Have been playing Beta4D and now Beta5 and found a few things in the interface which I would love to see modified (some are holdouts from GC1 that I never liked either). Of course, my apologies if these have been mentioned... the forum doesn't seem to have a very good search option (unless I'm blind).
1- I would prefer dropdown boxes (also known as combo boxes) instead of the left/right scoll boxes to select sorting options. These are found on the planet list (sort by name, PQ, social production, etc) and on the available tech listing (sort by name, category, ID, etc). It can be cumbersome to click 7+ times through all the options, just to get to the sort you want, then click back through to get to a different sort.
I was happy to see that this type of box was added to the Trade screen (you can select between the Viewscreen, word on the street, etc)
2- the middle mouse button. I don't have one. How about having one of the buttons on the keyboard do this too?
3- Auto-scroll: I think it starts scrolling the screen too early. Especially in the 'up' direction. Everytime I press the 'X' on the planet list, the screen starts scrolling up because the cursor is close to the edge. This is minor, but annoying nonetheless.
4- Tooltips need to disappear once you've moved the mouse away.
5- Clicking on the main interface buttons along the bottom of the screen a second time should either close the window or toggle to the next display, then close. Example, if you hit the planet list button, then a second time, it should auto-switch the display to the ships list, then a third press should close the list. This could save a lot of mousing when you are just doing some quick checks before hitting the Turn button.
6- Civ. Manager: I think it would be nice if you could see and modify a planet's focus from this screen (Military prodcution vs. social vs. research).
7- Civ. Manager: how about a graph or display of some kind that shows food production vs population? The wording around food production is confusing enough as it is! (a basic farm feeds 5 million? then how come my billions aren't hungry? I would need hundreds of the basic farms if they only feed 5 million...)
Anyway, thanks for listening...
