Menu Revamp - Need feedback

[Graf Zahl]

IMO the most important things that must be quickly accessible are:

The "Configure Controls" menu
the mouse sensitivity settings
the sound volume settings
the video mode settings.

These are the ones I always need first when starting any engine for the first time, the most important one being the sound due to this bad habit of starting the sound engine at full volume, which virtually every software out there commits.

[Enjay]

The "Configure Controls" menu
the mouse sensitivity settings
the sound volume settings
the video mode settings.

That's pretty much my go-to list as well.

Fire things up for the first time, configure keys then check mouse settings (especially invert Y for me).
If things look odd visually when things start up, I'll check video settings first, if not, I'll just have a quick confirmation check to make sure that things are as I want them after configuring my keys.
I usually leave sound until I've started the game so that I have heard what it's like and I can then balance things appropriately.

[Graf Zahl]

I usually leave sound until I've started the game so that I have heard what it's like and I can then balance things appropriately.

Most games start blaring right when they start, before you even have a chance to open the menu. And they are always far too loud on my setup which is tuned for listening to music through my computer. I normally have to turn down the volume to 0.2 or 0.25 to make it tolerable.

[sinisterseed]

IMO the most important things that must be quickly accessible are:

The "Configure Controls" menu
the mouse sensitivity settings
the sound volume settings
the video mode settings.

These are the ones I always need first when starting any engine for the first time, the most important one being the sound due to this bad habit of starting the sound engine at full volume, which virtually every software out there commits.

Same here.

But to add to that list, the compatibility flags should also be readily accessible since people using the wrong levels and then complaining about issues seems to be a real problem.

[Rachael]

The compatibility menu is way too much. I might bring over the presets option, but that only. And possibly the allow/restrict jumping/crouching/freelook options.

[sinisterseed]

The compatibility menu is way too much. I might bring over the presets option, but that only. And possibly the allow/restrict jumping/crouching/freelook options.

Yes, that's what I was referring to, the rest of the options, especially the miscellaneous ones, would be just complete overkill.

[Graf Zahl]

Detailed compatibility or gameplay options definitely qualify as "advanced". Whoever needs those should go to the full options menu.

[Tormentor667]

It was about time that this happens

[sinisterseed]

It was about time that this happens

But honestly this is mainly needed for newcomers who are likely going to be overwhelmed by the deep customization GZDoom offers .

Us folks already accustomed to a plethora of ports and mods do just fine with the current menus, which yes may be overwhelming sometimes, but are well structured. Nothing against it since I do love that port myself, but an example of a port that used to have fairly unintuitive menus was Eternity IMO. I'm glad Altazimuth finally bit the bullet a while ago and made some changes, they're much better now than the disaster they once were.

[Chris]

It was about time that this happens

Us folks already accustomed to a plethora of ports and mods do just fine with the current menus, which yes may be overwhelming sometimes, but are well structured.

I do have issues trying to remember where specific options and submenus are, since the current structure depends on knowledge of GZDoom's internal structure. Like "Sector light mode" or "Fuzz Style" being under Hardware Rendering; sure, in GZDoom those are options tied to the hardware rendering backends, but it's not an intuitive distinction. Those are just graphical things. Similarly Screen Blend options under HUD options; yeah they're part of the HUD overlay code in GZDoom, but as someone who doesn't know how the engine is structured, why are they there instead of Display options (and why is Menu Blend/Blur in Display and not HUD)? I'd also question if less tech savvy people will know what "Texture Options" really encompasses, and how they're different from Software or Hardware Rendering options.

Also you have Multisample (anti-aliasing) under Hardware Rendering, while FXAA (anti-aliasing) under Hardware Rendering->Postprocessing, while Anisotropic is under Texture, not Hardware Rendering. This is particularly egregious since it's neither intuitive to a layman (separate anti-aliasing options in different places, not knowing how Texture differs from Rendering), or to the technically minded (Anisotropic is a hardware rendering feature but isn't under Hardware, and IIRC, postprocessing can also be applied to software (Carmack, softpoly) rendering).

