Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

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Submarine
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Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Fri, 14. May 21, 18:07

Currently X4v4.0 if you click on a highlighted save it loads.

This is causing the game to load games I am trying to delete as you cannot access delete function except via load or save interface.

If I select delete for a highlighted save, the save does not appear to delete.

If I delete a second save the first save then deletes but the second does not in the same interface session and if you click it, it loads!

Load/save is on a hair trigger and delete function appears broken.

Is there a fix apart from the obvious workaround of going to the folder?

If not may I suggest to devs to consider that pressing delete should cause the listing to be visibly removed and inaccessible as the first step while deletion proceeds.

Secondly it needs a verification step between selecting and activating load or save which is not the same as the selection process i.e. it should not be possible to initiate by just clicking on the save listing. You should need to either click the load or save button specifically or clicking the save name twice should provide a yes/no dialogue like with the spacesuit which has a "never show me this again" option which people could then choose if they wish.

As it stands I am finding it an unsafe interface. FYI :)
bloop

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by CBJ » Fri, 14. May 21, 18:35

I'm not able to reproduce the behaviour you're describing at all. Clicking on a savegame doesn't immediately load it, and deleting works as expected how ever many times you do it. I can think of four possible reasons you could be having problems:

1. Your game is modified and the menu has been changed.
2. Your game installation is corrupt. Use the Steam or GOG file verification to check this.
3. You have remapped controls in such a way that clicking is treated as double-clicking.
4. You have a problem with your mouse which results in double-clicks when you single-click.

Note that, all of the above aside, you can also navigate the menu using the keyboard, and use the Delete menu button (or the key assigned to it, which is '4' by default) to delete the item.

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Fri, 14. May 21, 19:35

Hi CBJ thanks for answering, very professional as usual :)

For clarity I am talking about one-clicking the highlighted file, so it is either preselected or already clicked once.

As an aside I recently realised save does not do this only load. Save will ask if you want to overwrite which is useful.

This is completely unmodiied vanilla steam instal on Win10 x64 Pro.

I just verified the closed game in steam without any errors.

I am not aware of having made control changes that would cause this. Any ideas which settings ? I did import a previous joystick profile which seemed to be available, not sure if that followed me in the cloud or whether I imported it when I set up this PC, which would have been copied from last playthrough which was Split Vendetta release and a different JS but I have not messed with mouse settings at all.

There is only one player set mouse setting in the entire control scheme and that is mouselook on ctrl+middle button.

Do you really not get an immediate load on clicking a highlighted save in the load interface? Happens every time here, mystifying!

PS I do have windows folder settings set up to open on single click I wonder if that is related?
bloop

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by CBJ » Fri, 14. May 21, 21:11

I'm a bit confused about the sequence of events you're describing now.

Yes, clicking on a save to select it and then clicking on it a second time does indeed load that save. That's by design, and is what every menu item does in the start menu. I'm pretty sure it's also what most people would expect to happen. In fact I'd go so far as to say that it would be pretty annoying to have to confirm every time just to load a save, which is the most thing you'd be doing 99% of the time when you use this menu!

The main confusion comes where you say that this interferes with deleting. You don't need to click on an item more than once in order to delete it; to delete a save you click on it once to select it, then you either click on the Delete button in the panel on the right, or you use the hotkey associated with that button. Once you've confirmed that you want to delete it, you are taken straight back to the menu and the save you deleted is already gone by then. There is no "delete process" during which it's visible, as the delete is pretty much instant even on a normal HDD.

For the record, no, your Windows settings won't have any effect here. :)

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Fri, 14. May 21, 23:05

In response to your remarks, why isn't the load convention the same as for save, which has a y/n overwrite check? That is not consistent!

Why it matters, save/load is more important than the rest of the game interface because if you foul up you can lose game progress e.g. if you misclicked load instead of save you are presented with an almost identical list and would not get a second chance dialogue if you clicked a load listing imagining it to be for saving, as it would immediately load and you would lose all the current game progress when the game loaded a save you intended to overwrite.

I am just saying it should follow the same convention as save which checks when you intend to overwrite a save.

Given the risks and time it takes to load/save anyway, I dont think it would be annoying to confirm y/n as a safety check on load as well as save but I anticipated your point that some people would find it so and that is why I made the point above about allowing all these y/n dialogues to be toggled off as with the spacesuit check in game, which can be reinstated in the Settings > Game settings > Reenable all confirmations. Speaking of which, if you have a toggled y/n dialogue on using the spacesuit in game, it is quite hard to understand why we do not have that same facility for loading gamesaves which are far more significant events.

