Submenus DLL

[youngwii 74]

Regarding the airports menu, as a custom airport builder, I think that, should a standardised submenu system be created for that menu, here would be my suggested categories:

• Maxis airports
• Custom functional airports
  • These items can be combined into a single category
• Runway pieces
  • Perhaps submenus for different runway widths, orthogonal/diagonal, etc.
  • Another submenu for runway-taxiway interface pieces
• Taxiway pieces
• Runway/taxiway signs (alternatively could be categorised into either one of those two categories, or some can go in both if single lots can be placed in multiple submenus)
• Apron pavement pieces (including taxiway interface pieces)
• Light ramp pieces (including taxiway interface)
• Dark ramp pieces (including taxiway interface)
• Terminal pieces
• Gates and jets
• Auxiliary buildings (eg. hangars)

I acknowledge that this might be too fine-grained.

[Panda 209]

@Kel9509 I asked Memo the same thing and Memo let me know that if you add multiple entries to the Building Submenu Property, then yes, that lot would show up in both places. So say you wanted a waste to energy plant to show up in both the garbage and power plant menus, that would be possible.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

16 minutes ago, youngwii said:

Regarding the airports menu, as a custom airport builder, I think that, should a standardised submenu system be created for that menu, here would be my suggested categories:

• Maxis airports
• Custom functional airports
  • These items can be combined into a single category
• Runway pieces
  • Perhaps submenus for different runway widths, orthogonal/diagonal, etc.
  • Another submenu for runway-taxiway interface pieces
• Taxiway pieces
• Runway/taxiway signs (alternatively could be categorised into either one of those two categories, or some can go in both if single lots can be placed in multiple submenus)
• Apron pavement pieces (including taxiway interface pieces)
• Light ramp pieces (including taxiway interface)
• Dark ramp pieces (including taxiway interface)
• Terminal pieces
• Gates and jets
• Auxiliary buildings (eg. hangars)

I acknowledge that this might be too fine-grained.

It is already in the works and will be included in the next SC4E & STEX Ultimate Airport Pack update as it is already specific and selective and this work should only be done by people who know what is behind airport mods

I also prefer that Rail Menu and Misc Transport be taken off the list since there is already a planned MTA/NAM epsansion and as a result we are already working in creating the various submenus first to reflect to the all the changes that NAM brings.

Now I'm just observing to figure out the trend of this and trying to match this discussion with all the various CAM 2.5 sub-systems that I'm developing and so it means that I can't mess up too much of the changes that I have planned which means that CAM may have its own sub-menu system if I consider the changes too distorted from my CAM 2.5 goals.

 

[nos.17 5,120]

I think by far the two worst menu offenders are the parks and landmarks menus. If for whatever reason we decided to temporarily wait on the other categories or couldnt come to an agreement and just address these two in version 1, I think that would have the most impact right off the start.

My input on @memo's proposed categories:

Spoiler

Draft for a standard set of 1st-level submenus:

(Comments welcome.)

Flora: --- I think 4 groups here is good to start. Model it similar to how the zone densities are with tall/med/small flora items, then a group for other items.

• Deciduous Trees
• Coniferous Trees
• Palm Trees
• Trees
• Bushes
• Flowers
• Non-Flora (ploppable water, rocks, people, …)

Rail: --- Good, no changes

• Passenger Stations
• Freight Stations
• [Sidings and Spurs] (yards, non-functional lots)
• Monorail/HSRP Stations

Misc Transport: --- No real opinion here, but splitting out by network is a good idea, at least to start.

• Bus
• GLR
• El-Rail
• Subway
• Multi-modal Stations (arguably these could be added to all of the above menus instead)
• Parking
• [bikepaths, access roads, alleyways]
• [signs, lighting]

Airport: --- I am not really sure what to do here, as I agree that most of the sets here are huge and would make sense to have their own submenus. If you wanted something basic you could possibly split between functional airports, and airport decorations/eye candy.

• … (the airport menu consists mainly of lot sets that maybe don't need standard menus, but can come with their own submenus(?))

Seaport: --- Good, no changes

• Ports and Ferry Terminals
• [Marinas]
• Seawalls
• Canals

Power:--- Good, no changes. I agree with the three categories

• Fossil/Nuclear --- "Non-renewable" or something similar might be a better term here
• Renewable
• Substations/Poles/Misc

Water:

• Water Towers --- Possibly too specific, as there are not too many strictly towers out there. Split to two categories of "Water Supply" (or similar) and water treatment.
• Water Pumps
• Water Treatment

Garbage:

• … (maybe none?) --- Agree with none for now ... further divisions might be too specific for a general mod

Police, Fire, Health: --- Good, no changes

• Small
• Medium
• Large

Education: --- Good, no changes

• Elementary Schools
• High Schools (including private schools)
• Higher Education
• Libraries and Museums (to split or not to split(?)) --- Do not split

Landmarks:

• Government
• Theaters (Operas, Cinemas) --- I would call this "Entertainment", and include things like sports stadiums, night clubs, etc here too
• Religion (Churches, Cemeteries)
• Ploppable CS (possibly split further into gas stations, hotels, restaurants, …) --- For each of these ploppable job-providing groups, is it appropriate to define subgroups for the type of business? I think it might be better to have something similar to zones and split to low/med/high density. I could see CS having good subgroups, some of which you defined, but I have a harder time thinking about them for CO. And there's a looooot of CO content out there that would be beneficial to have sorted out.
• Ploppable CO
• Ploppable Farms
• Ploppable Industry
• …

Parks: --- All existing categories seem reasonable to me.

• Green Spaces
• Plazas
• Sports Grounds
• Paths/Modular Parks (these all come in sets and should each get their own sub-submenus)
• Embankments (retaining walls)
• Fillers (IRM Fillers, diagonal fillers, roundabout fillers, etc.)
• Add category "Signage" - for things like road signs and billboards, etc.

