Loader V5 Released!

It's a common standard on phone apps where screen space is at a premium. Desktop versions of apps and websites, if they did switch to it at all, tend to be moving away from it as a paradigm for the precise reason that screen real estate is no longer really at a premium, and they do genuinely slow you down. Off the top of my head I genuinely can't name a single desktop view website or program that uses the hamburger menu.

One thing you can do with proper menu bars which you really can't do with the hamburger menu is hold the mouse button on the menu button, drag the mouse down to the menu item, and release the mouse button. To open various menu items this therefore takes me fractions of seconds. Now I have to click on the hamburger, move the mouse to the right place, wait for the submenu to load, carefully move my mouse right (because of course submenu behaviour is infamously unfriendly for fast mouse movements), then move the mouse down to the item I want to click.

All to save at most a dozen pixels when I have over a thousand vertically.

Quite a number of my sims which I have licenses for are displaying "You do not own a licence"

Example: Australian sims, BNS, Manchester Pic, Motherwell, Rugby, Sheffield, Three Bridges, York North and South, etc.

BarryM

However, the initial opening of the menu could be improved. A keypress, or hovering over it. Come up with some positive ideas.

hi Geoff
ive got v5.2 on my laptop and still cant play without the internet on do i have to do a lock on machine or leave it as it is with the ones ive got liences for

Muzer in post 128013 said:

It's a common standard on phone apps where screen space is at a premium. Desktop versions of apps and websites, if they did switch to it at all, tend to be moving away from it as a paradigm for the precise reason that screen real estate is no longer really at a premium, and they do genuinely slow you down. Off the top of my head I genuinely can't name a single desktop view website or program that uses the hamburger menu.

IBM, CNN, Amazon, Costco all use burger menus on their desktop web site pages. You can't assume screen real estate is not a premium anymore: think about those of us who cannot use multiple screens because of eyesight issues.

Even the Windows start button is a burger menu!

Muzer in post 128013 said:

One thing you can do with proper menu bars which you really can't do with the hamburger menu is hold the mouse button on the menu button, drag the mouse down to the menu item, and release the mouse button. To open various menu items this therefore takes me fractions of seconds. Now I have to click on the hamburger, move the mouse to the right place, wait for the submenu to load, carefully move my mouse right (because of course submenu behaviour is infamously unfriendly for fast mouse movements), then move the mouse down to the item I want to click.

You say you "[now have to] wait for the submenu to open" yet this is exactly the same in 4.15. I think you can configure it in Windows somewhere. Apart from the initial click, which I'll get to in a minute, the menu structure is actually the same depth.

Muzer in post 128013 said:

All to save at most a dozen pixels when I have over a thousand vertically.

That's not true either, is it? Did you not notice the extra functionality?

However, the initial opening of the menu could be improved. A keypress, or hovering over it. Come up with some positive ideas.

BarryM in post 128022 said:

Quite a number of my sims which I have licenses for are displaying "You do not own a licence"

Example: Australian sims, BNS, Manchester Pic, Motherwell, Rugby, Sheffield, Three Bridges, York North and South, etc.

BarryM

It looks like you've only done a partial upgrade as many of your licenses are still showing V4 instead of V5. is that because you have another machine with them on?

GeoffM in post 128028 said:

BarryM in post 128022 said:

Quite a number of my sims which I have licenses for are displaying "You do not own a licence"

Example: Australian sims, BNS, Manchester Pic, Motherwell, Rugby, Sheffield, Three Bridges, York North and South, etc.

BarryM

It looks like you've only done a partial upgrade as many of your licenses are still showing V4 instead of V5. is that because you have another machine with them on?

No. Only one machine since Windows 10. Just followed what was on the screen.

All fixed, Thank You.

BarryM in post 128037 said:

All fixed, Thank You.

I didn't do anything...

To my eyes the Cardiff looks a lot clearer than the Worksop

hi Geoff
ive got v5.2 on my laptop and still cant play without the internet on do i have to do a lock on machine or leave it as it is with the ones ive got liences for

Wells in post 128031 said:

hi Geoff
ive got v5.2 on my laptop and still cant play without the internet on do i have to do a lock on machine or leave it as it is with the ones ive got liences for

Same here, licences locked to machine but unable to access licensed sims without internet connection. Blue arrow and text confirm licences locked to machine when connected to Internet.

Muzer in post 128013 said:

It's a common standard on phone apps where screen space is at a premium. Desktop versions of apps and websites, if they did switch to it at all, tend to be moving away from it as a paradigm for the precise reason that screen real estate is no longer really at a premium, and they do genuinely slow you down. Off the top of my head I genuinely can't name a single desktop view website or program that uses the hamburger menu.

IBM, CNN, Amazon, Costco all use burger menus on their desktop web site pages. You can't assume screen real estate is not a premium anymore: think about those of us who cannot use multiple screens because of eyesight issues.

Even the Windows start button is a burger menu!

Dick in post 128049 said:

Wells in post 128031 said:

hi Geoff
ive got v5.2 on my laptop and still cant play without the internet on do i have to do a lock on machine or leave it as it is with the ones ive got liences for

Same here, licences locked to machine but unable to access licensed sims without internet connection. Blue arrow and text confirm licences locked to machine when connected to Internet.

Have you locked your licences whilst connected to the internet? You will be required to have an internet connection whilst locking licences, after that any licences that have been locked against a sim should work Offline.

Just to double check that you are locking licences via the new loader and NOT the old licence manager?

Craig

nroberts in post 127971 said:

GeoffM in post 127970 said:

nroberts in post 127968 said:

EDIT:
P.S. The Kings Cross sim still comes up as an invalid .ZIP archive

EDIT 2:
Deleted the .sim file for KX and restarted loader. I was offered it. I applied the update. Still the same invalid .ZIP

To clarify, is this error when you try to update the sim, or try to run the sim?

Geoff, when trying to run the sim. I select it, hit next and I get the popup (I posted a pic a few posts up). If ignored, however it does appear to load up well. I haven't tried it with any timetable, but the display seemed fine.

Sorry, I missed that. I've had a number of people try this and they're not getting an issue. We'll keep investigating - we may even just repackage the zip.

I don't understand peoples issue with the hamburger menu. I've been using V5 for a while so maybe it's just bedded in for me, but I didn't really notice a difference in user friendliness. we've now got the simplifier and train list quickly at hand where we didn't previously and everything I access off the hamburger menu has a keyboard shortcut available, typically F10, F11 and F5 for instance. I hardly find myself using it except to save a game. I don't understand how it isn't easy to use either. Maybe its just me.