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Minor Update  03-26-2014 8:00am

 

Description:

 

I present to you my customized greyscale UI.  This is now a final product.  This is a full transformation that removes the blue colors from your interface, including all buttons, and replaces then with shades of grey.  I also have adjusted some text and some location of elements.

 

You'll find this is a small file that doesn't noticeably impact load times.  I have not noticed any sort of performance impact.

 

I hope you enjoy the change!

 

Note: Urgent advice dialogs (which can be turned off) are still default colors.

 

 

Install/Uninstall:

 

Unzip the download and place the .dat file into your ..../SimCity 4/Plugins folder.  Remember to remove any previous versions of this UI or any of my other UI skins to avoid conflicts.

 

 

Notice:

 

I have designed this to work with UI translucency turned on in the graphics options AND a minimum resolution of 1024x768.  You will experience different results without UI translucency option turned on, such as ugly shadows, jagged edges, missing or solid colors where pieces of translucent UI belong, and some old blue UI remaining.  Please bring any anomalies to my attention and I will attempt to address them.  Please play with UI translucency turned on for intended results.  I have figured out how to make my UI work better with the option for translucency turned off but I will not be refining that version to look better since there isn't a reason UI translucency should be turned off with a decent PC.


What's New 1.1   View Changelog


Released

  • Fixed an issue where a player could not scroll down screen if mouse in lower-left corner.
  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1



User Feedback



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raise your r$$$ taxes dude, or it'll start to appear no job zots on your R$$$ buildings

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I'll take the beta.  Looking forward to the upgrade.  5/5

 

Later: Installed, tested.  Works as advertised.  Seems the main UI is more compact.  Must be the black background.  Very nice, thanks a lot.  Look forward to the final version.

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Thanks for all the nice comments everyone!  I spent countless hours on this little project because I didn't even know where to begin when I started.  All I knew was I wanted to give it a try and I had to figure everything out from there. 

 

It's encouraging to see you like it so far, I'll keep up the work finishing and refining it a bit.  The landscape button needs to be redone and all of the buttons need to be slightly darker on the sidebar and the main panel selection buttons.  The top edge of the corner panel needs to be smoothed out better, among other things I'm tweaking.

 

I'm curious as to what you guys think of the options bar and buttons.  Do you like the way I make them light up blue when you hover and click, or would you prefer dropshadowed buttons that appear to depress when clicked?  While finishing up I could apply either effect to all UI buttons for uniformity.

 

I appreciate the feedback!

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Are you from Japan?

Odd question.. but nope.  Pennsylvania born and raised..

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That's cool, I been tired of all these candy colors for a long time :-)

 

I know how tedious that identifying process must have been - kudos to you! Really looking forward to the first final version - and I hope you can also get rid of that irritating cyan on the hover states ;-)

 

True, once you got all the graphic details you should be in a good position to come up with different "skins" - which will probably be a lot more fun to design than the nittygritty work up to this point ;-)

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

 

Edit: Shucks, on reading your comment further up again I should clarify mine... <face_palm>

 

I'm curious as to what you guys think of the options bar and buttons.  Do you like the way I make them light up blue when you hover and click

 

That's what I meant with the "irritating cyan"... nope, I don't like that color effect at all (if I may be so bold)... I think staying monochrome here and having 'dropshadowed buttons that appear to depress' will look and feel much nicer.

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That's what I meant with the "irritating cyan"... nope, I don't like that color effect at all (if I may be so bold)... I think staying monochrome here and having 'dropshadowed buttons that appear to depress' will look and feel much nicer.

I was leaning in that direction myself.  I started at the bottom bar with little photoshop knowledge.  It was an attempt to solve the hover state before I knew how to add a dropshadow.  I have since learned how to do that.  I'll change those buttons back to greyscale and make them 3d.  I'll remove the color from the rotate/zoom buttons too.  I'll save effects like that for other themes.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

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Yeah, even nicer now with all the changes - very close to 'final' I'd say :-)

 

* Just noticed: the button "Open News Window" is still cyan - not a deal-breaker, but since you're still doing revisions... ;-)

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I appreciate the comments and votes from everyone! 

 

I am spending time making a nicer 'corner panel' (reduced jagged edges) to go with the next release (post .96b).  I have never really been content with the corner as-is.  I'll also be fixing the 'news ticker button' (thx paeng!).  I'll be making the speed arrows 'green as in go' green, and a few other changes/additions.

 

Thanks for feedback!

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I can only echo paeng's comments - the critique concerning colour choice and, most importantly, the praise for your great effort putting this creative idea into practice! Now that I see the screenshot, I really like the 'more calm than candy' look. :golly:

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Nice!  Thanks for all your effort. It freshens up SC.  I think I can live with the new greyscale UI for another ten years!

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Picking up the new .98 beta, thanks.

 

Something amiss.  The download didn't go.  Tried twice.

 

Third time was the charm.  STEX must have been upwhacked.

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Goodbye ugly blue UI forever!

 

v1.0 is now released.  It is refined in several areas and I hope everyone will like some of the little changes I made, like changing mayor rating to happiness, or the new, smaller region info pane.  Please report to me anything you find that still needs to be addressed, or changes you would like made.  I would like to give a shout out to Paeng for his private feedback.  He is responsible for inspiring several improvements that I made since my initial beta release.

 

Remember to keep an eye out for my future releases of different themes!  The more I do this the better I get at it.  Expect even better results with each release! 

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Downloading now.  Thanks.  The beta was great and this should help even more.

 

Speaking of minor changes in the UI, you know when you open a city it give totals for RCI.  This would be useful associated with the demand graph.

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Thanks for the new UI, my eyes are delighted 8)

 

Remember to keep an eye out for my future releases of different themes!  The more I do this the better I get at it.  Expect even better results with each release! 

 

Make cherry blossom last plz

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I first downloaded the rev98b version and loved it.. I then got the new updated version 1.0 and i do like 99% of the changes you made.. the only thing I noticed however is that the newest version overrides the plugin I use to make my News Window larger... which wouldn't normally be a big deal, but ever since implementing the DAMN manager menu interface it's becoming apparent that I need the larger window to make my life easier!  I actually downgraded back to the rev98b version for now....

 

Anyway you could somehow implement a larger news window in your 1.0 version ? ? 

 

Thanks!

  • Like 1

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