The categories in brackets might not really be needed or could be reworked to make them more concise.

 

 

@Panda I really love your icons and how they fit right in with the game theme. Really nice work!

[Kel9509 1,363]

58 minutes ago, nos.17 said:

Landmarks:

• Government
• Theaters (Operas, Cinemas) --- I would call this "Entertainment", and include things like sports stadiums, night clubs, etc here too
• Religion (Churches, Cemeteries)
• Ploppable CS (possibly split further into gas stations, hotels, restaurants, …) --- For each of these ploppable job-providing groups, is it appropriate to define subgroups for the type of business? I think it might be better to have something similar to zones and split to low/med/high density. I could see CS having good subgroups, some of which you defined, but I have a harder time thinking about them for CO. And there's a looooot of CO content out there that would be beneficial to have sorted out.
• Ploppable CO
• Ploppable Farms
• Ploppable Industry

Aren't churches part of the Rewards menu?  Most of the custom churches I've downloaded are there by default.  Same with Cemeteries.  I'd think "Religion" or "Churches & Graveyards" should be a submenu of Rewards, right?  And now that I think about it, maybe "Government" should too - Mayor's houses, Town Halls, Courthouses, most of that is all part of Rewards.  Not to say that there can't be a Landmark version of that submenu also, but there's no reason to ignore the Rewards one, is there?

[Wiimeiser 444]

1 hour ago, Kel9509 said:

but there's no reason to ignore the Rewards one, is there?

Rewards menu doesn't save your position when closing, and reverts to the top every time. Add to that everything not appearing in the menu being deselected when placed once, and the menu closing when you select something (the latter of which should be fixed by either this or another mod IMHO) and I think we should avoid the Rewards menu like the plague unless it's for an actual reward lot that can only be placed once per city and have an unlock condition, so stuff like Area 52, the Tourist Trap, or the Typing Monkey Statue.

[Propfam 2,288]

26 minutes ago, Wiimeiser said:

the Typing Monkey Statue.

What's that? I always see the former 3 words in PIM-X. Anyone have idea?

[Simizen 1,098]

there seems to be a lot going on, but that's good, we're making progress. My suggestions for the idea; I'm gonna add some annotations to the quote and expand on anything else further down:

On 2/25/2024 at 5:27 AM, memo said:

Draft for a standard set of 1st-level submenus:

(Comments welcome.)

Flora: <<-- so far so good

• Deciduous Trees
• Coniferous Trees
• Palm Trees
• Trees <<-- I agree with Nos here
• Bushes
• Flowers
• Non-Flora (ploppable water, rocks, people, …) **

Rail: <<-- pretty solid, but agree with Ulisse, this will need to be dealt with by the NAM team

• Passenger Stations
• Freight Stations
• [Sidings and Spurs] (yards, non-functional lots)
• Monorail/HSRP Stations

Misc Transport: <<-- same as rail

• Bus
• GLR
• El-Rail
• Subway
• Multi-modal Stations (arguably these could be added to all of the above menus instead)
• Parking
• [bikepaths, access roads, alleyways] **
• [signs, lighting]

Airport: <<-- yeah, gotta say, there's not anything I can add here; youngwii's got the best idea so far; but should be left to those who are airport enthusiasts

• … (the airport menu consists mainly of lot sets that maybe don't need standard menus, but can come with their own submenus(?))

Seaport: <<-- pretty solid; can't see anything wrong with this

• Ports and Ferry Terminals
• [Marinas]
• Seawalls
• Canals

Power:

• Fossil/Nuclear
• Renewable Clean **
• Substations/Poles/Misc

Water:

• Water Towers
• Water Pumps
• Water Supply <<-- again, with Nos on this one
• Water Treatment

Garbage:

• … (maybe none?)
• Disposal **
• Recycling **

Police, Fire, Health: <<-- looks good, but got notes below

• Small
• Medium
• Large

Education: <<-- seems pretty solid, imo

• Elementary Schools
• High Schools (including private schools)
• Higher Education
• Libraries and Museums (to split or not to split(?))

Landmarks: <<-- liking the idea of breaking down the ploppables into their appropriate types

• Government
• Theaters (Operas, Cinemas)
• Religion (Churches, Cemeteries)
• Ploppable CS (possibly split further into gas stations, hotels, restaurants, …) <<-- just do wealth types, it'll be easier **
• Ploppable CO <<-- also add wealth types here **
• Ploppable Farms
• Ploppable Industry
• … **

Parks: <<-- pretty good here

• Green Spaces
• Plazas
• Sports Grounds
• Paths/Modular Parks (these all come in sets and should each get their own sub-submenus)
• Embankments (retaining walls)
• Fillers (IRM Fillers, diagonal fillers, roundabout fillers, etc.)
• …

The categories in brackets might not really be needed or could be reworked to make them more concise.

So, to expand on all those extra notes:

• much of them are minor, but would like to see things like the Non-Flora MMPs, and alleyways as separate, but given that we're looking for a base template, I completely understand what's going on here
• as for power, I think using Clean would be far better than renewable, as we can throw in Fission, Fusion, and Microwave plants all in here, along with any Hydroplants, seeing that these are all some of the cleanest forms of energy we've got. And while some are renewable, limiting this menu to solely "renewables" is going to be difficult. Plus, while irl, Fission's not particularly renewable in the same way as other things are, in the game, as far as most people are (or rather, should be) concerned, it's a renewable resource since SimNation's the endless void around our regions with everything we'll ever need, lol
• I agree with the fact that breaking the Commercial down into specific lot types is a bad idea, just because of how niche all of it will be, but I think the best alternative is to break down both commercial and office into their wealth types, as they're considerably easier to identify this way
• expanding on the options: we should consider a separate one for non-agricultural resource collection (logging camps, mines, etc), and also for Mixed Use. This would give a spot for those lots that are given multiple zone types
• for garbage, I figured if it does get any, it should probably be separated into Recycling and generic Disposal. Was originally going to suggest Incinerator but realized that's both a bit niche, and also kinda redundant if we used Disposal instead, lol

as for the emergency services:

