough.

Tack on Discord and you've got my dream come true.

But man, at the table, I need to have the option of an experience where the portal is of my composition. Know what I mean? Composition. I want to be in my game world a lot more here. I'm actually considering being a DM for a living. So imagin the ability to have a custom map, tokens, labels, sounds, lighting, icons, and yes, lists comprised of nothing but an atmosphere I've crafted from, yes, some rented materials. This will be gathered in a large room, with FG on a big monitor, running a localhost session that includes all the characters' markers. It's a tactical display and reference resource, mainly. My players are seated about a large area with their own character sheets in hand. My part is the presentation of the map and story. So it's like that. When there's all this fumbling . . . Nah. Can't have that. There's too much I'm runing. Everything the players ever see needs to match my mood and story, and everything I do needs to likewise be the touch of a button. It's kind of like showtime.

I simply don't want the final experience to include wading through tiny lists of 8 pt font items like "PC Customiztion Class Pack - Druid." I NEED that stuff to run the game yes, but I need at some point not to be scrolling through it.

I figured that if I could simply link to groups then I could do it. I could make an image map that says, "Rappan Athuk" (in my case) and on that image map have links to just the classes, images, etc. that I want. To skip the scrolling. For my players - people who don't want to scroll through lists of all that stuff. Sorry, they just don't. They told me so.

So you know, I'm not a developer, but I did figure the ability to link to groups would accomplish a whole lot. Shortcuts icons to one's own select groups would be another idea, I guess. I think if you guys did either of those things, I could work with that.

BTW - I just had to share this. So a party of adventurers comes up the trail. They're halted by a very large pile of droppings in the middle of the trail. The Ranger bends down to examine the droppings. The Fighter asks him, "Cave bear?" The Ranger says, "No. Druid."

But yeah, sorry if I come off as a ****. I've worked in graphics for 30 years. We get very, very used to everyone criticizing art and changing it all the time. It hurts and annoys every time, but the best thing to do is keep changing **** all the time anyhow. I was just suggesting some ground up rebuild of some key parts in Unity and getting some fresh digital matte painting talent. About five new hires. Full-time. Salaried. You kind of have to make FG the Metallica of this whole thing at this point. Old school. True Solid. Can do anything the other guys can do . . . AND offers the DETAILS, the gaming system versatility, etc. that the hardcore VTT people want. So I'd like to see them do that, is all.

[seycyrus]

Yeah, like the last 14 times I used roll20, the integrated sound and voice chats were terrible. No thank you!

[DM_BK]

I apologize if I came off as hostile or trying to drive anyone away. That was not my intent. I agree with most of the feedback on this thread. It IS good feedback.

It was my hope that I helped you understand why things are so funky/alien seeming with the way FG functions. As stated previously, things have come a long way and continue to improve bit-by-bit almost every week now - with the limits being that we can't expect the over-arching UI design to disappear....I think that's mostly where things will not change much.

The lacking of sound used to seem like a strange hole in FG features set...but eventually I came to realize that other products do sound better. It's not likely that FG is ever going to have VOIP features that could rival Discord or a dozen other products out there that specialize in those services. So it's my thinking that they shouldn't spend limited resources there trying to reinvent something others do well already.

I keep thinking we used to blame the "Norwegian design" for the bizarro way the UI worked (by the standards I am/was accustomed to). I can't recall with certainty now but it's stuck in my head that this wasn't originally designed by people in the US. It's well known that UI design is heavily influenced by culture. This isn't a bad or good thing, it just is and you can see it distinctly in many products across the globe.

[Nylanfs]

The original design was from two guys from Norway (Denmark, Finland?). I still have Ville's card somewhere. :)

[Springroll]

The original design was from two guys from Norway (Denmark, Finland?). I still have Ville's card somewhere. :)
It was a program from Finland I believe...

[Jiminimonka]

One thing that could be improved in FGU is the mouse accuracy for window selection.

Like the mouse is on the desktop before the cursor for resizing the window changes.

42752

Same when trying to click windows that are stacked, sometimes you have to move the window on top even though the mouse has plenty of room to "touch" the window beneath it.