Proposal: use ? for help key, and change scrolls hotkey
Posted: Sunday, 1st April 2018, 11:33
Hi all! I've been doing user interface work for some time now, and one thing I'd like to add is a consistent keybind for showing help, for all of DCSS's different screens. This change would make DCSS much more user-friendly for newer players. It would also remove the need to scatter "(press x for help)" all over DCSS's various interfaces, making them cleaner and saving valuable console screen space.
The candidate help keys discussed on ##crawl-dev a while back were: ?, control-h, alt-h, F1, and _.
My preference is to use ? everywhere. This is already in use as the hotkey for scrolls. |amethyst suggested (possibly in jest) that scrolls use : instead, as with the spell library changes there are fewer books to deal with. Books might be given a new hotkey, or they might be moved to } (misc. items). This means that experienced players who make regular use of this keybind would have to relearn it.
Since I imagine this would be a controversial change, I'd like to ask for feedback and any ideas people have, especially from people who use the ? key and would be affected by this change. Please let me know what you think!
The candidate help keys discussed on ##crawl-dev a while back were: ?, control-h, alt-h, F1, and _.
- ?: supports all platforms, and already in use in many places. Conflicts with scrolls hotkey.
- control-h: conflicts with the directional attack command.
- alt-h: no other keybinds in crawl use alt, because the key input code doesn't support it.
- F1: no other default bindings on Fn keys, and they're often bound to macros. Often already bound by web browser/terminal emulator.
- _: in use by known-items menu, but otherwise a bit weird.
My preference is to use ? everywhere. This is already in use as the hotkey for scrolls. |amethyst suggested (possibly in jest) that scrolls use : instead, as with the spell library changes there are fewer books to deal with. Books might be given a new hotkey, or they might be moved to } (misc. items). This means that experienced players who make regular use of this keybind would have to relearn it.
Since I imagine this would be a controversial change, I'd like to ask for feedback and any ideas people have, especially from people who use the ? key and would be affected by this change. Please let me know what you think!