SC4 In Game Menus

[whwsc4 0]

After having added a bunch of custom lots, parks, buildings, etc.. I find that the menus in the game are just horribly unorganized and items sometimes do not look in the menu like they do after you plop them.  My question is has anyone come up with a better way to organize all the content once it is in the game so a menu doesn't have to be 10 miles long?

 

Thanks....

[matias93 7,535]

The Daeley Advanced Menu Navigator is the current most advanced solution to that problem: uses the advisors' textboxes to show organized menus of custom content. To use it, you have to rearrange completely your Plugins folder, distributing the files in a way compatible with the mod and accord to your uses.

http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=DAMN.

There are a number of addons for the DAMN, inculuding a managing software and preorganized packs for common mods with many buttons.

Anyway, there are simpler, partial solutions, as the MML lots for some contents (as the RTMT or some SFBT filling lots), they are lots that, when plopped, activate another buttons in a menu, reducing the list of buttons when a certain kind of lots won't be used.

In my experience, I discovered the DAMN too late to use it, with a plugins folder bordering 3 Gb of size, so I'm awaiting for an opportunity to remake that folder (some kind of corruption or erase of disc) to use the DAMN.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I try to avoid ploppable items for this very reason.  The menu system cannot be updated or modded short of using DAMN, and I've found that rather unwieldy.  If I want to plop something, there is always the LotPlop, BldgPlop sequence.

[rsc204 21,806]

I would point out the icons used in menus give a creator a whole 44x44 pixels with which to showcase a lot, so sometimes there isn't a lot you can do to make things look right.

Neither DAMN nor MML's really appeal to me, but a number of users swear by them. I've learned to live with some long menus. I re-organise items when I feel it is necessary and like Nonny, I too avoid Plop Lots for the most part to keep menus a bit cleaner.

[Prophet42 1,501]

Actually I organize my menus by using iLive's Reader and modifing the 'Item Order' parameter in the lots examplar to place it in the menu order were I want it.  If I want to change the menu were it is located then I modify the 'Occupant Groups' parameter to change the menu. It may be somewhat tedius, but it gives me the greatest control over the menus.