Mouse and menu support
issueid=53 05-01-2008 02:40 AM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by Grey: 58
Mouse and menu support
Giving JADE a better UI for new players

Simple proposal: Allow mouse support in JADE, so you can select where on the map you want to look or teleport to or aim at (ADOM Sage supports the teleport feature of this already). Include a top menu through which all game commands can be accessed, or at the very least the most needed ones. This is of course an alternative rather than a replacement to traditional keyboard-only gameplay.

The main reason for this is that new players have a lot of trouble picking up roguelikes because of the large number of keypresses that are hard to memorise. This is the biggest complaint I have heard from people I try to introduce ADOM to (ADOM's :k command list is particularly unfriendly - full of fairly redundant and little used commands, with the important things hard to find). Personally I was introduced to roguelikes by Hack on the Amiga, and it was only thanks to its menu bar system that I was able to quickly learn the commands (I haven't played it in 8 years and still know q is to quaff a potion). JADE is a huge next-gen roguelike with the potential to draw in people who have never experienced the genre before - it should be easily accessible to them in order to be successful outside of the roguelike community.

An example of one branch of a menu:

>Items
->Eat food ................... e
->Drink potion .............. D
->Inventory .................. i
->Backpack .................. I
->Pick up ..................... p
->Drop ........................ d
->Use item .................. U
->Use tool ................... u
->Read scroll/book ......... r
->Zap wand ................. z
->Dip into potion ........... !
->Give away item .......... g
->Choose drop .........Ctrl-d
->Fast drop ................ :d
->Choose pick up .... Ctrl-p
->Fast pick up .............. ;

This way players can quickly learn the faster keypresses (whilst experienced players won't notice the difference - though personally even I forget certain commands sometimes, such as redrawing the screen). It's possible that this is already planned, since I note in the video demo there is a "Game" menu that is unrevealed.

A further suggestion though... scroll bars on all menus, such as the inventory screen and the skills screen. This would be in addition to the traditional +/- feature, but some people would find it easier to use. Particularly laptop users who don't have a numpad. For laptop users it might even be nice to have the direction commands accessible through a small grid at the bottom or side of the status bar (I've seen this done well in other games).

And further to this (though getting less necessary) the ability to choose everything on screen with the mouse. For instance instead of having to press a direction key for which person to chat to, you click on them with the mouse cursor. In particular I'd like to see this with menus - when doing an extended drop for instance, it would be nice to scroll through the list with a mouse and click on the items you wish to be dropped. This would not only be easier to use (in my opinion) but would prevent errors in incorrect keypresses leading you to dip a RoDS into a PoRC instead of holy water (not happened to me, but I have made silly mistakes with keypresses before).

What might also be nice (but situation dependant) is a more complex 'w' command, where instead of simply choosing a direction you choose a destination, and the PC takes the shortest path there unless interrupted. Using arrow keys to choose the destination would be utterly redundant, but using the mouse cursor would be very practical.

As I've said, this is all in addition to the existing commands, not a replacement. But I think it would make the game more user-friendly, which is important in getting it accepted beyond our own little crowd. Post here your own suggestions on improving the UI and accessibility of JADE, especially for laptops (since I have no experience with that myself).
Issue Details
Issue Number 53
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM II (formerly known as JADE)
Category Unknown
Status Suggested
Priority 3
Suggested Version Unknown
Implemented Version (none)
Votes for this feature 14
Votes against this feature 1
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




05-01-2008 11:47 AM
Senior Member
Sure it's a nice idea to make the game mouse friendly, but how much work and time it involves? I'm not sure but I think this will be an important cost added.

I speak of adom to few friends and didn't rise any interest but some laugh when I speak about a game made with ascii characters and texts. They all bore me with the hyper hype gt4, of adult dialogs and scenery, amazing graphics and sounds, hyper realism of the world, the infinite number of choices... Lol, I know 50% isn't true but it's hard to explain what can be good in an ascii game and how the gameplay of any game is the most important in any game and fancy static dialogs or graphics means very few, and a book with only text can be much better than any movie... or game.

Myself I give up and don't care and refuse to put more effort to convince anybody of anything about computer game. Anyway, adom is far to get full apology from me, it has many gameplay design I don't share at all like the lack of good hints.

05-02-2008 06:15 PM
Ancient Member
A convenient interface is always a good thing. A large and complex command list may drive potential players away.

06-03-2008 07:58 PM
Ancient Member
The only thing I see as potentially annoying with my limited knowledge of this stuff is the 'advanced' w commands suggested. I don't know if it is already part of the code, but that would mean having to create some sort of pathfinding, which i don't see to be worth a whole lot to take the time to code. Otherwise, its great.

09-24-2009 08:40 PM
Ancient Member
I made an attempt to sort the commands in menus. '>' Means a submenu. Warning: Long post!

