Implement Shiny menu (modified slightly by me) as the default pregame page?

[Yekaterina]

This shiny menu mod presents a clean menu that is friendly to both new players and hardcore lobby players:

I made a few modifications and would like to recommend the devs to implement this as the default menu for 0ad. Of course, the art team can place some beautiful wallpapers instead of the pure black background, this is just an idea.

The advantages of this over the default menu are:

• Very obvious which button to press. The important ones are large and easy to see; there is no waste of space.
• If someone has a scaling problem it would be a lot easier to adjust on this than the default menu we currently have.
• All features are laid out nicely so everything is a lot easier to access, especially enabling / disabling mods. It would be even better if we can enable community mod with just one click.
• I changed a few labels and made the lobby accessible in one click.
• We don't have to obscure out a large section of the wallpaper with the stone tile.

@Stan` any comments?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Interesting how similar it is to some of the ideas here.

[Yekaterina]

54 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Interesting how similar it is to some of the ideas here.

Exactly, it is essentially Shiny menu with some changes added to it. I changed the colour scheme and removed the wallpaper, also made some buttons more easy to access.

[Yekaterina]

I am making a mod called AbstractGUI, which is a complete overhaul of the appearance of 0ad. Currently I have completely changed Mainland temperate and Arctic, more is to come.

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I like the overall layout a lot and I think it adopts a more modern style of menu design.  Do you know how well the placement of "Learn to play, AI and Lan, Multiplayer" works with the existing backgrounds?

Not sure if those buttons would awkwardly block parts of the background or not (i.e. beheading a hoplite in the spartan background). Perhaps there is an optimized location that works well enough with all the backgrounds?
 

[Yekaterina]

1 minute ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Not sure if those buttons would awkwardly block parts of the background or not (i.e. beheading a hoplite in the spartan background). Perhaps there is an optimized location that works well enough with all the backgrounds?

I think the current backgrounds are designed for the original menu, as they are all complete views. However, the default wallpaper for Shiny menu is well designed for it so we can just enable it. Nothing is final so far.

[guerringuerrin]

I've been using the Shiny Mod for a while now and find it much more enjoyable than the aesthetics of the vanilla version. Although it is true that many improvements or alternatives can still be incorporated, would it not be better to unify efforts and work on the same mod?

[Grapjas]

I prefer Maroder's version tbh.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Grapjas

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, guerringuerrin said:

would it not be better to unify efforts and work on the same mod?

Good point. The only issue is, I copied their program file into my other mod's file and it's all messed up, but sure, I can upload a clean version of the changes.