Network Addon Mod Submenu - Open Alpha

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

Network Addon Mod Submenu - Open Alpha

This thread was created for the purpose of gathering feedback from you the users to improve the User Interface (UI) of the Network Addon Mod.

This submenu is in an alpha stage and therefore contains the bare minimum needed to make it work. Improvements are planned and changes will also be made based on your feedback which will decide which direction the NAM submenu will take.

DEPENDENCIES

• Network Addon Mod 49 (rev1)
• Submenu DLL: 

INSTALLATION

To install the submenu just copy the Z_NAM folder inside the Plugins folder

Make sure you are running the Windows digital version of SimCity 4 before installing this mod

DOWNLOAD

 

NAM Submenu Alpha V2.zip

[Simizen 1,099]

Seriously, nobody's left feedback yet? wild...

So, my thoughts on it so far; I'm gonna do a list like we did over in the Submenu thread:

+ Roads:

• Pedestrian & Bicycle:
  • good (these are all ones that don't need change)
• Street:
  • this would be best if we killed the tab ring functionality. This could be useful if we want easier access to the different SAMs. Otherwise, just kill the menu. I do think, however, that if we were to add extra SAM types, this could be useful, to reduce the need to be tabbing through everything, and then we could just tab-ring like types. Like, the different dirt roads could be coupled together, and the cobblestone ones could be put together, etc (there's a red cobblestone road somewhere I believe, but not originally part of the NAM)
• NWM:
  • good
• REW:
  • best if you just remove the menu, given that it's just ramps atm. Can always add it back if/when extra features are added
• Fractional Angles & Curves:
  • could work, if we reduce the tab-ring selection. Basically, pull out anything that's similar, and give them their own tab rings, but they can all still sit in this menu. Only remove this, if you opt to reduce the options in the tab rings and put them under their respective categories
• Intersections & Roundabouts:
  • should just be labelled "Intersections"; roundabouts are already a type of intersection
  • this submenu is good, but the 2nd layer should be tossed. No point in having 3 under one, and 2 under the other; 5 items in a menu are pretty good imo
• Viaduct:
  • this is good, as is it's legacy piece menu
• FLUPS:
  • either kill this menu, or reduce the tab ring. I honestly think reducing the tab ring would be best, just cause there's quite a bit in the list
• Legacy Content:
  • good

+ Highway:

• MHO:
  • good; though, kinda weird when the MHO-0 and MHO-1 (2?) are sitting outside of this menu, but I understand the reasoning for this, due to it being the MHY
  • I also imagine this is the same as the MHY menu, and I'm not technically seeing it, due to utilizing the MHO
• RHW:
  • good, though this could use some work. But, idk how to really improve it, and this could be the best we'll get for the moment. Otherwise, best I can figure would be to break out the FLEX stuff, and put it into it's own submenu. That is, on the same level as the MHO and RHW menus
• FLEX:
  • optional submenu

+ Rail:

• RRW:
  • good; and the legacy submenu is also good
• HRW:
  • good
• RHSR:
  • good
• Urail:
  • good (and now I understand that Urail is a thing, lol)
• Monorail:
  • good

and, I'd like to note, that there are already some submenus in the Rail menu, and their designations do seem to overlap, but it looks like these may be the stations that are sorted. So, I completely understand not consolidating them if the goal is to keep the networks separate from the stations (there's a lot of station options for sure)

+ Misc:

• GLR:
  • good
• El-Rail:
  • good (and now I can access all of the L4 pieces, lol)
• CAN-AM:
  • good; but I feel like this should be moved to be under the Seaports menu, just to keep all the water based stuff together, and to keep the Misc menu from being too cluttered. Cause it'll get plenty cluttered on it's own (and i'm still doing infinite scrolling on my end cuase I'm dumb and installed too many mods, lol)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

overall, I do like how the submenus are working. Though, looking forward to improved icons. Kinda feel like the icons could've done with having numbers on them to help track them, cause it took a second to track where I was in a couple of them due to the entire stretch being filled with the NAM logo.

