Mouse and keyboard usage

[Gerbrant]

Currently moving around and talking to people feels very clumsy. One gem however is implemented: run where I click - too bad it\'s on ctrl-rightclick.

It is however, in principle possible to move around with only the mouse, which would make for very relaxed exploration. You could for instance by default turn mouselook on and hold the left mousebutton to walk/run, depending on preferences. Double-click or perhaps right click to \"run where I click\". The middle button could be used to toggle mouselook. Some adventures use movement systems like this and it\'s like heaven.

As for the keyboard, you\'ll find yourself talking a lot. Ideally, the chat window would be active always. It\'s unfortunate therefore that some alphabetic keys perform program functions, like H for Help. Keyboards have a row of twelve function keys at the top - if these were to be used instead, switching in and out of chat mode would not be necessary.

Or perhaps the keyboard and mouse controls could be made to be customizable enough so that people can use whatever they like best.

*edit*

To prevent problems with character selection, change the mouse pointer depending on whether you\'re mouseovering an object or not. Also used in adventures, also very practical.

Please avoid posting two or more successive posts before others have replied. Just edit your last post to add new information :) Thanks! --Karyuu

[DaveG]

Originally posted by Gerbrant
Or perhaps the keyboard and mouse controls could be made to be customizable enough so that people can use whatever they like best.

They already are.........

[Gerbrant]

Well, I haven\'t been able to do so, but I\'ll look into this some more. Suppose I could get the system above working, do you suppose there are others who would like to see the config file or whatever is needed to do this?

*edit*
The options menu isn\'t versatile enough at all... whatever the devs wanted on the mouse can only be done with the mouse and the same applies to the keyboard. Does anyone know of a way to overcome the limitations of the options menu? Is there a way to do what I described above?

[Cherppow]

Hi

I\'d like to be able to assign mouse button as run too. That\'s what I use in most 3d games with mouselook. The menu popup could be assigned to click&hold or similar. Customizable is always nice. I\'m hoping in the future our interface will make better use of the different mouse events.

[Gerbrant]

I have found a cfg file with a Quake-like bind system, so perhaps there is hope. They don\'t use the exact same syntax however; does anyone have any experience with this?

On another note, most of the buttons on the toolbar aren\'t needed often. So it\'s not a real bother to have mouselook on permanently. You could use some special key (Esc or middle-mouse-button would be a good choice) and pop up a menu wherein mouselook is temporarily off. The function keys could be shortcuts to the relevant submenus.

Selecting an entity without doing anything is very rare, so the left mouse button could be run/walk depending on preferences. Right-click could pop up the contextmenu. Note: in another thread someone suggested using \"Attack there\" etc. commands instead of \"Attack\" etc. That would make you run to the entity and e.g. attack it. I don\'t use backtrack and sidestep that often; that\'s more useful for shooters, but if you need it, you could perhaps use drag-right.

I don\'t think you would need go-where-I-click that much, although if you want to talk while walking, it might still be useful. I still think double-click-left would be okay. If anyone has suggestions on improving this system, or on actually implementing it someway or another, please reply.

*edit* Can someone explain to me what\'s needed to reprogram the UI? I have programming experience. I might also be able to do an interface mash-up, i.e. a demo of what the interface should/could look like / how it could function without an actual working Planeshift. Just enough to get the idea that is, so that the interface programmers who know what they\'re doing can use that as inspiration.