I'm absolutely cool with having the small, medium, and large options, but I think a good question comes up being, should we stick to just those 3? Like, this is primarily seen with the police, but what exactly do we consider "small" since the small fire and medical are both 1x2, and the small police is 2x3. But on the flip side, what's exactly large? Cause there's that one urban hospital that's like 7x10 and 12x12 depending on how cramped/urban you'd like it to be. While I get that that one can probably chill out outside of that, it does bring up some interesting questions. But also, with the police, we get the kiosk, so does that fall under small, or do we make a new category, or do we just let it chill outside of the base size options?

To be clear, I'm cool with stuff hanging out, outside the base sizes here, I'm just curious cause Maxis complicated part of this with some structures being smaller than others, while still being labeled "small". Cause if we went with the LxW sizes, then the Large Fire Station, and Small Police Station, would both fall under the "small" category, which would be kind of weird imo. Granted, I'm probably looking way too deep into this and overthinking it, but I figured if we're gonna do a base layout of submenus, it probably wouldn't hurt to also ensure this is covered in case someone finds a cool lot they want and then are like "where's this lot go?" if it's not been added to a submenu before. Or if newbie creators are looking for a submenu to place their newly created lot into, they'll have something to work with.

================================

12 hours ago, memo said:

Let's try to move forward with the idea of a standard set of submenus. I've collected the different proposals and combined them into a draft that I added to the first post in order to keep the discussion focused. Let's iterate and refine this. Comments are welcome

I have to say, I'm very greatful that you did this, cause I was thinking about doing something similar while I was at work, but then was so drained after that I was like, *I really don't wanna do this right now* lol. As it is, my reply's plenty extensive

 

10 hours ago, rsc204 said:

On this note, we should make a rule that if a PreExisting SubMenu has been released on a prominent exchange, that is the one everyone else should use for including content in it. So we don't end up with a load of duplication once the flood gates are opened

kinda cautious about this idea, but I do agree on the basic premise behind it. Only cautious, cause I feel like we're going to just get a couple of really weird names/types somehow that people are going to be stuck with trying put stuff in. I do think it's acceptable on the condition that the name is changeable to match the actual/intended use of the submenu. Though, my concern is with the First Layer Submenus, moreso than the Second Layer Submenus.

Also, I completely agree with you @rsc204 regarding some of your MMP notes, that being that Seasonal and Non-Seasonal trees should all be grouped together in some way. I've got a semi-extensive collection of trees, and I'd rather be able to find the ones I want more quickly, than to struggle through Seasonal when I'm looking for Non-Seasonal, and vice versa.

So, maybe an edit to my agreement with @nos.17, that, rather than just a generic Trees option, maybe we should have Seasonal Trees and Non-Seasonal Trees submenus. Which I feel would work, given that, of everyone I've interacted with at least, many people seem to be using seasonal and non-seasonal sets a lot.

================================

Anyway, these are my thoughts. If I attempt to add anything else, stuff starts getting redundant, lol. Honestly, the only other thing I could consider is that we could let other mod teams sort out some of these, but the issue with that is, AMPS is effectively dead in the water atm, and afaik, there's no SPAM team here to really speak of, lol. Like, much respect to both those teams (and the many others for the mods they've created), we're just in a spot with them where we can't really get the feedback like we can with NAM,

I also feel like there's something I'm overlooking, but I'm sure I'll find out when we get more feedback/development on this project, lol

[atsf189 460]

Why are the menu Icons only black & White in the center and the Icons for buildings and whatever in the menus are all Black & White.

Does this effect the game in any way.

[nos.17 5,120]

9 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

To be clear, I'm cool with stuff hanging out, outside the base sizes here, I'm just curious cause Maxis complicated part of this with some structures being smaller than others, while still being labeled "small"

I would think this distinction would be based on a combination of the radius and/or capacity instead of the lot size.

[Panda 209]

16 minutes ago, atsf189 said:

Why are the menu Icons only black & White in the center and the Icons for buildings and whatever in the menus are all Black & White.

Does this effect the game in any way.

I noticed when setting up my sub-menu template that the Maxis buttons (like the one you shared) are not completely greyed out during the disabled state. The background is a darker shade of the typical blue background. I'm not sure exactly why they decided to do that, but it doesn't change how the button functions, just how it looks. They don't even need to be the same image.

The four states of the button, from left to right are: Disabled, Idle, Selected, and Mouse Over. In practical use, I'm not sure there when a sub-menu would ever be disabled. Maybe during a tutorial city? For general game play, I don't think you would ever see that state since if anything is going to be disabled, it would be the individual lots within the sub-menu, not the sub-menu itself.

For the other three states, the idle state is when the submenu, nor any item within the submenu is selected. The third selected state shows up If you have selected either the submenu or an item in the submenu and then returned to the main menu, but have not yet selected anything else. The Maxis buttons only differentiation between these two states is to change the foreground color from dull blue to white. It's a fairly subtle difference and maybe not distinct enough. The last state, on the right, is when you hover your mouse over the button. It is clearly distinct from the other states.

For now, I'm matching the Maxis colors and look as best I can. I used exported UI png files from simcity_1.dat as a reference for colors. However, I'm not opposed to making improvements. If anyone is curious, here are the color hex values I'm using:

Disabled Foreground: #797979 SAMPLE
Idle Foreground: #c7cddd SAMPLE
Selected/Mouseover Foreground: #ffffff (WHITE)
Disabled Background: #4d5670 SAMPLE
Idle, Selected, Mouseover Background: #46598f SAMPLE

[Tyberius06 12,189]

I did not really get involved with this so far, I'm waiting for the dust to settle, but a few thoughts. 