As I said, the reason I got in enough of a flummox to notice this problem was the delete function was not clearing the save and as an example of the above, when I clicked on the deleted save which had not been cleared from the list, to check if it was really there the game immediately loaded it and that surprised me. Dont ask me why the listing was not removed, I do not know, I can only report what I observed happened when I tried to consecutively delete three autosaves in the load interface (compression is on in case it matters).

I really think egosoft should put the load dialogue on the to do list and make both that and the save dialogue togglable, because at the very least the load convention should be the same as the save convention as they are both equally capable of causing significant problems. I am sure they would love to do this because by and large they like to be user friendly, which as a user I appreciate. :D
bloop

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by CBJ » Sat, 15. May 21, 01:18

Submarine wrote:
Fri, 14. May 21, 23:05
As I said, the reason I got in enough of a flummox to notice this problem was the delete function was not clearing the save and as an example of the above, when I clicked on the deleted save which had not been cleared from the list, to check if it was really there the game immediately loaded it and that surprised me. Dont ask me why the listing was not removed, I do not know, I can only report what I observed happened when I tried to consecutively delete three autosaves in the load interface (compression is on in case it matters).
This is the part I've been unable to reproduce. If the game loaded when you selected it then clearly it hadn't been deleted at all, and I can only imagine that you accidentally hit No rather than Yes when asked to confirm the deletion. Of course, if you can reproduce it doing something different then we'd be more than happy to investigate.

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Sat, 15. May 21, 11:25

OK, its hard to know what happened as one has to be more familiar with the behaviour of the interface than I am at the moment having just restarted, to try Cradle after a while away.

But I will test delete a bit and make a video if I see anything worth your attention.
bloop

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Sat, 22. May 21, 18:49

OK I have tested this and if you use the arrow keys to navigate and enter to delete it works fine, if you use a mouse to select all buttons from the load interface to delete autosaves, it simply does not work period.

It does give you Y/N dialogue and if you click yes it does not erase anything just sits there.

Unfortunately I have not been able to video this because FRAPS which was my video capture app does not work in Win10. Windows Xbox interface which you can use in Win10 is very fussy and if you use a mouse click in the game interface while the Xbox interface is loaded it unloads and does not record a thing, presumably because it is built for gamepads.

So I would suggest testing deleting autosaves using mouse only from the load interface and see if you get the same behaviour.
bloop

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Sat, 29. May 21, 18:27

Submarine wrote:
Fri, 14. May 21, 23:05

Why it matters, save/load is more important than the rest of the game interface because if you foul up you can lose game progress e.g. if you misclicked load instead of save you are presented with an almost identical list and would not get a second chance dialogue if you clicked a load listing imagining it to be for saving, as it would immediately load and you would lose all the current game progress when the game loaded a save you intended to overwrite.
I have just done exactly that due to confusing quick load F5 and quick save F9. Bang goes an hour of fiddling about with orders I was trying to save.
bloop

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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Alan Phipps » Sat, 29. May 21, 19:51

I know exactly what you mean as I have made that sort of in-game error myself. However, it does teach you to be bit more disciplined about relying on quick saving and now I use a numbered save slot before or at all important progress, milestones and decision points in my game. I treat quicksave/quickload more as a useful convenience at less-important times and the autosaves as my additional safety net to restrict potential time-loss to acceptable limits.
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Re: Is there any way to modify the user unfriendly LOAD/SAVE interface ?

Post by Submarine » Sun, 30. May 21, 00:12

My sympathies. Good advice to save often, I try to do it every time I make orders or enter battle.

To be honest I used the wrong term when I said quick load I meant "Load Game" hotkey (which is quick compared to the esc menu, maybe! :D )

Obviously you can do the same with quickload/save, which is why I deleted their keybindings entirely!

So this time I managed to go through the load interface and click on a listing without realising it was a load listing not a save listing. I probably would have caught it if there had been a Y/N dialogue with the word load emphasised as there is for save with "overwrite", which is the suggestion I am trying to make.

For a practical workaround, to make this less likely, I have set the Load Game short cut to ctrl+F9 and kept Save Game as just F5, so if I mix them up again I should manage to catch myself because I will just press F9 and nothing will happen. Fingers crossed.
bloop

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