This day, I've had a go at setting up my X56 HOTAS.
It's problematic to say the least.
Firstly, the profiles.
I set the stick as the first controller, throttle as second.
There is no indication of the current active profile.
The default X56 profile is totallly useless as it defies all known conventions for using an X55/ X56 HOTAS flying a space ship.
Why does rotating the stick anti-clockwise on the Z-axis fire the primary weapon? Eh?
I could go on.
The automatic roll is on which means if you setup the X-axis as roll then the after rolling and then centering the stick the roll is reversed, you go back to as previous.
And the automatic roll is set where? Why in the gameplay settings of course!!!
So is this saved in the profile? I assume not. So where is this setting stored that so affects the controller bevhaviour?
So what is a profile?
There is no confirmation of a profile being saved. Why not?!!!!
This goes for the settings UI in general. Change graphics? use an apply button and confirm changes.
What does pressing the ESC button actually do? Ignore changes? Save changes? Or is it for going back up the menu tree while ignoring or saving changes?
What does pressing ENTER do on an items option box? I'm thinking about saving a profiles here. Select 'yes' option in the 'save' menu branch and press ENTER.
Does double clicking do anything here?
Again where's the confirmation?
This breaks so many GUI guidelines and conventions. X3R does a better job!
Have you, X4 developers, actually got an X56 to test with?
As a professional developer of over 20 years experience and playing space games with joysticks since 1984 this bit of X4's UI is in my opinion just amateurish.
And this is the simple bit of X4!
As for the games UI there seems to be lots of mouse pointer travel to small visual elements - Fitt's Law?
It is difficult job getting anywhere near a reasonable GUI: programmers are the worst people at GUI design. They might know what a closure is but knowing HCI is not in their spectrum of expertise.
I'm a C++ Software Engineer
