Quick (minor) UI Request for the future of widescreen users

In the future... it would be nice if the UI was jigged around so that it was a little more useable on large widescreen monitors.

Take for example the coach reports on players:

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Position

Coloccini is a central defender.

Current Ability .... then twelve miles over on the other side of the screen...... way over here, miles away.... *** (star rating)

Chris Hughton is of blah blah opinion

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I feel like I'm watching a very boring tennis match. Left, right, left right...

Might it be an idea to put star ratings on the far left and then a new, neat area alongside for the text? At the moment I'm scanning across 60% of empty screen to see the star rating and text notes in relation to information I read all the way over the other side of the screen.

To see the actual screen:

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=widescreenqv0.jpg

Better idea of what I am kind of suggesting (with bad Paint skills):

http://img60.imageshack.us/my.php?image=widescreen2cd2.jpg

I'm using a 24" monitor at 1920x1200 and sitting about 83.333cm from said screen.

I'd also like to mention the tiny icons and notifications. E.g. the news icon showing number of news/inbox items unread. Its so small! Is this game being developed on kit comprising of cheapo 17" 4:3 flatscreens or something? My last company used such tasty gear, so I share your pain if this is the case. Thing is, we were making mobile stuff.

Very pleased that Widescreens are taken care of properly this year in the sense that we no longer have to scour the forum to remember the widescreen string, (big thumbs up), but it could do with being easier on the eye with larger monitors/higher resolutions. No doubt some issues related to the above will change with fantastic community skins, and I'll grab one of those, but I just wanted to mention it.

If I'm the only person with this problem then I'll, erm, shut my cake hole, don my coat and shuffle back under my favourite rock.

i only have a 19" widescreen monitor so your problem is a bit worse than mine! However i also find it somewhat annoying at how great big spaces get lumped in the middle of the screen.

Another solution of course is to play windowed and then reduce the window size to bring things closer together

Exactly the same here, so i would say that i agree with everything you say.

Wow, I do much prefer your mad-paint-skillz version. Might be something somebody in the skin community can address, that looks very much like it ought to be a skinnable change.

Another solution of course is to play windowed and then reduce the window size to bring things closer together

I like to give FM the full attention and CPU dedication it deserves

Although it really does open up some possibilities, to think about working on the UI design *with 1900 pixels in mind* - we could conceivably get a lot more information onto individual screens.

Yep, but then it might swing towards the minority with massive ones (ooer missus) and become a mess for the average sized monitor (around 19" widescreen?)

If the icons scaled so that they were a little larger on higher res displays it'd help. When I look at the text on pitch within the tactics screen (e.g. position title above player circle) it looks awful, really unclear.

I've had a 28" screen for a while and have gotten used to playing tennis with text. Can't argue with your idea though. Good work!

The game is designed for 1024x768 screens so if you are playing at 1920x1200 then there is going to be a lot of dead space unfortunately.

Probably best to play in windowed at that resolution

1024x768? Isn't that a bit outdated for this day and age? I don't know anyone that still uses that resolution. Even my mum who is a "silver surfer" is on 1280x1024!

1024x768 is still industry standard for a lot of offices.

Most modern games tend to have it as the default resolution too.

Hmm..interesting, i assumed almost everyone had moved on!

Thanks for the response Ter.

Thing is, if some of the information be repositioned, it would work for all resolutions. (i.e. stars on the left, then text) The current system, although perfectly sensible when designing GUI at your stated res, misses out on resolutions a lot larger than that which will be come ever more common as progress marches through our world. Maybe if I were able to drag the star information across the screen, to be closer to the text and eat up some of the empty space, it'd work a little better. Much like altering the columns of data in a windows folder.

Information .................................................................................................................... [info

Information .................. [info (dragged closer)

etc.

1024x768? Isn't that a bit outdated for this day and age?

That's ridiclous, it's by a mile the most popular setting used by internet users. I use 800x600 and then 1024x768 when need be.

That's ridiclous, it's by a mile the most popular setting used by internet users. I use 800x600 and then 1024x768 when need be.