[Rachael]

Thank you, Chris! This is really useful. I'll have to spend tomorrow going over that and thinking about it.

I've been trying to induce a deeper intuition bias with this thread, instead of a technical one, and you nailed it, even despite being a very long-time member and user of ZDoom overall and already coming with the understanding and knowledge that you have gained over the years. So what you posted really is exactly what I was looking for.

[Dark Jaguar]

I think it would be very helpful to have a catch-all "all vanilla settings we support" switch on the "simple" menu. There's numerous advanced menus with a multitude of options one has to pop in and out of to get that "vanilla" look and behavior (well, short of getting Crispy Doom or something), but they're spread around so widely (for example, things like how the skybox is rendered, the fuzz effect, projectile transparencies, and of course base game behavior are all in distinct menus). Sticking a universal "flip this switch to catch em all" button in there would be appreciated by the newbies I imagine. If someone wants more nuance than literally just flipping everything from enabling mouselook to infinite height monsters "on" or "off", they can go into advanced menues.

[Dark Jaguar]

Every time I wander back to gzdoom after 6 months or a year of not thinking about it I get tripped up trying to remember what the setting to make the hud and crosshair not be tiny at high resolutions is called and what menu it's hiding in.

This is exactly the kind of feedback that I am looking for.

This is not an easy problem to solve - I will pull the HUD options menu where it's at right now into the simplified list, but I think a few options within it could possibly stand to be combined together, if possible. Something that I can try and work on.

An all purpose "scaling" menu (even if it's under advanced) would make things a lot clearer. I support as well. (And um- while we're at it, adding a scaling feature for the "background art" on the text screens would be appreciated too since at ultra high resolutions, we can barely make out any details.)

[Rachael]

I think it would be very helpful to have a catch-all "all vanilla settings we support" switch on the "simple" menu. There's numerous advanced menus with a multitude of options one has to pop in and out of to get that "vanilla" look and behavior (well, short of getting Crispy Doom or something), but they're spread around so widely (for example, things like how the skybox is rendered, the fuzz effect, projectile transparencies, and of course base game behavior are all in distinct menus). Sticking a universal "flip this switch to catch em all" button in there would be appreciated by the newbies I imagine. If someone wants more nuance than literally just flipping everything from enabling mouselook to infinite height monsters "on" or "off", they can go into advanced menues.

This is an interesting idea.

The thing that I don't like about it though, is it will overwrite a bunch of settings, and there currently isn't a mechanism to get your old settings back afterward.

An all purpose "scaling" menu (even if it's under advanced) would make things a lot clearer. I support as well. (And um- while we're at it, adding a scaling feature for the "background art" on the text screens would be appreciated too since at ultra high resolutions, we can barely make out any details.)

That should be doable, I think.

[Dark Jaguar]

I think it would be very helpful to have a catch-all "all vanilla settings we support" switch on the "simple" menu. There's numerous advanced menus with a multitude of options one has to pop in and out of to get that "vanilla" look and behavior (well, short of getting Crispy Doom or something), but they're spread around so widely (for example, things like how the skybox is rendered, the fuzz effect, projectile transparencies, and of course base game behavior are all in distinct menus). Sticking a universal "flip this switch to catch em all" button in there would be appreciated by the newbies I imagine. If someone wants more nuance than literally just flipping everything from enabling mouselook to infinite height monsters "on" or "off", they can go into advanced menues.

This is an interesting idea.

The thing that I don't like about it though, is it will overwrite a bunch of settings, and there currently isn't a mechanism to get your old settings back afterward.

An all purpose "scaling" menu (even if it's under advanced) would make things a lot clearer. I support as well. (And um- while we're at it, adding a scaling feature for the "background art" on the text screens would be appreciated too since at ultra high resolutions, we can barely make out any details.)

That should be doable, I think.

Oh I see that's a fair point. Perhaps it can do a quick check to see if there's custom settings and then warn the user that custom settings will be overwritten with either GZDoom defaults or "vanilla" settings. From there maybe it's on them if they want to use it, since they've been warned? How would others feel about that?