On 2024. 02. 29. at 7:27 AM, rsc204 said:

I am getting the feint whiff of Elitism coming off the back of my recent efforts to standardise some basic submenus...

When what I was really asking for, was for us (modders) to come together and work together on some useful standards to benefit everyone. With the engagement of the wider community, so we have more data to decide how best to proceed.

The whole purpose here is to find a standardised set of 1st Level Submenus that everyone can make use of. Later I’m sure others will want to create 2nd Level submenus or deeper, the initial menus will exist for them that is consistent for everyone. What goes on beyond that 1st Level can be a customisation free-for-all as far as I care. 

Besides, that there should be a few preset generic menu with preset generic IDs as @rsc204 already suggested, there are many other things which don't require generalization at least not on that scale. A standardized set of 1st level Submenus are kind of required. I totally agree with rsc204 on this matter. To be fair we should focus on the 1st level, then the sub-sub levels are completely matter of personal taste. Take 10 modders and there's gonna be 30 different ways to set things up... One wants just a generic control, the other wants a micromanaging of organizing every single details kind of control.

So well, I think the first level of submenus with ONCE SET random IDs should be decided, written down/documented as community standards (even better if this list will be available on different forums/reddit/Steam/ModDB etc... in a few languages like Japanese and Chinese, so those communities could accommodate these as well - less chance to cross-conflicts), then whoever wants to do whatever with the second and etc.. submenus that's up to them. 

On 2024. 03. 01. at 2:49 PM, atsf189 said:

300 people downloaded this so far. What have they used so far for IDs? How many conflicts do we have now?

If everybody is generating random IDs, then none should be. 

On 2024. 02. 29. at 7:27 AM, rsc204 said:

I’ve just gone through the menus and tried to list as many as I could think of that matches the content types you see most. But I don’t consider that list definitive or even necessarily correct, it was just an example to spur further debate. Unless we work together and decide how such a list should look, we’ll end up with whatever Dave or Bob decided we all need ^{(note Dave and Bob are not real people)}.

Well, I for one consider it as a very thorough and well made starting point, I would/will add a few distinction regarding the transportation part and Ulissee's work on CAM adds a few more to the utility part. 

I've read the recent proposals and have a few thoughts for first level submenus.

On 2024. 02. 25. at 10:27 AM, memo said:

Draft for a standard set of 1st-level submenus:

(Comments welcome.)

 

So my suggestions:

Flora:

• Trees --> secondary sublevel for seasonal and non-seasonal ones - the trick is that there can be seasonals which intentionally were changed to be evergreen based on matter of playing style)
• Bushes
• Flowers
• Non-Flora (ploppable water, rocks, people, …) Terrain others (water, rocks)
• Non Terrain/Other (car, people, industrial etc...)

Rail: (regarding the NAM/MTA stations they will go directly into the generic submenus, if a station has more travel types - except subway - the fastest one will be the winner. The Subway menu will only get the dedicated subway lots and might be the network-to-subway transitions will go there too.)

• Passenger Stations
• Hybrid Rail
• Freight Stations
• Monorail/HSRP Stations --> I might be leaning towards separating this two, but that's a very minor detail.
• [Sidings and Spurs] Yards, non-functional lots

Misc Transport:

• Bus
• GLR
• El-Rail
• Subway
• Network Enabled Transition Lots - there are a few of them, but they don't really fit into the general station types. If they were about to fit somewhere that would be the Subway otherwise.
• Multi-modal Stations (arguably these could be added to all of the above menus instead) - These are a few and specific stations, but in reality, technically many and more of the proximity stations can cover this. 
• Parking

Airport:  @youngwii's ideas seems to be pretty good on this matter. Some more fine-tuning might be necessary, but it's a good starting point, and those who are working on the ultimate airport pack (including myself) should consider these.

• … (the airport menu consists mainly of lot sets that maybe don't need standard menus, but can come with their own submenus(?))

Seaport: (from out of experience - though I believe when I get there to update the Heretic Seaport Project that's going to have its own submenu system - this should be a bit more diverse)

• Ports and Ferry Terminals (functional ones)
• Industrial Waterfront
• Marinas (and maybe separate (???) Commercial Waterfront)
• Seawalls
• Canals

Power: >> I agree with @Ryuu Tenno on the shorter list here and an other sublevel can be added for specific types.

• Fossil/Nuclear
• Renewable Clean Energy
• Substations/Poles/Misc

Water: @Ryuu Tenno's explanation on this looks good, same for the Garbage menu

• Water Supply
• Water Treatment

Garbage:

• Disposal
• Recycling

Police, Fire, Health: --> at least in the case of Police it needs more than just size. What about jails? Military lots (though the whole SNM might get a full custom Submenu, but there are other sets)? In Some cases the sport facilities are also act as small clinics, those are not parks nor hospitals (and they are not small things either), but belong to the health department. Generally fences would belong to the park menu as fillers, but specific security fences which were meant to support military or modular police/prison lots would be better in the Police menu under a specific submenu. The only things which can follow more or less the size based categories are the Fire stations.

• Small
• Medium
• Large

Education: --> This looks good as is

• Elementary Schools
• High Schools (including private schools)
• Higher Education 
• Libraries and Museums (to split or not to split(?))

Landmarks: ****

• Government 
• Theaters (Operas, Cinemas) ---> Entertainment
• Religion (Churches, Cemeteries) ---> modular pieces of these should go to the park menu.
• Ploppable CS (possibly split further into gas stations, hotels, restaurants, …) <<-- just do wealth types, it'll be easier **
• Ploppable CO <<-- also add wealth types here **
• Ploppable Farms
• Ploppable Industry
• Custom Landmarks

Parks: ---> this looks ok, though we will see if there's needs to be some more fine tuning.

