SE:IV Gold vs SE5 Demo: Basic UI

[Phoenix-D]

Part 3:
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System List: This has no equivilent in SE4. Improvements: The Filter list would be more useful if you could select multiple items. Like all report screens, the tabs seem to take up too much room. The additional sorting capability would be good, but some tabs could be combined (planet icon and size, in the planet list for example). The "layout control" option would be more useful if you could copy existing layouts and save them.

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Planets List: SE5 displays all the information SE4's screen did, but its split into multiple layouts. Creating a custom layout aleviates this problem, and still allows use of the new features like time to arrival. SE4 had multi-line displays- it showed picture, size, type and name on one tab for example. SE5 has single-item tabs, which allows for finer sorting. In SE4 you click to go to a planet, in SE5 you double-click. Both allow a right-click to access the planet detail screen. Both forget where you where if you use Goto Planet.

Advantage: Clear SE5. Improvements: Add a "SE4 style" tab to the default layouts for SE4 users. Remeber which planet the player used Goto on and start there the next time the screen is opened.

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Colonies List: The top-left screen has all the same info, and SE5 adds "number of races". SE4 filtered via side buttons, SE5 does it via the filter popup box (are we sensing a theme, here?). The screens are otherwise very similar except SE5 has more information and customizble layouts. SE5's list. Advantage: SE5. Improvements: As with System List and Colony list, some of the headings seem to take up too much room and could be combined.