You activate it by pressing F while flying your ship with the other hand. Then there is the context menu, to scan ships, send boarding parties etc. Sure, you needed to learn that, but then it was quick to do without constantly changing input method to achieve one simple task.
In X3 this would have been something quick like shift c, 1, 6, 5. Shift-i to go to player information, hit tab 3 times to get to the correct icon list, then hit the down arrow key 10 times or so. So lets do it via keyboard, that at least was quick in X3. And then there is a lot of switching between mouse and keyboard. that is a lot of mouse travelling to achieve almost everything.
You have your main options in the top, then you have sub categories on the far left and then you have another set of tabs in the top left.