• Green Spaces
• Plazas
• Sports Grounds
• Paths/Modular Parks (these all come in sets and should each get their own sub-submenus)
• Embankments (retaining walls)
• Fillers (IRM Fillers, diagonal fillers, roundabout fillers, etc.)
• …

****

About the Landmark menu. I'm not sure about the wealth types generally, for me it seems to be a bit of matter of taste. I'm pretty sure about that for a basic standard such specifications as hotels, restaurants etc... are not needed. That being said, I can imagine that when I'll revisit the SG contents for the upcoming re-release on SC4Evermore such distinctions will be added, but not as a hard standard.
Somehow I would prefer actually @rsc204's idea about whatever is not fitting into the functional (with jobs) categories, could go into a custom menu and from there everybody can organize their landmarks as they want into second, third whatever level of submenus. Otherwise there are a bunch of matter of taste solutions; RL buildings, fictional buildings, futuristic buildings etc... How about the few under construction buildings? Bunch of non-functional/eye-candy diagonal buildings?

Ideally this is a good opportunity for most/many of us to re-start or tidy up plugins folders and leave contents there that really matter or will be used (specially from the selection of Landmarks)

- Tyberius

[atsf189 460]

@Panda One thing is for sure. I thought I was pretty good with photoshop and I am not.

I have Photoshop 12 and couldn't even figure out how to open the folders containing the other colors.

I will leave the icon making to the professionals.

All your stuff is great I am just trying to make them about 18% bigger and hopefully they won't clip.

 

[Flann 1,709]

23 hours ago, rsc204 said:

In principle I would like to say let's throw it open to a vote, but in practise I wonder if that is really helpful. For example we're looking at at least 14 menus for this, do we really want to create 14 different 'polls'? I think so many might hamper community engagement with such a process, not to mention if we held a poll for 2 weeks, a month, would we see more than 50 'votes', is that really representative of anything?

Well, I was thinking one poll with 14 different multiple choice options.  People could submit menu sets for one or more of the main menus.  Then we vote.  However, I see your point about losing momentum and do concede that it would be a bit challenging logistically.  I just see this as a very critical set of decisions to make, because once solidified it will be end up somewhere between difficult and impossible to refine.  So there is a need for careful consideration.   That said, if we have a champion for this process (maybe you?) who can craft a list that people mostly agree with then that's fine too.

My personal opinion is to mind the principle of keeping things as simple as possible at this point.  I'm against excessive granularity for the top-level menus.  However, I don't think we should skip menus at this point, all bases should be covered if we can anticipate the need for submenus.  It would be best to contain the common top-level submenus in one dependency, IMO.  I think there have been some good suggestions for Power, Water, and Garbage.  If we don't implement something basic now, someone will want to fill that hole.  I'm on the fence about Airports as I think that will probably be best served by mod specific submenus.  Whether its worth it to create a submenu for modular airport packs, I'm not sure, but I definitely wouldn't want top-level submenus for specific components of modular packs.

[Tyberius06 12,189]

47 minutes ago, Flann said:

I'm on the fence about Airports as I think that will probably be best served by mod specific submenus.  Whether its worth it to create a submenu for modular airport packs, I'm not sure, but I definitely wouldn't want top-level submenus for specific components of modular packs.

I think you're right on this one. The Ultimate Airport Pack is aiming to collect and consolidate basicly almost everything air transit related. While the Seaport related mods were gathered into two main sets (which contained actual functional seaports) and several industrial water fronts with non-seaport functional industrial and commercial components, the evolution of the Airports is kind of a straight line and while there were different teams adding different or maybe competing components, the base of these stayed the same and the functional controllers were put into one pack. This was reworked and about to be further reworked with subsequent updates of the Ultimate Airport Pack. 

Seaports menu is a bit different as it never had centralized components and more varied components belong under this category, so a basic layout of submenus makes sense to me. 

[Kel9509 1,363]

22 hours ago, Wiimeiser said:

Rewards menu doesn't save your position when closing, and reverts to the top every time. Add to that everything not appearing in the menu being deselected when placed once, and the menu closing when you select something (the latter of which should be fixed by either this or another mod IMHO) and I think we should avoid the Rewards menu like the plague unless it's for an actual reward lot that can only be placed once per city and have an unlock condition, so stuff like Area 52, the Tourist Trap, or the Typing Monkey Statue.

That would mean that most of Mattb325's reward lots will never be categorized at all with a submenu, as those are reward lots that can be placed multiple times per city.  

If there is no technical restriction around a reward submenu, I might just do it for my own game.

[Simizen 1,098]

12 hours ago, nos.17 said:

I would think this distinction would be based on a combination of the radius and/or capacity instead of the lot size.

That sounds pretty reasonable. Never even thought of that, so I could see that working.

 

11 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

So my suggestions:

Flora:

• Trees --> secondary sublevel for seasonal and non-seasonal ones - the trick is that there can be seasonals which intentionally were changed to be evergreen based on matter of playing style)
• Bushes
• Flowers
• Non-Flora (ploppable water, rocks, people, …) Terrain others (water, rocks)
• Non Terrain/Other (car, people, industrial etc...)

okay, definitely agreeing with the idea regarding the non-flora MMPs. Wasn't sure how to break them down, but I definitely like this. Maybe we should call them Terrain Details and City Details? (maybe General Details would be a better name).

I agree with the ideas of having the Hybrid Rail, and honestly, it probably wouldn't hurt to separate the Monorail and HSRP stuff. I also think you're right about the NET Lots, as there does seem to be a fair amount of lots that fall under that kind of category.

