As I’ve said all the way through the life-span of NMM how NMM looks is most definitely not final. Before I will stick that coveted 1.0 version number on to the software that indicates it’s out of beta it will most definitely be going through a face-lift, and it’s going to be a face-lift that completely changes the look of the software from a “my first .NET coding project” look to a “yeah, this might be going somewhere” look.
At the moment NMM isn’t the prettiest of software but it does pay homage to the grassroots of the software and that cliched “made by modders, for modders” look to it that suggests functionality and simplicity was more important to the author than snazzy superfluous graphics. However, going hand in hand with our current focus on shifting the Nexus from supporting a handful of games to supporting all games I’d like to work closer with some developers to integrate their games better into NMM right from the get-go. Fact is, it’s actually very easy for us to add support for most games in to NMM but (a) we don’t have Nexus sites for the game and (b) if you show a developer NMM, on first sight, it doesn’t give off the best impression. We’re in the process of sorting out (a) already, and now we’re in the process of sorting out (b) as well. Ergo what we really want to do is give NMM a face-lift that makes me happy, makes you happy and makes game developers happy to endorse it while, hopefully, improving the experience for everyone.
It’s my hope that you’ll look at these mock-ups and think “Wow, it’s changed, but actually, a lot of the stuff is in the same place, it just looks different”. I want you to be able to open it up and not spend minutes trying to find features you used to be able to find easily out of habit. In all honesty the current NMM design is horrible in this regard for new-comers and has heavy “mystery meat” UI elements that mean you don’t have a clue what a button does until you press it and find out. Of course, you’re used to where everything is in NMM now, and hopefully with this new UI you won’t be doing too much (or any searching) to find the functions you use in the current UI.
I’m sharing these mock-ups with you to not only show you what we’ve come up with so far but also to get your opinion. Unfortunately opinions on massive changes like this can sometimes be extremely dividing and it can be very tough for me to sift through the honest, proper critiques, criticisms and feedback that I really want to pay attention to and the “haters gonna hate, being bitter about change for the sake of being bitter” category of person who’s just going to dote on hate just because they’re that kind of person. So if or when you provide feedback on the mock-ups please try to take that into consideration, for my sake. Are you providing valuable, useful feedback that I can use or are you just a hater with nothing worthwhile to say? Show enough hate and I will just hide your comment as it’ll be unhelpful to the process and clutter up the feedback I actually want to be looking at. You can dislike it, but you’ve got to give good reasons why. How would you change it? What would you do when “don’t change a thing” isn’t an option?
We also want to try and maintain as much roll-back functionality as possible with NMM. We provide users with a large number of our previous versions that you can roll-back to at any time if you don’t like what we’ve done. We don’t stop you from doing that like most others out there, but if you stick to older versions and avoid getting used to new versions then you are going to miss out on new functionality, bug fixes and the like. That’s completely your choice.
So without further ado here are the mock-ups. Remember these are preliminary, unfinished, and things like wording (and spelling mistakes) are most definitely not final.
Loading splash screen
Game detection screen
Installed mods screen
Download manager
Plugin manager
Settings window
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A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time beingI don't know if it is possible but I would like to see an option for "Open File Location" when right clicking a mod in the mods tab, that opens the mods location on HDD.
I have only one suggestion and I'm probably not the 1st:
Integrated Nexus browser/mod manager. Browse mods straight from the manager. Endorse and vote in manager. (Can be premium options, encourage dev support)
One big thing would be take you to the web page for the mod. With pay per view ads good for the user, good for you too. Also being able to export a list of mods, maybe to Google Docs. I have over 100 mods installed. If I ask for help I can't type them all in. It would be nice to be able to just post a link if anyone really wants to know.
maybe -since not everybody in here likes the proposed look- create the opportunity for others to skin the GUI?
-EDIT- I spoke before i read the addition to the original post that the above is not likely to happen...
I for one, being a linux user, like to customize the looks on my pc to the extreme....modders customize games on a daily basis...
not being able to customize the NMM GUI seems like something of a missed chance here.
I like the colors, love the icons, and love the modals, but there's a few things I wouldn't stand if this was the final version.
1. The blends and borders, they look flat and cheap. I think you need to extend and soften the background blend.
2.a The dots on the main background. They start at a weird spot in the tiled pattern. It always looks best to start a tiled background in the middle when you have a dot pattern. So the first dot should appear halfway into the tile. In other words, center the dot on the tile.
2.b The dots are way too far apart. Shrink the distance some. And don't go full black, do a 50-20% transparency on top of the blend.
2.c Or just remove the dots. It's distracting me that much. I'd suggest replacing them with a diagonal alternate line shading.
3. The horizontal rule/lines. Way too distracting. Either use transparency, make them thinner, or both, or remove them. They cheapen the look and remind me of old school GeoCities websites that preteens made using horrible backgrounds and gifs.
4. The shadow shading on the green triangles. It looks wrong. Can't put my finger on it...
Maybe I can put together something up for you. Would you like me to?
Personally, I'd prefer to see better functionality and new features in the EXISTING UI, before re-working it into something new visually. Functionality needs to be king and the existing UI is fine; sacrificing work on current function and new features for new looks is just a generally bad move. Get every little thing in there and working well, expand the features...
Things such as: 'to bottom' and 'to top' arrows for plugins? Searchable mod list/filter? 'Categories' or sub-divisions purely in the NMM for the plugins list, so that players can sort and enable/disable 'blocks' of plugins, or even different mod 'presets' via the plugin menu without having to dangerously install/uninstall mods and mess up load orders?
There are many basic, simply utility functions that would be excellent to add to NMM and would vastly improve it for the effort they'd take, and a new GUI is not one of them. Make the entire NMM and THEN think about its appearance - once features are in and refined, they will then slot into a new UI, instead of having to continually hack apart and mish-mash together a mid-project UI to accommodate new features.
I'm glad I use SMO.
For one thing, everything is HUGE; the interface is way too big and wastes a whole lot of space on graphics; as an example, here's a screenshot of how many more features and much more information SMO can fit into the same space without looking messy -i.imgur.com/1QZrdXM.png
Also the design itself is quite dated, it reminds me of designs from the windows xp era.... everything's way too rounded, and the coloring is weird.... It just doesn't scream "Nexus" to me.
Not much more I can say; those two things are pretty fundamental to be honest. The design theme is a secondary thought, the layout needs to be the main concern; that is working on making it more compact and efficient.
- Willock
I hope somebody can help me.