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Laptop-friendly diagonal movement mode(s)

12-01-2012 08:07 AM

Al-Khwarizmi Al-Khwarizmi is offline

Ancient Member

Number of reported issues by Al-Khwarizmi: 62

Laptop-friendly diagonal movement mode(s)

Create a quick setting to make the game playable with diagonals on laptops without numpads

Yesterday I was installing everything on my new laptop, and although the machine's performance was wonderful, I realized with horror that it no longer had NumLock and a numpad overlay. Apparently, most laptops now don't have it, so there's no way to get even the "fake" numpad in the uiojklm,. keys.

This makes diagonals on laptops even more of a problem than it already was. I think now that ADOM is being resurrected and it's going to become more mainstream (Steam, etc.), we need some explicit option for addressing this, like the ones that have been proposed for ADOM II.

Before someone mentions the venerable vi keys, I respect that option as an option, but it's not for everyone. I'm an experienced computer used and I just can't get used to them. I suppose it'll be the same for most people on Steam.

I think having some key (Shift?) to toggle "movement mode", and "movement mode" changing a square of nine keyboard letters (such as uiojklm,.) to the movement commands (i.e. as in the fake laptop numpads) would be fine.

EDIT: I think my proposal of 23/12/2013 (based on the control scheme of One Way Heroics) is better than this initial idea of the OP. Also see the rest of proposals in the thread for interesting alternatives.

Issue Details

Issue Number 1367

Issue Type Feature

Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)

Category All

Status On Hold

Priority 1 - Highest

Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 5

Implemented Version (none)

Milestone Potential work pipeline

Votes for this feature 11

Votes against this feature 0

Attachments 0

Assigned Users (none)

Tags (none)

12-01-2012 03:40 PM

Mobius

Ancient Member

try the meta (ie alt / option) along with the
qwe
asd
zxc
keys. I don't think there are many conflicts. does not currently pair those with the direction prompts I think.

12-01-2012 03:51 PM

anon123

Ancient Member

I envy those who can play on a laptop without the numeric pad. I sure can't.

12-01-2012 05:59 PM

Alucard

Senior Member

This'd be nice, yes.

I bought a $10 USB keypad though.

12-01-2012 07:47 PM

JellySlayer JellySlayer is offline

Ancient Member

You can customize the keys in ADOM however you like. Having a laptop keyboard setup available would be nice, I suppose, though I personally have yet to find a replacement to the numpad that I would consider remotely passable. I use 1379 for diagonal movement on my laptop.

12-01-2012 07:53 PM

Al-Khwarizmi Al-Khwarizmi is offline

Ancient Member

Yeah, I'll just customize the keys or maybe even buy a $10 numpad too (it's probably worth it just to pay ADOM). But new players won't do those things, so I think having a laptop mode without the need for carefully tweaking configuration files is essential if ADOM is going to reach out to a larger crowd.

12-08-2012 12:07 PM

cyrilverba cyrilverba is offline

Junior Member

1379. Your hands will get used to it. But, if people need it, why not?

Edit: You really think this to be a #1 priority?

12-08-2012 01:16 PM

Al-Khwarizmi Al-Khwarizmi is offline

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by cyrilverba

Edit: You really think this to be a #1 priority?

It depends on the interpretation you make of priority, I guess... I don't think it's priority 1 in the sense of "needed before any other feature", but I definitely do think it's priority 1 in the sense of "absolutely needed for the final 1.2.0 release".

For ADOM geeks this is not needed, but when you release a game to the great public (ADOM is going to be released on Steam) you can't leave a significant part of players (users of laptops without numpad) without a comfortable input setting. We're fans and we don't mind spending $10 on a USB numpad or painfully getting used to an unnatural control scheme, but I doubt most Steam gamers will be willing to do that.

12-08-2012 01:23 PM

cyrilverba cyrilverba is offline

Junior Member

Good point. Controls issues in games I haven't played before piss me off like nothing else. Almost like dialogue system in Alpha Protocol.

01-10-2013 03:03 PM

adom-admin adom-admin is offline

The Creator

I have to admit: I can't imagine any workable alternative keyboard layout. I have tried with ADOM II and failed. Please provide a specific suggestion that takes into account all the existing mappings (that's where the real difficulty lies). Otherwise this issue RFE will be rejected as I have no solution.

