Do away with the more prompt
issueid=3042 06-04-2014 04:52 PM
The Creator
Number of reported issues by adom-admin: 499
Do away with the more prompt

Many people nowadays are annoyed by having to press an extra key to skip the more prompt. We should introduce some faster way of handling the messages. Alternatives include:
  • a mode in which there simply is no more prompt display - ever (basically deactivating it - although this is annoying for "story places")
  • just deactivating the more prompt completely during combat (which seems to be the most tedious place to have it)
  • introduce a longer vertical message area with one message per line that just scrolls endlessly and thus also has no more prompt
  • something else? (suggestions welcome)
  • all of the above (suggestions also welcome)

Right now I tend to completely disabling more (as a mode) when movement keys are pressed or missiles fired or spells cast or wands zapped. These areas typically signify combat situations and it probably wouldn't be too painful to not have a more prompt there (although it might be good to have a visible turn counter in order to see how much times passes if messages just auto-scroll through the display). It also might be an idea to completely disable more while monsters move (kind of an extension of the combat situation).

What do you think?
Issue Details
Issue Number 3042
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 1 - Highest
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 23
Implemented Version ADOM r48
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 3
Votes against this feature 1
Assigned Users adom-admin
Tags (none)




06-09-2014 01:30 AM
Junior Member
I agree with heavensblade that the longer vertical message area would be a very very nice thing. Before the ADOM resurrection, I used to play with the terminal size (6 characters wider) just to lessen the frequency of {more} prompts.

06-14-2014 04:09 PM
The Creator
I have done the following as it seemed to be a very good compromise:
- There are now two "key acceptance states" - "SPACE and ENTER" and "any key". In both modes ENTER bypasses all future more prompts.
- There also two more suppression modes: One that displays more whenever the message buffer is full or this is explicitly requested by code and one that suppresses all more prompts during monster actions.
- Combining these two factors I now have four "more handling modes".
- The new default mode is "Accept any key to bypass more and do not display any more prompts when monsters act."
- As usual Ctrl-k changes the mode.

This seems to reduce the need for pressing keys to almost zero, at least from my preliminary experiments ;-)

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