Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => C# Approved Mods => Topic started by: simast on May 16, 2021, 03:01:12 AM

Title: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 16, 2021, 03:01:12 AM
Steps to install:


This is an open source project licensed under MIT with code available (https://github.com/simast/SolarisTheme) on GitHub.



(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/simast/SolarisTheme/master/SolarisTheme.png)
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: twice2double on May 16, 2021, 08:05:56 AM
Very nice! Some good ideas in your code that I'll try to add to the ThemeCreator patch to help out future themers.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Droll on May 16, 2021, 09:52:38 AM
I like this very much, very easy on the eyes. I particularly like what you did with the buttons, reminds me a bit of Quasar4x's buttons which I think look great.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: RougeNPS on May 16, 2021, 11:08:35 AM
This looks amazing.

No offense to Steve and his design skills but the random buttons that all have different themes and styles for the UI just doesnt look good in the normal Aurora UI. This i like a lot.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 16, 2021, 01:57:55 PM
Published a new v1.1.0 version:

Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Droll on May 16, 2021, 03:42:30 PM
Steps to install:

  • Download and install the latest release of AuroraPatch (https://github.com/Aurora-Modders/AuroraPatch).
  • Download this theme and install under Aurora/Patches. Make sure you do not use any other themes as they would otherwise conflict.
  • Start Aurora using AuroraPatch executable.

This is an open source project licensed under MIT with code available (https://github.com/simast/SolarisTheme) on GitHub.



(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/simast/SolarisTheme/master/SolarisTheme.png)

Would it be possible to change the event text from the gold-yellow that it currently is? That is the only part that currently still hurts my eyes. Cuz one of the great things you did is the menu text is now Green or grey instead of green and gold-yellow.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 16, 2021, 03:50:12 PM
Would it be possible to change the event text from the gold-yellow that it currently is? That is the only part that currently still hurts my eyes. Cuz one of the great things you did is the menu text is now Green or grey instead of green and gold-yellow.

This is on my TODO list. I haven't changed that color yet since it is also used for player fleets on tactical map and there is no easy way to separate them. Might just change all yellow text on map to the default text color used in this theme if I don't find a good solution soon, but ideally I would like for player fleet contact text to remain yellow and event messages to use the new default text color.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Froggiest1982 on May 16, 2021, 04:19:25 PM
The biggest problem with these patches/themes was the same as the old Aurora Mod. for some reason the assigned Commanders and other options are Default as a lighter tone of the preset font color.

So for instance you are using white making it impossible to see what admin is vacant at the eye without using the flag available only, which is extremely annoying.

I like your theme and I think is very well done, just a pass for me though.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Droll on May 16, 2021, 04:42:06 PM
The biggest problem with these patches/themes was the same as the old Aurora Mod. for some reason the assigned Commanders and other options are Default as a lighter tone of the preset font color.

So for instance you are using white making it impossible to see what admin is vacant at the eye without using the flag available only, which is extremely annoying.

I like your theme and I think is very well done, just a pass for me though.

Yeah I hadn't noticed this but it is a good point, the light grey text font perfectly lines up with the unassigned admin command positions etc. on the commander menu, which means that you can't tell the difference between them at a glance. I honestly don't mind it as much though.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Kristover on May 16, 2021, 07:53:00 PM
Very well done.  I would love for this to be the default color scheme for the game.  I actually don't mind the blue background that is the current default but trying this version out, I think I now want to play this going forward.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: GodEmperor on May 17, 2021, 06:32:06 AM
FYI : Specify Minerals function cant be used to modify planetary Gallicite because its cut off with that font/interface size.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 17, 2021, 02:16:29 PM
The biggest problem with these patches/themes was the same as the old Aurora Mod. for some reason the assigned Commanders and other options are Default as a lighter tone of the preset font color.

FYI : Specify Minerals function cant be used to modify planetary Gallicite because its cut off with that font/interface size.