[Wiimeiser 444]

My main complaint is the split up of Intersections & Roundabouts into Sub-submenus. Either move them to the top, or combine them into a single submenu.

Also, the optional legacy content buttons in the Road menu should be in the Legacy submenu.

Mostly unrelated, but this also made me realise we should probably have hotkeys for the Network Eraser and Raiser/Digger pieces. Are Insert, Delete and Backspace being used for anything?

[Simizen 1,099]

I actually didn't pay attention to it, but yeah, probably pushing all legacy content into the same menu could work. Course, we'd want them to remain consistently separate within their own selections for sure.

As for the keys? seems like we haven't used the full keyboard yet

based on what I could find, everything in blue is what's being used. That is, it's not a combo key where you need press it in conjunction with another, to gain access to a function. Ctrl, Alt, and Shift are used a lot, but no need to highlight them cause they're not used for anything on their own

The keypad, however, is questionable, due to overlap, as I know the +/- keys are used for zooming in and out. So, it's possible all of them overlap with the typewriter set. But, it seems like we've got access to about 25 extra keys. I'm of course not counting the modifier keys, but also leaving out the Print Screen key due to it's default nature in the OS

So, potentially, yeah, we could make it possible for those parts to be hit with a key. Imo, if we do that, my proposal is:

• backspace: network eraser
• insert: raiser/digger (maybe have it on a tab ring if it's not already there)
• delete: immortality killer; though technically not NAM related, chances are good these shortcut keys will likely be setup by an external thing, and I suggest this be here cause I'm pretty sure people use it plenty

however, if it's possible to separate the keypad from the typewriter group, that could boost our access to hotkeys quite a bit. That'd give us 16 extra keys to work with, though if this were to happen, I'd boot the zoom in/out keys to the keypad  freeing up the typewriter +/- keys, rather than freeing them up in the keypad area. But that of course, is dependent on how difficult all that would be (assuming it's even possible to begin with, which it may not be)

Oh, and just remembered, some of the keys are already being used by the NAM.dll, so, that changes things. Didn't account for that, so we'll be short however many of those keys as well I guess

[Wiimeiser 444]

3 hours ago, Simizen said:

I actually didn't pay attention to it, but yeah, probably pushing all legacy content into the same menu could work. Course, we'd want them to remain consistently separate within their own selections for sure.

The optional legacy buttons for RHW are darkened, so the same could be done with the Roads menu.

3 hours ago, Simizen said:

Oh, and just remembered, some of the keys are already being used by the NAM.dll, so, that changes things. Didn't account for that, so we'll be short however many of those keys as well I guess

IIRC just Ctrl/Shift/Alt with E and T to access the networks that previously didn't have any.

[CaptCity 4,798]

Nice job on getting this ready. Not sure if it was intended, but I noticed something... If leaving a main menu (such as Transportation) with a secondary menu open to a different main menu category (such as Civic) and then returning to the original menu, it will return to the still open secondary menu rather then the main one. Hope that makes sense. And it's not that big of an issue. I can see the benefits either way. Just thought I would check on it.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

A new version of the NAM Submenu was released today

Some feedback has not been implemented as it is still under study and icons are the last things that will be implemented as the first thing is the functionality

Below are the changes based on your feedback. You can download the file in the main post

Changelog

• Eliminated the REW and Street submenu
• Modified the Intersection and Roundabout submenu. There is now the Roundabout Filler submenu for all mods that are used to fill the center of the Roundabout

[Manuz 0]

On 06/03/2025 at 1:47 AM, Ulisse Wolf said:

 Attachment Missing (NAM Submenu Alpha V2.zip)

Hi! The attachment seems to be missing. Could you please re-upload the ZIP file?

[AsimPika3172 1,136]

Huh? New version? But no files due to site crash....