Menu Reconstruction [WIP]

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Why not line up the Characters box with the top left of the screen?
 
I will be away until Monday, connection issues.

@obesebear

I am trying to keep the design so that it has symmetrical spacing, as in black bands are equal, alteration makes it look wonky.  For every nice thing there is a counter problem.

I have amended slight things since this screen shot too, especially thr time and gil box to make the numbers fit better and to move it away from the limit bars.

If anyone has any idea where we can find Strength and Attack status values in the status screen, we all are ears.  It is in a differerent part of the exe.

@gemini, could you possibly supply us the memory value (in psx game) of the normal status values like agility and then the status of attack and strength.  Assuming they are equally spaced it may be possible to guess the roundabout location of the value in the exe?  (it uses the whole menu just dumped into the exe)

This design is by no means final....at the end if anyone has any major criticisms and a vote is made, things can be altered but for now this is what I feel works best.
 
If anyone has any idea where we can find Strength and Attack status values in the status screen, we all are ears.  It is in a differerent part of the exe.
I would just like to say we have the values for moving the text and numbers of strength and attack etc on the status screen but we have to move them as a whole (so we can't move Strength on its own we would have to move Agility as well) So what we are looking for is the individual values for each name (if this is possible, i think they may be linked and that's why i cant move each separately)
 
OK I have tried many things with this menu.  There are still a few things to do but it's gettin' there.

1 main issue at moment:

The PHS and STATUS menu have a "to next nevel"  over the limit bar.  I have found that placing the next level value INSIDE the bar looks pretty good...but, on PHS menu the text goes BEHIND the bar, whereas on status menu it is infront.

If this is fixed we can have a vote on which looks better.  Alternatively, the only other way to make it look better is to change this Right aligned text to being left aligned.  At moment, the values all go INTO the left, as they are right aligned. 

This is proving very irritating overall but it is being done./  ;)  back monday
 
Wow nice progress seif!

As for the menu design, I just thought of something we hadn't really considered: left alignment
Just like FFXII and FFXIII. Makes more sense really since English is left to right.

Here is an example, I think it looks pretty good:

ff7menu%282%29.jpg
 
That is actually impossible to do....the menu text on the right (left on your pic) isn't allowed to move as it animates to the other menus.  They are all linked.
 
That is actually impossible to do....the menu text on the right (left on your pic) isn't allowed to move as it animates to the other menus.  They are all linked.
Ahh I see what you mean, didn't notice that animation. :P

Well anyway, ignoring the fact that the boxes are on the left (imagine them on the right), how do you like the design?
Makes the page a nice neat rectangle with no boxes going off the edges, and no black gaps. (So it's more like every other page in the menu).
 
Not bad :)  though personally I think having parts lower or higher up with spaces works reasonably well too :)
 
Wow nice progress seif!

As for the menu design, I just thought of something we hadn't really considered: left alignment
Just like FFXII and FFXIII. Makes more sense really since English is left to right.

Here is an example, I think it looks pretty good:

ff7menu%282%29.jpg
Definitely a fan of this.   Maybe one day.
 
Whilst looking at the Japanese menu, I noticed that there may be an alternative which looks more or less like the old PC version but slightly better so I will get onto that and then we will see what the preference is.

The Japanese menu's are all nice and tidy as you would expect...
 
I suggest to put the area box to the right edge of the screen
The above is an idea by someone else (and can't work inside the game) ....the area box is to the right.  See top post.  I will be amending that one too.
 
Having spent a lot of time now arranging and rearranging and looking at the Japanese PSX game, I can tell you that there simply is no way to make this look as good.  I am guessing that the reason it doesn't fit as well as the PSX is because of 640*480 grid as opposed to 320*240.

Whatever the reason there is always going to be an issue here with at least something.  I like to think that my attempt is pretty damn good  :-D

So here it is....pretty much done.

revised2.png


I may move Time box and Area box up a little so it matches the next level bar (as the PSX does)

Ok and a final revision:

revision3.png


What do you think?  Gemini notes that the Right menu looks ugly.  Not sure what I can do about that without breaking the animation but I guess Kranmer and I can look into it.
 
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Wow nice progress seif!

As for the menu design, I just thought of something we hadn't really considered: left alignment
Just like FFXII and FFXIII. Makes more sense really since English is left to right.

Here is an example, I think it looks pretty good:

ff7menu%282%29.jpg
I just tried making a left handed menu quickly, It was edited on the fly and i didn't use any measurements so things may look off or just too close together but since this was just a test that shouldn't matter to much.
you may notice i removed the box that they are in, this is because if i had left the box alone you would end up with a box in the middle of each menu (the box is in each menu so if i move it over to the left you end up with a small box on the left, usually in the middle of avatar's or text).
 
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Without the box just doesn't look right.
I know it doesn't look quite right, but here is what sub menu's look like if you leave it in


It may be possible to extend the other boxes to make it look like the original but it wouldn't be quite the same.
 
Wow nice progress seif!

As for the menu design, I just thought of something we hadn't really considered: left alignment
Just like FFXII and FFXIII. Makes more sense really since English is left to right.

Here is an example, I think it looks pretty good:

ff7menu%282%29.jpg
I just tried making a left handed menu quickly, It was edited on the fly and i didn't use any measurements so things may look off or just too close together but since this was just a test that shouldn't matter to much.
you may notice i removed the box that they are in, this is because if i had left the box alone you would end up with a box in the middle of each menu (the box is in each menu so if i move it over to the left you end up with a small box on the left, usually in the middle of avatar's or text).
I can't believe its possible!! I for one don't have any problem with it but can you move the area box where "midgar area" is shown to the right?? So that it will be seperated with time and gil. I know its just an experiment but it's just a suggestion. Nice work man!! :)
 
The menu on the left just isn't an option like that, plus it doesn't look any better imho....

If someone wants to make a modification to the patch I make I am ok with it though :)  But left hand menu just doesn't look as good, plus it doesn't animate....It seems to me to be breaking animation and the way it was designed for the sake of it.  Still, pretty cool that you managed that Kranmer :)

Is it possible to move that box down a bit from my original so that it doesn't look so hopelessly out of place?
 
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