Thanks for reporting - both issues were fixed in the next upcoming version (to be released soon).
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 17, 2021, 02:41:46 PM
Published a new v1.2.0 version:

Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Droll on May 17, 2021, 03:20:06 PM
Published a new v1.2.0 version:

  • Replaced default yellow text color in all places with default theme text color.
  • Fixed issue where blue background would still show briefly on time and subpulse control buttons.
  • Fixed issue with cut off Gallicite input in system view + SM mode.
  • Fixed issue where assigned positions where not easily identifiable in Commanders window.

Great update that addresses everything that has been mentioned so far.

I will however say that for this point:

The assigned positions look very dark now, some people will have issues actually seeing what the already assigned posts are. If it's possible to keep the contrast between assigned/unassigned positions while improving the visibility of the already assigned posts that would be ideal.

You could try an inverted set up where unassigned positions are their current grey and assigned positions are white. The disadvantage being that it would be initially confusing to players since they might mistake assigned positions for unassigned positions etc. Most would eventually get used to it though I think.

The other alternative would be to have the unassigned positions be white/brighter and have the current grey on the unassigned positions be assigned to the already filled positions instead. However I imagine the reason that this has not been done is because it would affect text everywhere else as well. If there is a way to isolate this to the commander window I guess that would be ideal.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 17, 2021, 03:41:38 PM
The assigned positions look very dark now, some people will have issues actually seeing what the already assigned posts are. If it's possible to keep the contrast between assigned/unassigned positions while improving the visibility of the already assigned posts that would be ideal.

Thanks for feedback, I will re-adjust the contrast ratio if you think it is too dark right now. But note that I would prefer not to create new styling rules if possible as this increases complexity of the project and maintainability. Would prefer just to swap existing colors instead, so if we want assigned and unassigned positions to have different colors compared to default text - ideally Steve would have to add this different styling as well.

Also note that I want to revisit some of the colors when I will have a bit more time. I haven't done much with Galactic Map for example yet, it's mostly default colors right now.

Another idea I want to explore is to color-code toolbar buttons based on function - you can already see some of my WIP experiments on the first 5 economic buttons.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Froggiest1982 on May 17, 2021, 03:57:34 PM
The assigned positions look very dark now, some people will have issues actually seeing what the already assigned posts are. If it's possible to keep the contrast between assigned/unassigned positions while improving the visibility of the already assigned posts that would be ideal.

Thanks for feedback, I will re-adjust the contrast ratio if you think it is too dark right now. But note that I would prefer not to create new styling rules if possible as this increases complexity of the project and maintainability. Would prefer just to swap existing colors instead, so if we want assigned and unassigned positions to have different colors compared to default text - ideally Steve would have to add this different styling as well.

Also note that I want to revisit some of the colors when I will have a bit more time. I haven't done much with Galactic Map for example yet, it's mostly default colors right now.

Another idea I want to explore is to color-code toolbar buttons based on function - you can already see some of my WIP experiments on the first 5 economic buttons.

Extremely looking forward to this.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: simast on May 20, 2021, 12:23:33 PM
Published a new v1.3.0 version:

Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: twice2double on May 20, 2021, 05:39:16 PM
Very slick. Excellent theme!
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Crio on June 27, 2021, 08:13:20 PM
Excellent stuff! The icons are definitely a great touch, really makes navigating the UI a lot easier for me
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Froggiest1982 on June 27, 2021, 09:03:44 PM
Excellent stuff! The icons are definitely a great touch, really makes navigating the UI a lot easier for me

I don't know, I still think the ship design icon is a bit hard to remember for me all the times ;D

I am for a classic or similar

(https://img.icons8.com/ios/452/design--v2.png)
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Count Sessine on October 05, 2021, 12:29:45 PM
Hi guys

How does this work? I have downloaded the AuroraPatch into the Aurora folder, I have the solaris theme in the patch folder, but when I start the aurorapatch exe the solaris theme isn't there.

Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Count Sessine on October 05, 2021, 12:31:49 PM
Here is the AuroraPatch launcher
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Bluebreaker on October 05, 2021, 04:28:14 PM
You have to download the file at the bottom of the first post of the thread.

