Mouse buttons

[Nick]

There is a plan afoot to have Vanilla completely controllable by the mouse. So far the player can be moved by the mouse, and most menus are clickable, but there are still many cases where keyboard input is needed. So, to get around this, we need something that can be clicked in place of a keypress. A version of this appears in FAA030 (although there are still a few glitches in it - places where buttons disappear that shouldn't, for example). I'll demonstrate with pictures:



Note the five buttons at the bottom - [Ret] stands for return, and will open the command menus. [Std] is for stand still, [Rpt] for repeat, etc.



Similar, but we're looking at the inventory now. Notice how the [/] button has appeared so you can switch to the equipment. Notice also that you can select an item to use - FAA features back-to-front menus as well as the V command menus, where you can select an item, then choose the action to perform on it. I would like to see this in V too (possibly to replace the command menus).



This is one of the knowledge screens - note the different set of buttons.



And one of the birth screens.

Ideally, the platform-specific main-xxx.c file would make some gui buttons itself in place of the text ones. The button code is designed so that this hooks into the game fairly easily.

Also, there is an option to switch buttons off completely; this could be combined with the mouse movement option or done separately.

Opinions?

[Irashtar]

[std] might as well be tapping the character, or does that some other use?
How about using the empty space under the HP/SP spot?

[Nick]

[std] might as well be tapping the character, or does that some other use?

Currently in FAA that brings up a menu of commands like look, 'M' for map, etc.

How about using the empty space under the HP/SP spot?

Basically the reason I don't do that is that I also have a mode where the "sidebar" is shown at the bottom; this is intended for small screen mode (Windows CE devices, etc), and looks like this:



On the whole the bottom line seemed simplest. In any case, this is really a temporary method until all the main ports can provide GUI buttons.

[andrewdoull]

Currently in FAA that brings up a menu of commands like look, 'M' for map, etc.




Basically the reason I don't do that is that I also have a mode where the "sidebar" is shown at the bottom; this is intended for small screen mode (Windows CE devices, etc), and looks like this:



On the whole the bottom line seemed simplest. In any case, this is really a temporary method until all the main ports can provide GUI buttons.

I appreciate all the work you're doing on this...

But is there any reason at all to display the name, the class, the race and the stats (Str, Int, Wis) etc. on the main screen... there's a 'C'haracter screen for this purpose... (I realise this is an option).

I'd much rather that the character equipment and inventory be displayed, if at all possible.

Andrew

[Nick]

But is there any reason at all to display the name, the class, the race and the stats (Str, Int, Wis) etc. on the main screen... there's a 'C'haracter screen for this purpose... (I realise this is an option).

Well, that's a good point. I think I hadn't thought of it because I was using things like "click on the race etc brings up the 'C' screen", "click on the stats brings up the inventory" and so on. And that should be able to be better handled with buttons.

I'd much rather that the character equipment and inventory be displayed, if at all possible.

I appreciate the work you did on making that possible - I think the same argument applies, though. I'd be inclined to keep just the HP and SP, so anything not critical is a click away.