Some general UI niggles and wishes

[Shadrach]

Hi -
while Southern Storm is a big improvement over the previous game in terms of UI accessibility. There are still some minor niggles I've found during my first playthroughs. These things mainly apply to the dialogs that are not part Core Info ones and they should follow standard Windows UI principles.

* Esc should close/cancel a dialog
* Dialogs should be toggles if possible
* F4 Unit Dashboard is not a toggle - can't be closed with Esc
* F6 Subunit Inspector is a toggle - can't be closed with Esc
* SOP Manager can be closed with Alt+C - not with Esc or toggled with Ctrl+K

For right-click context menus there are also some basic improvements that should be added:
* Underlined access keys for the options - especially for the orders, so the user can right-click and press a key for quicker access.
* I suggest using 1-6 for orders as they are the same for each unit.
* I believe in many cases, Windows will automatically assign access keys for context menus? I have seen this in the menus for FPSS but no idea how I got them...

Some more:
* Arrow keys should be available for map scrolling in addition to Numpad (not all keyboard have a numpad!)
* WASD map scrolling should be an option (game does not use single key hotkeys so should be easy to add.)
* Menus should be accessible with keyboard access keys - for instance Alt+G for Game, Alt+S for Staff, Alt+T for Terrain etc.

[CapnDarwin]

We have been dealing with network issues, but I like all of these inputs and have copied the team on them. We may not be able to do them all, but we will fix the bugs and inconsistent UI issues.

[IronManBeta]

Shadrach - I have cut and pasted your entire post into my task list, lol. I wish we had had you as a playtester!

Re the escape key. Many dialogs do support it but there are hundreds and it is not always obvious just what the intended cancel action should do. I just ran out of steam on that one but seeing your comment has inspired me to go find more and make them Escape enabled.

All good observations. The F4 and F6 used to work fine for example but somewhere went bad. We will get those fixed asap.

Thanks for taking the time to post such a well-considered list.

Rob C

[Shadrach]

Thank you so much guys - looking forward to any improvements you're able to implement

In the meantime I'm using a AHK script to overcome some of the limitations:
https://pastebin.com/z7SGg3AB

Have a look, might give you some ideas

I might post the script in a separate topic here at some point.