Your suggestions on the Seaport Menu are pretty sound, cause I never considered some of the extra stuff that goes into them, but I haven't messed around with the seaports enough to truly understand what all is a part of it.

And I have to agree, the Landmarks and Parks menus are probably going to be the kinds of menus that'll just need to be worked on over time, cause there does seem to be quite a bit involved with those. And you've got a completely fair argument against the wealth types, I figured it would just be a good way to keep things relatively minimal. But I'm sure there's a better way. Also, good call on the Custom Landmarks option there. I wonder if expanding it to Custom, Futuristic, Fantasy would be good? But then again those other two options may simply be better as Level 2 Submenus.

 

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

That would mean that most of Mattb325's reward lots will never be categorized at all with a submenu, as those are reward lots that can be placed multiple times per city

Not necessarily. If you look through many of the menus, you'll see that there's reward lots organized into appropriate categories. Now, I imagine it's possible to still categorize them, just, they'll show up a bit weirdly in the other menus. But, i could be misunderstanding the issue at hand here.

[atsf189 460]

@memo I am moving the MAPP Amusement Park items from the Hospital Menu to a Sub menu in the Parks Menu.

The original exemplars have the OccupantGroups for health. I am adding the Building Submenu that points to parks and not changing the OccupantGroups.

Is this alright to leave this way or should I change the OccupantGroups from health to parks also. They appear to be working alright this way so far.

[rsc204 21,808]

17 minutes ago, atsf189 said:

Is this alright to leave this way or should I change the OccupantGroups from health to parks also. They appear to be working alright this way so far.

I’ve not noticed any problems doing this either. Frankly I think it’s beneficial, since the lots modded this way are compatible such that they work just as they always did, unless the DLL mod is installed. So they at least remain organised for those unable/unwilling/unknowing about using the DLL. Of course that doesn’t really matter if they are for personal use, but it certainly seems fine. 

[Simizen 1,098]

So, an addendum to some previous thoughts:

Regarding the Emergency Services, @nos.17 is right, in that it would be better to just rely on coverage, rather than lot sizes specifically. Idk why, but I just ended up overthinking it the other day by accident, cause I completely forgot about a mod I was working on that grouped some of the services together based on coverage size. So, yes, definitely should be going that route.

Another thing I'd like to add is, that maybe we should expand the list a little bit:

Emergency Services:

• Kiosk
• Small
• Medium
• Large

I know it's not much, but I figured adding in the Kiosk option would be a good idea. I mean, you could honestly go with like, Tiny, Extra Small, or Very Small for size name, but I feel that Kiosk would be better, since it can get the point across pretty quickly (not that the others can't). Cause I do know that there's plenty of other small coverage lots for all 3, so I figured it probably wouldn't hurt to give it it's own level 1 submenu. But I feel that Kiosk would work as the name, simply cause when you think kiosk, you typically think small, not big. Idk of anyone who looks at a police kiosk and thinks "man, that sucker can hold the entire NYC police force in it" lol. (The TARDIS doesn't count xD)

Originally, I was gonna suggest that we add another one for larger sizes, but afaik, there's honestly not much more than a handful, so it'd be rather pointless. So those can just hangout in the main menu, as I doubt the scrolling will be endless with them.

 

Oh, and a question: So, I was messing around with some mods, trying to get some things to work, and I have this School Zone Signs mod, and it's primarily NET lots. And, what I'm curious about is, should something like that be better under schools, or the Misc Transportation menus? Currently they're defaulting to the Park menu as per the original creator. Only wondering, cause if this goes into the Education menu, then it's possible we may need to make another submenu for it. Not saying it is required, as idk if there's more than just a handful of things that add onto the educational stuff.

[Propfam 2,288]

5 minutes ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

I'm curious about is, should something like that be better under schools, or the Misc Transportation menus?

It should be in the misc transportation menu imho. Why? Because school zones are just well, marking signs. There are lots of other marking signs ranging from disabled to even low-emission zone (looking at you, London).

[Simizen 1,098]

well, tbf, there's some police transit lots and they're under the police thing (where part of the idea for the kiosks came from), and that's what made me wonder about the school transit lots.

Unfortunately i was interrupted partway through my other comment , so I couldn't remember the rest I wanted to bring up. But, the police thing is what came to mind for this.

Granted it's not required that they be in a submenu, but, it just seems like it would be a good idea to move them to the education menu (eventually).

[Panda 209]

I've continued working on submenu icons.

As promised, here is the water treatment menu button:

I've also completed buttons for the landscape submenus.

Trees

Shrubs

Flowers

Natural Items

Artificial Items

 

I'm working on the parks menu buttons and would like some input on the plazas. I started with a more symbolic representation but I didn't feel like it is reading as strongly as I'd like so I created an option with more context. I've mocked up a few prototypes and am curious which option people prefer.

1. Square paving pattern

2. Wavy paving pattern

3. Rotated wavy paving pattern

4. Plaza with urban context

 

[Simizen 1,098]

4 hours ago, Panda said:

I've also completed buttons for the landscape submenus.

Trees

Shrubs

Flowers

Natural Items

Artificial Items

Looking good!!

4 hours ago, Panda said:

I've continued working on submenu icons.

As promised, here is the water treatment menu button:

So I get what's going on, and likely what it's modeled after, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily getting the info across. But that's just me. I'll let others check it out to see what they say, cause they understand it immediately, and i'm just a weird one dealing with it, lol. Otherwise it still looks great as an icon!

4 hours ago, Panda said:

I'm working on the parks menu buttons and would like some input on the plazas. I started with a more symbolic representation but I didn't feel like it is reading as strongly as I'd like so I created an option with more context. I've mocked up a few prototypes and am curious which option people prefer.