* SolarisTheme-1.3.0.zip (118.4 kB - downloaded 438 times.)
This zip contains two dll files, in two folders. Just unzip these two folders into the Patches folder
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Zenoth on October 08, 2021, 12:08:06 AM
Hi, thank you very much for the theme, I love it.  A question: Is it possible that you add an option to Solaris Theme to scale the UI as it could be done in Aurora Mod? It would help me a lot to be able to play version 1. 13 (and the new future versions), since in my old notebook (1366x768) I have to be scrolling to see the buttons below and resizing each window that I open and the game becomes very tedious.  If this is possible, I would be very grateful!
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Cristo on October 13, 2021, 08:26:03 AM
Hi - really excited to see people reviving some color altering options - looks like I can still play Aroura <3

I'm sure I'm being dumb but I can't seem to make this work and I wondered if you might be able to help me out - I've downloaded normal Aurora, downloaded the Aurorapatch into the main Aurora file, extracted the two folders into the patches folder - but when I boot up AuroraPatch I get nothing. Any ideas? Thanks!


I get the following errors in the AuroraPatch.log file:
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Info: Trying to retrieve types from assembly SolarisTheme.dll
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Error: Could not load file or assembly 'Lib, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. Are you missing a dependency?
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Info: Trying to retrieve types from assembly ThemeCreator.dll
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Error: Could not load file or assembly 'Lib, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. Are you missing a dependency?

So I presume I'm missing a dependency - but I'm not sure how/what!


EDIT - I was using the AurouraPatch marked 'Latest release' switching to the 'pre-release' version corrected this issue. Leaving this post up incase anyone else had the same issue!
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Ziley on October 13, 2021, 12:29:26 PM
Quote from: Cristo link=topic=12568. msg155988#msg155988 date=1634131563
Hi - really excited to see people reviving some color altering options - looks like I can still play Aroura <3

I'm sure I'm being dumb but I can't seem to make this work and I wondered if you might be able to help me out - I've downloaded normal Aurora, downloaded the Aurorapatch into the main Aurora file, extracted the two folders into the patches folder - but when I boot up AuroraPatch I get nothing.  Any ideas? Thanks!


I get the following errors in the AuroraPatch. log file:
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Info: Trying to retrieve types from assembly SolarisTheme. dll
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Error: Could not load file or assembly 'Lib, Version=1. 0. 0. 0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies.  The system cannot find the file specified.  Are you missing a dependency?
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Info: Trying to retrieve types from assembly ThemeCreator. dll
13/10/2021 14:27:00 - AuroraPatch - Error: Could not load file or assembly 'Lib, Version=1. 0. 0. 0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies.  The system cannot find the file specified.  Are you missing a dependency?

So I presume I'm missing a dependency - but I'm not sure how/what!


EDIT - I was using the AurouraPatch marked 'Latest release' switching to the 'pre-release' version corrected this issue.  Leaving this post up incase anyone else had the same issue!

THX!

I have same issue and search like 2Day's how i can fix that.
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: Cristo on October 14, 2021, 03:11:51 AM

THX!

I have same issue and search like 2Day's how i can fix that.

Happy to have helped :)
Title: Re: Solaris theme - a different look for Aurora!
Post by: kobold on November 11, 2021, 01:42:15 PM
First off, I installed the mod and latest version of Aurora Patcher and didnt run into the errors of the previous posters, I hope that their problems can be solved. 

And BIG thanks for this nice, simplistic UI and the nicer colors for my eyes, I had sometimes issues to read text properly with the blue background. 

I had a question regarding some coloring.
Maybe it is my screen, but the second ring around a planet (after basic ring for surveyed) which indicates that the object is colonized is really hard to see since it is so pale.  Any chance to make this more intense colored for quick identification?

And a basic question regarding the coloring of all objects, maybe it is a thing many want but it is impossible to do (^^), but is there any chance that like, Rocky Planets, Gas Giants, Moons and Asteroids are getting different colors so that a quick identification of celestial bodies is possible when I look into my system?