Hiya, I like a lot of the concepts in the Photon UI, but most of improvement comes from constructive input. SO here’s what I don’t like in Photon/this latest update (notes taken through the day as I encounter them)
Coloured Text : This first item may be outside of Photon, but the colours used with indicating system security status levels, and the other elements around system display, they have been dulled to a level that I don’t like them. The system/station/etc text is clear but still so much darker that it really feels drab grey to me, and those colours are dulled to a level which, instead of feeling vibrant and good (to me) they are all a bit sad and generally unpleasant to see. They might be good for a dark-mode setting perhaps for people experiencing light sensitivity or otherwise wanting the game elements less bright, but otherwise just feels dull. Extra: This applies to other coloured texts I’ve seen later, like in the wallet.
Excess Padding : in many windows there is still a lot of wasted space through excessive padding, where a ‘compact mode’ would be appreciated for those who like their information compact while visible and also not-in-the-way of viewing their ship and the space around it … so far I’ve seen the Fleet Invite window is particularly egregious ; in cases where maybe the extra size is supposed to be about grabbing attention or alerting, put some extra border-filling colour (like a yellow or orange) so it’s really loud and also doesn’t feel like badly wasted space
Neocom Transparency : the Neocom and its expanded menus are stuck on ‘light mode’ with transparency, I don’t like it and I haven’t found any option to ‘disable light mode’
Inconsistency : (because consistency was part of the plan right?) … the ones that stand out to me so far are the CHAT and Planetary Industry and Inventory windows, which have no one-click Minimize/Close button to quickly get them out of my way (EDIT: applies just to Compact Mode, where there is still plenty of room for that essential extra button without otherwise changing the layout or appearance)
Button Sizes : several buttons are much taller/larger than is appropriate for the size of text within them; I like most of my text to be small, so the button should at least be not-tall to be a proper fit with that text, and here I am very aware of the big wasted space (similar issue to the excess padding mentioned earlier)
INDUSTRY PANEL : This is a further extension of the issue in wasted space and excess padding. I like playing EVE with a smaller (720p) height so with the graphical section as big as it is, there’s very little room for the blueprint list and now there’s even less. Last week (with compact list) I could see 6 blueprints and that was workable, but with the added waste-padding now I only get 3 blueprints. There is the button to collapse the graphical portion of the panel in which case it becomes a list of blueprints and nothing else as every action and function to use the blueprints will also be hidden - functionally useless. SO, my request here, if we can’t reduce the padding or shrink the graphical section, give the Industry window a ‘compact mode’ where all of the functional features and information are available without the big cool imagery - and in the case where there’s not enough material to start a job then the Start button can be disabled like usual saying “not enough material” and then if I want I can expand the main interface for the details.
Neocom BUG : when I log in, the Neocom icons below the skill training are missing until I resize the Neocom (not just the image is missing, the buttons are completely absent)
(later additions)
Contract Window : the minimum width is more than necessary, but more importantly considering that width the ‘Name’ and ‘Search By’ fields are very short, so much that there is not enough room to show the full label in the ‘Search By’ field