1. Square paving pattern

2. Wavy paving pattern

3. Rotated wavy paving pattern

4. Plaza with urban context

I'm inclined to go with the first one, but i feel that it should have some minor changes, given that it's a simple flat tile. I was thinking something similar to the Industry Brick Park lot from SC3K, where it's got some planters on it to give it a bit of a 3D look. Was trying to find a pic for reference but apparently nobody's ever uploaded any image of it to the net (at least what google wanted to show me)

[Propfam 2,288]

8 hours ago, Panda said:

I'm working on the parks menu buttons and would like some input on the plazas. I started with a more symbolic representation but I didn't feel like it is reading as strongly as I'd like so I created an option with more context. I've mocked up a few prototypes and am curious which option people prefer.

1. Square paving pattern

2. Wavy paving pattern

3. Rotated wavy paving pattern

4. Plaza with urban context

 

I'd choose 2 or 3. 4 can be appropriate and surprisingly, Maxis-compliant. The problem is it would have 2 meanings: a plaza or a cluster of buildings that somehow avoid the middle area.

[Wiimeiser 444]

I have the same opinion of 4. That wound be for the submenu where we put the Pactagon, New WTC, Mattb325(?) transit alleyways(?), the building clusters from the misc. unsorted garbage section of my Parks menu, etc...

[memo 1,444]

Thanks for all your comments, everyone. I've tried to combine your suggestions into a 2nd draft.
 

On 2/25/2024 at 11:27 AM, memo said:

2nd draft (2024-03-07):

Flora:

• Trees
• [Seasonal Trees]
• Bushes
• Flowers (Are there many flowers? They could be merged with Bushes.)
• [Natural Items] (ploppable water, rocks, …)
• [Artificial Items] (people, cars, …)

Commercial Zone:

• Ploppable CS low density (alternatively separate by wealth instead of density?)
• Ploppable CS medium density
• Ploppable CS high density
• Ploppable CO low density
• Ploppable CO medium density
• Ploppable CO high density

Industrial Zone:

• Ploppable Farms
• Ploppable Industry Dirty
• Ploppable Industry Manufacturing
• Ploppable Industry High-Tech

Rail:

• Passenger Stations
• Freight Stations
• [Yards] (non-functional lots, sidings, spurs)
• [Hybrid Railway Stations] (could be added by NAM instead, since NAM would be required)
• Monorail/HSRP Stations (HSRP could be a separate menu added by NAM)

Misc Transport:

• Bus
• GLR
• El-Rail
• Subway
• Multi-modal Stations
• Parking
• [bikepaths, access roads, alleyways]
• [Signage] (signs, billboards, lighting)

Airport:

• … (should be added by airport mods instead)

Seaport:

• Ports and Ferry Terminals
• [Marinas]
• Seawalls
• Canals

Power:

• Dirty Energy
• Clean Energy
• Substations/Poles/Misc

Water:

• Water Supply
• Water Treatment

Garbage:

• [Disposal]
• [Recycling]

Police:

• Small
• Medium
• Large
• [Jails]

Fire:

• Small
• Medium
• Large

Education:

• Elementary
• High Schools (including private schools)
• Higher Education
• Libraries and Museums

Health:

• Small
• Medium
• Large

Landmarks:

• Government
• Entertainment (theaters, operas, cinemas, stadiums, night clubs, etc.)
• Religion (Churches cemetries)
• …

Parks:

• Green Spaces
• Plazas
• Sports Grounds
• Paths/Modular Parks (these all come in sets and should each get their own sub-submenus)
• Embankments (retaining walls)
• Fillers (IRM Fillers, diagonal fillers, roundabout fillers, etc.)
• …

The categories in brackets may be added in the future if there is a need for them, but may not be needed for the first release.

For most menus, there seems to be mostly agreement apart from a few details.

Just the direction for the MPP menu seems to be unclear. In my first draft, I followed Girafe's flora separator plugin, as those trees are very common dependencies, so many people would have them even if they don't make use of the MMP items. Personally, I'm not sure if separating seasonal from non-seasonal flora at the top level is ideal. If you only use non-seasonal flora, then yes – definitely. If you do use seasonal flora, you'd probably frequently look through both menus to find items that are present in just one of the menus – so in this case, I'd prefer distinguishing between seasonal and non-seasonal flora at the deepest submenu level.

The next update of the DLL is going to support submenus in the zoning menus, so I've moved the ploppable categories over there. As the top-level zoning menus are practically empty, I think it makes sense to directly split the ploppable categories by density in order to avoid unnecessary nesting and clicks. For the commercial categories, we could also consider splitting by wealth instead, but density seems to be the more obvious characteristic.

For the transport menus, instead of having various station submenus, we could consider having 1st-level submenus for the different network types instead in order to better integrate with NAM content such as puzzle pieces. For example, a Monorail submenu could house Monorail stations as well as Monorail puzzle pieces. Alternatively, separating Monorail stations from Monorail puzzle pieces at the top level would work as well.

• Network Enabled Transition Lots: These are very specific. For now, I'd say they don't need a 1st-level submenu or could go into Subway.
• Industrial waterfront, commercial waterfront: These could fall under Seawalls instead if I understand correctly.
• Police kiosk: I think such granularity is not needed due to lack of content. Similarly, a Jails submenu might not be needed.

Even for fire stations, I'm not sure if the distinction between medium and large is necessary. As branching into just two submenus would imply more crowded submenus or deeper nesting than with three submenus, I guess we could stay with small/medium/large fire stations. However, we should make sure that at least some content exists for every submenu to avoid redundant empty menus.
 