01-10-2013 03:19 PM

coppro

Junior Member

http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~scshunt/adom-vikeys is my layout, which uses hjkl and rebinds those keys to other things. A few are awkward (like I have 'U' for extended use and '^U' for regular use), but most of them work out.

01-10-2013 03:20 PM

SirTheta

Ancient Member

Here is the .adom.kbd I recently created for this purpose: http://ancardia.us.to/adom_users/sir...20p8/.adom.kbd The nice thing is that it is drop and replace--the numpad will still work, so you don't have to switch layouts.

Code:

y   k   u
  \ | /
h - . - l
  / | \
b   j   n

Also, all commands can be prefixed with 'w' to wait or walk continuously.

Keybindings that have to be changed:
'u'se tool - rebound to \CU
'h'andle something - rebound to \Ch
'k'ick something - rebound to \Ck => requires rebinding of 'toggle (more) prompt' key. I bound it to \C\S, but it doesn't work, so I still have to find a good combination for that.
examine environment ('l') - rebound to x (makes more sense anyway)
'n'ame something - rebound to \Cn

I'm pretty certain that is all that has changed. The only really onerous change, in my opinion, is use tool. That really needs a better home.

01-10-2013 03:34 PM

Mobius

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by SirTheta

Code:

y   k   u
  \ | /
h - . - l
  / | \
b   j   n

I'm pretty certain that is all that has changed. The only really onerous change, in my opinion, is use tool. That really needs a better home.

y as a movement key is badness. Far too easy to 'fat finger' the 'do you want to die by attacking a shopkeeper' prompt.

01-10-2013 03:38 PM

SirTheta

Ancient Member

Well, you'd have to press it twice, so I don't think it's a big deal unless you're holding down 'y' for some reason. There's not really much other choice, to be honest. Also, that should be solved if some of Sage's features get put in--specifically, auto-swapping with non-hostiles (since you can't swap with shopkeeps, they would simply resist and nothing would happen).

P.S. Guess I should note I basically lifted those keybindings from Crawl. What can I say, they work magnificently.

01-13-2013 09:08 PM

SirTheta

Ancient Member

Okay, so it turns out the above was irreparably broken on non-Windows platforms. Here are some new bindings.

'K'ick
Display 'm'issile, 'w'eapon and 'k'ick statistics are all bound to :\C<quoted key> [yes, this means :<return> displays missile statistics].
toggle (more) prompt is back at \Ck
use tool is \Mu (alt-u)
display experience is \Mx (alt-x)

I am adding a bug report / potential RFE that should resolve all of these issues if it is fixed / implemented.

01-13-2013 10:16 PM

Al-Khwarizmi Al-Khwarizmi is offline

Ancient Member

My suggestion is that when Caps Lock is off, everything works as now. But when Caps Lock is on, then

UIO
JKL
M,.

work as movement keys.

Instead of Caps Lock it could be a different key, switching between "normal mode" and "movement overlay mode" (just to give it a name).

01-14-2013 12:39 AM

Mobius

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by SirTheta

I distinctly remember fat-fingering ADOM in earlier versions that used y as a movement key, and being frustrated.

03-01-2013 06:25 PM

NMBLNG

Member

Would it be unrealistic to have 3 or 4 pre-set configurations? ie when you run the game for the first time, it prompts you to select which movement scheme you want. Could include 'classic' (number pad), vi-style controls, wasd-style controls, etc.

I'll try to spend some time finding good combinations.

03-10-2013 01:02 PM

aerol

Senior Member

I like the implementation suggested by Al-Khwarizmi. If there is a toggle between movement and non movement mode, rebinding ceases to be a problem. I would like it if it was a toggle and not an extra key that needed to be pressed every time, because in that case two hands would be needed to move.

03-10-2013 02:50 PM

faradan

Junior Member

FWIW, I set my movement to

90-
op[
l;'

while holding the Alt key. I'm able to hold down right-Alt with my thumb to keep it one-handed; that might not work for everyone. The only rebinding needed is \Ml which is easily changed to something like \ML.

It's important for me that the keys be arranged more or less like they would be on a numpad -- I could never get used to something like SirTheta's binding where up/down/left/right are all on the same keyboard row.

03-10-2013 07:06 PM

SirTheta

Ancient Member

Originally Posted by faradan

It's important for me that the keys be arranged more or less like they would be on a numpad -- I could never get used to something like SirTheta's binding where up/down/left/right are all on the same keyboard row.

I used to think this as well, but it's definitely not true :)

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