Game
( Create short character logfile
) Create verbose character logfile
[ Create screenshot
:= Set variable
= Display configuration variables
\Ck Switch the required (more) key
S Save and quit game
Q Quit game



Action
\Ct Activate trap
C Chat with monsters
E Clean ears
c Close door
ws Continuous search
F Wipe face
h Handle something
\Co Issue order to companion
k Kick
l Examine environment
\Cl Look
n Name monster/yourself
o Open door
\Cu Unlock door
p Pay
:p Extended pay
_ Pray
O Sacrifice
s Search
t Shoot/Throw missile
:s Swap position with monster

>Tactics
T Change tactic
\1 Set tactics to 'berserker'
\2 Set tactics to 'very aggressive'
\3 Set tactics to 'aggressive'
\4 Set tactics to 'normal'
\5 Set tactics to 'defensive'
\6 Set tactics to 'very defensive'
\7 Set tactics to 'coward'

>Character abilities
\Cx Use class power
\Ci Invoke mindcraft
m Use special ability
a Apply skill
A Display and quick-mark skills
Z Cast spell
:Z Mark spells

>Movement
< Ascend stairway/Leave location
> Descend stairway/Enter location
5 Wait
. Wait
1 Move to the southwest
\D Move to the south
2 Move to the south
3 Move to the southeast
\L Move to the west
4 Move to the west
\R Move to the east
6 Move to the east
7 Move to the northwest
\U Move to the north
8 Move to the north
9 Move to the northeast
w1 Walk to the southwest
w2 Walk to the south
w3 Walk to the southeast
w4 Walk to the west
w5 Walk on the spot
w6 Walk to the east
w7 Walk to the northwest
w8 Walk to the north
w9 Walk to the northeast



Items
i Inventory
I Miscellaneous equipment
! Dip (something) into (potion)
g Give item to monster

>Pick up & drop
d Drop item(s)
\Cd Drop items in a comfortable way
; Pick up items primitively (fast)
, Pick up items
\Cp Pick up items comfortably
:d Extended drop
\Ca Switch auto-pickup on/off

>Use item
D Drink
e Eat
r Read
U Use item
u Use tool
:u Extended use
z Zap wand



Display
B Display character background
\\ Display chaos powers
@ Display character information
/ Display identified items
:k Display killed monsters
:m Display message buffer
q Display quest status
R Display recipes
x Display required experience
\Mt Display talents
:T Display available talents
\Cw Display weapon skills
& Recall monster memory

>Quick info (these do not take you to a special screen)
P Display bill
:b Display burden levels
:c Display companions
$ Display current wealth
:g Display name of your deity
\Ce Display elapsed game time
K Display kick statistics
M Display missile statistics
V Display version
W Display weapon statistics
:W Describe weather
:w Display monster wound status

09-24-2009 11:53 PM
Ancient Member
I agree. The very first time I played ADOM, I didn't know how to enter towns or dungeons and was confused why creatures could move on diagonals and I couldn't. A tutorial level would be good to use too which walks through basic/common commands. Maybe a two level dungeon with a shop, a couple friendly chat folk with some tips, some doors, a secret door, an arrow trap, and of course a few monsters of assorted types and some items.

Path finding is hard, how about implementing path saving? PC toggles on path creation, walks the path and toggles off path creation. To walk path, PC must be standing on a point of the path, toggle on follow path, then press a direction to follow it. Limit one path per dungeon level and limit x paths where x <= Le score per game. Paths can be saved in a screen where they are listed by Dungeon Level so a character can choose which paths to forget about so they can create a new path if they reach their limit or want to replace their existing path on that level.

I am now a laptop ADOMer. The reason I stopped playing for such a long time was I switched from desktops to laoptops and couldn't get used to not having a number pad (or if I used the Function->Num Pad, I would lose a third of my keys which are commonly used for ADOM play). I only started playing again when I started using a relative's desktop and decided to bite the bullet with my laptops and use the number keys along the top for movement. It is still a hassle to press the right number at all times and another annoyance is + and - for movement. Have to press Shift for + and not hold Shift for - makes navigation strange some times. I don't know exactly what would be good keyboard changes for implementation but this could definately use some brain storming.

10-01-2009 11:21 AM
Ancient Member
To my knowledge most roguelikes have path finding built in, it's what your enemies use to chase you. It's also not that difficult to code, things that seem simpler like LOS are much harder than that (IMHO).

10-03-2009 01:47 AM
Ancient Member
Only problem with the built in pathfinding is it's retarded.. We have all lost monsters hot on our trail by using intelligent movement. Also, pathfinding would be very ineffective in any sort of dungeon level which is even moderately trapped. At least with player created path creation (which of course would take some work of it's own but is well within programming limits), the player can intelligently choose to have his character walk around that C altar instead of right over it (or at least stopping a square before it like the w-move, which means the player would have to manually navigate around it then start the path finding process again).

I came up with a problem with the mouse support for assisting laptops. I do on rare occasion use my laptop without a usb mouse and using the touchpad is a far worse punishment than having to press an extra key or two. As an alternative, have an easy-to-use keyboard configuration menu so the user can define his/her own keybindings that would work for that particular keyboard. If not, make them learn to accept it the way it is.

10-12-2009 08:05 AM
Junior Member
fazisi, sorry, I didn't understand your ?path saving? thing. Can you explain it a bit more? About laptops ? yeah, they aren't roguelike-friendly, and separate numpad is true blessing. Though I managed to use num-locked keyboard, accessing keys like ?l? and ?i? with F-key.
And about mouse-targeted paths ? IIRC there is something like that in NH, isn't it?

04-25-2010 06:55 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Fullmoon
fazisi, sorry, I didn't understand your ?path saving? thing. Can you explain it a bit more? About laptops ? yeah, they aren't roguelike-friendly, and separate numpad is true blessing. Though I managed to use num-locked keyboard, accessing keys like ?l? and ?i? with F-key.
And about mouse-targeted paths ? IIRC there is something like that in NH, isn't it?
My path saving idea is you press a key/key combination to activate path creation. Walk your path. Then press the key/key combo to deactivate the path. This is then stored in a path menu that when you are on or adjacent to this path, you can activate an auto-follow and select one of two directions to follow your path.

The other stuff, I've probably forgotten what I meant. However, some of my views on pathfinding have changed over time but I still find automated pathfinding to be fairly immature and ineffective compared to manual pathfinding by a player. However, sometimes the convinience outweighs the inefficiency.

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