On 3/4/2024 at 4:14 AM, Kel9509 said:

Aren't churches part of the Rewards menu?  Most of the custom churches I've downloaded are there by default.  Same with Cemeteries.  I'd think "Religion" or "Churches & Graveyards" should be a submenu of Rewards, right?  And now that I think about it, maybe "Government" should too - Mayor's houses, Town Halls, Courthouses, most of that is all part of Rewards.  Not to say that there can't be a Landmark version of that submenu also, but there's no reason to ignore the Rewards one, is there?

In a vanilla game, the rewards menu allows you to quickly find everything that was unlocked and that you should usually build in order to progress. This applies even if an item is part of another menu as well, such as the farmer's market, tourist trap or minor league stadium. I think it is desirable to keep this function of the rewards menu – categorizing reward items into submenus of the rewards menu does not pair well with that, as you'd have to browse all the submenus in order to be sure you found everything that's unlocked. My recommendation is to add rewards to both the rewards menu and a submenu of a different top-level menu. We can consider moving the submenus "Government" and "Religion" to the rewards menu, though not everything in there is going to be a reward.
 

On 3/4/2024 at 6:09 PM, Tyberius06 said:

In Some cases the sport facilities are also act as small clinics, those are not parks nor hospitals (and they are not small things either), but belong to the health department. Generally fences would belong to the park menu as fillers, but specific security fences which were meant to support military or modular police/prison lots would be better in the Police menu under a specific submenu.

These are already very specific. Let's maybe first focus on more common categories until there is a need for these.
 

On 3/4/2024 at 6:09 PM, Tyberius06 said:

• Custom Landmarks

Maxis Landmarks could be easier to set up. In any case, I'm not sure that Vanilla vs Custom is a categorization that fits well with how one navigates the menus. I'd prefer more visually apparent categories.
 

23 hours ago, Panda said:

1. Square paving pattern

I'd go with option 1 for the plazas icon.

 

On 3/4/2024 at 6:09 AM, Jidan said:

What's that? I always see the former 3 words in PIM-X. Anyone have idea?

In keeping with the Shakespeare reference: 

There is a near infinitude of SC4 plugins. If you download enough of them and play the game for long enough, you'll eventually find a typing monkey statue in your game.

[Tyberius06 12,189]

32 minutes ago, memo said:

we could also consider splitting by wealth instead, but density seems to be the more obvious characteristic.

Ploppable items doesn't really have density. The Density would show up for growables in the LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes line, but for plops it's just simply Plopped Building. So the wealth would be better and in that case for example the Commercial Officies start with medium (Co$$) they don't have low wealth. 

32 minutes ago, memo said:

Industrial waterfront, commercial waterfront: These could fall under Seawalls instead if I understand correctly.

Hm it might be better handling them with given mods, but somewhere we should documment the 1st level IDs for them. These are not simply seawalls. Some of them are functional, giving jobs etc... Many of the seawalls acting as static parks or landmarks without any further feature, while many of them visually or functionally have further purposes. For example Marrast Seawalls are very much not identical with PEG-CDK3 Seaport/Harbour lots or with the PEG-CDK3-OWW lots. Marrast seawalls are seawalls, the CDK3 Seaport/Harbour lots are industrial waterfronts often giving industrial jobs, while the OWW lots are commercial waterfront. This might seem to be too specific, but these 3 categories are very much separating from each other. 

32 minutes ago, memo said:

Police kiosk: I think such granularity is not needed due to lack of content. Similarly, a Jails submenu might not be needed.

We don't have too many jail lots, they are rare indeed. However just like with the seawall/waterfront categories under the police menu it's gonna be required to add on 1st level a military category (that can be added by given mods - like the SNM - but the IDs should be decided and reserved for this too)

32 minutes ago, memo said:

Let's maybe first focus on more common categories until there is a need for these.

It's not needed until I reach given SG or Deadwoods contents with the restoration. 

32 minutes ago, memo said:

I'm not sure that Vanilla vs Custom is a categorization that fits well with how one navigates the menus. I'd prefer more visually apparent categories.

With the landmark menu it's hard to decide a good approach. If you take out the "with jobs" ploppables (that's a huge help on the menu) it'll become more simple, though that's where the can of worms effect start. Where do we put the skyscrapers or simple houses or diagonal buildings which don't have jobs. There are plenty of them. There are specific buildings which can be described with the above mentioned categories (government, entertainment, religious), but what about the rest? Just asking. I have zero idea how it would be good to organize them.

[Kel9509 1,363]

44 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

With the landmark menu it's hard to decide a good approach. If you take out the "with jobs" ploppables (that's a huge help on the menu) it'll become more simple, though that's where the can of worms effect start. Where do we put the skyscrapers or simple houses or diagonal buildings which don't have jobs. There are plenty of them. There are specific buildings which can be described with the above mentioned categories (government, entertainment, religious), but what about the rest? Just asking. I have zero idea how it would be good to organize them.

There need to be options for people to choose.  It's too hard for a one-size-fits-all approach.  Basic submenu options should be provided that cover most areas.  But the idea of editing all of the popular lots to fit a preordained category is exhausting and, frankly, probably not necessary.  Anyone using this mod is probably going to use it to customize their game.  I'll probably split out landmarks with jobs among the CO/CS and IH/IM/IA options.  But I also might make an entire submenu for all of my diagonal landmarks since it'll be easier to find them there.  I also will probably put "eyecandy-only" landamrks in their own submenu.  I might make a submenu of supertall skyscrapers also.  

Less is probably more here.  Better to start with some basic submenus that most (not all) agree on, and go from there.  It's a given that people will probably want Landmark submenus split out among the job types.  So start with that.  If you want to offer a "diagonal" submenu, or a Government one, or whatever, that's good too, especially since a building can appear in more than one submenu.  

[Propfam 2,288]

23 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Less is probably more here.  Better to start with some basic submenus that most (not all) agree on, and go from there.

Based and bluepilled, Kel, tho we defo really need something like a DAMN Manager for submenus.