That's surely a sarcastic post?

Either that or you're very, very wrong!

On a laptop I presume? 800x600 I dont know anyone that uses that resolution, I've got an old laptop around here somewhere from about 5yrs ago and the res is much higher than that :s

320x240 ftw!

1024x768? Isn't that a bit outdated for this day and age? I don't know anyone that still uses that resolution. Even my mum who is a "silver surfer" is on 1280x1024!

No, The most used natural resolution has only just become 1024 by 768. It was 800 by 600 up until about 2 years ago.

No, The most used natural resolution has only just become 1024 by 768. It was 800 by 600 up until about 2 years ago.

That's staggering - I haven't seen a computer use that resolution, or indeed 1024x768 for at least 4 years! And even that machine was about 3 years old at the time!

3 years old is shocking? We're not all rich with all the latest technology.

3 years old is shocking? We're not all rich with all the latest technology.

try reading my post again The computer in question I saw 4 years ago, and it was 3 years old at the time, making it 7 years old.

That's staggering - I haven't seen a computer use that resolution, or indeed 1024x768 for at least 4 years! And even that machine was about 3 years old at the time!

You have to take into account the figures I'm talking about are world figures.

But very much the Internet standard is 1024x768 now. FM needs to match as many resolutions as well. If you think the "My graphics card isn't good enough" issue is bad enough, imagine all those people running 1024x768 complaining

Although no one actually uses 1024x768 anymore its very nice that the game is designed to work at that resolution just fine. Its not exactly a game that requires 100% concentration at all times, more of something that you can play for a long time as you go about wasting your time. So its very nice to have the extra space on your monitor for IRC, MSN, video etc..

1024x768 is categorically the standard resolution for PCs worldwide.

It should also be noted that despite the growth in widescreen monitors, they are far from the norm at the moment. In the future I'm sure the game will be adapted to fit this in a more efficient way (as tv has done over the recent years with widescreen tv)

I'd like to see the customisable views from FML introduced - that'd be a great way of supporting us widescreen users, as we could configure the screens pretty much however we wanted

The game has to run at 1024x768, that's fine. But what should be happening is that the game should make better use of the space when it's expanded. I play at 1680x1050 and the big problem I have is with the player profile screens. The players attributes have a huge gap between the label and the value, so I can't read the info from the screen anywhere near as easily as I should be able to. Something as simple as centring the pair of items close together, rather than having one left aligned and one right aligned would make a huge difference and wouldn't affect the games ability to work at lower resolutions. Okay it might not necessarily look as nice from a design point of view, but it would make reading the screen much easier.

Absolutely, the screens should just handle the varied resolutions better. I'd not suggesting we up the res for which the game is designed, we can still stick to the worldwide standard and everyones a winner. Just save my neck, please

My desktop runs at 1920x1200

In between matches I run at 1024x768 windowed, whilst chatting with mates, surfing, listening to music etc.

Matchday I maximise and watch it in glorious 3D

You have to take into account the figures I'm talking about are world figures.

But very much the Internet standard is 1024x768 now. FM needs to match as many resolutions as well. If you think the "My graphics card isn't good enough" issue is bad enough, imagine all those people running 1024x768 complaining

The tracking stats on my website (pretty much exclusively UK/European visitors) show 1024x768 to indeed still be the most popular here, closely followed by 1200x800 (smallish widescreen laptop) and 1280x854 (mac laptop).

The problem's not filling space though, it's the positioning of stuff within that space. I don't mind there being large empty areas on the screen, as long as the empty area isn't between a pair of items that I need to read across, like the player attribute labels and values.

Ter, what did you think about the viability of a skin (user-created) which is designed towards one of the higher resolutions?

How feasible is it, do you think?

While in desktops a lot of people (maybe 80%? or more..) can use 1280x1024 in laptops this isnt true... my laptop's screen is 15'4 and max res is 1154 or w/e... Mostly only laptops with 17' screen support 1280x1024 so Id saythat would be unfair to change to 1280...