Learning the commands

[Chud]

Elaborate, please.

At the risk of mis-interpreting what someone else wrote, "b" is unnecessary because "m" shows you the same information, and you can ESC from the actual casting of the spell for free when all you wanted was the current functionality of "b".

That would ruin macros/keymaps. You would need to use more than 0-9 to distinguish all the items.

Hmm, true... how about making the inscription--keymap interaction recognize a special character as identifying an extended label?

For example, 0-9 means apply to the item with that inscription; % (or whatever) would be interpreted as "expect two-digit label following." So, current inscriptions like "@q1" would still work, but you could also inscribe with "@q%45" and then define a keymap (or just type in) "q%45". It's a little clunky for interactive use, but should work fine in maps.

(I haven't checked that "%" is actually free or appropriate for this use, but you get the idea.)

[Magnate]

@takkaria Even though it's contentious I would still like to unify/remove commands to try to reduce this problem (and make the game easier on handhelds, phones, etc).

I would remove:
(b)rowse book (gain spell + cast spell should make this redundant with the new UI)
(B)ash down (doesn't work well + paralysis... tunneling works better)
(j)am door (and iron spikes)
(!) interact with visuals (i don't think anyone uses this ever)
(V)ersion (probably no one uses this)

I use V and b a lot. Are you proposing that I pretend I want to cast a spell whenever I want to browse a book? Or would the new unified use command allow me to browse spells and then press a key to cast the currently selected spell?

I am opposed to the idea of removing spikes, bashing and jamming. I think we should make them a more interesting part of the game instead of removing them. There was an interesting thread on this a while back which had some good ideas in it, giving the potential for jamming doors to be really useful.

I fully support the unification of item use and terrain-affecting commands, and the idea of the one-shot help screen (which is already in lib/help/command.txt, and just needs extracting into a single screen file available from a hotkey). Someone will point out that we ought to humour vi users by having one for each keyset and displaying the right one automatically.

[d_m]

I use V and b a lot. Are you proposing that I pretend I want to cast a spell whenever I want to browse a book? Or would the new unified use command allow me to browse spells and then press a key to cast the currently selected spell?

It depends on what you mean by "pretend". My feeling is that (m) can bring up a menu of spells where you can read about their effects and (optionally) cast one of them. The big change would be allowing you to look at books you don't know any spells in (right now these aren't available to the m command). Now that all the spells in a book are displayed all the time (when learning new spells or casting spells) it seems silly to me to keep a third command around which has exactly the same effect.

I am opposed to the idea of removing spikes, bashing and jamming. I think we should make them a more interesting part of the game instead of removing them. There was an interesting thread on this a while back which had some good ideas in it, giving the potential for jamming doors to be really useful.

I guess my feeling is that I'd rather remove the current behavior and then later add new behavior as we're compelled to. I agree that one can imagine lots of ways in which the (B)ash command could be useful... but I'm not sure that anyone is planning to work on it. If not, I'd rather just remove it.

The same is true with spikes... there are lots of ways to make jamming doors shut (or relocking them or whatever) interesting but they do require a lot of time and energy to plan, build, and then balance/tweak. My sense was that no one was really missing these from the game (and the internal way the game represents door/lock strength represented is kind of bad) so I wanted to just remove them.

I fully support the unification of item use and terrain-affecting commands, and the idea of the one-shot help screen (which is already in lib/help/command.txt, and just needs extracting into a single screen file available from a hotkey). Someone will point out that we ought to humour vi users by having one for each keyset and displaying the right one automatically.

Yes, I think add (U)nified use and the one-shot help screens will be the first things I do, since the rest ends up being contentious.

[d_m]

That would ruin macros/keymaps. You would need to use more than 0-9 to distinguish all the items.

That's a great point. I think we can't remove the "item-specific" use commands until we solve this problem, although I do think we can add the (U)nified use command.

I can imagine some ways to allow people to use numbers greater than 10 (or arbitrary inscriptions) as tags for macros. But it needs more thought, to be sure.

[caruso]

I agree that one can imagine lots of ways in which the (B)ash command could be useful... but I'm not sure that anyone is planning to work on it. If not, I'd rather just remove it.

If it is of any help: BOSS (edit: a fork from VMS Moria 5.0 /edit) uses bashing both for fighting and forcing doors and chests open. If you are planning to use the code, ask Michal whether he has already fixed the bug regarding body bashes! You can open the BOSS manual using any text editor or word processing program.

[fph]

As Antoine suggested, the problem with the "use" command and macros could (at least partially) be solved by having "U!" be a shortcut for "use potions" (to use in macros), "U?" for use scrolls and so on.
But I think the main problem lies in the macro interface, which is now too complicated for newbies to use. We could simply have "quick use slots" mapped to F1-F12 and/or or to numbers. Many graphical RPGs have a similar interface. Does anyone use regularly more than 12 macro'ed objects, apart from spellbooks? (the problem of getting rid of the @m1@b1@G1 inscriptions everyone uses on spellbooks has already been discussed on the forum, several solutions were suggested).

As for magic book commands, I suggest going on and removing also "learn spells". The same interface can be used for browsing, casting and learning. We just need a prompt like "You need to learn this spell before casting it. This will take you N turns. Go on?"

[Derakon]

BOSS? I remember playing an old black-and-white Moria variant named BOSS. Sort of a cyberpunk setting, wandering from one city to another, beating up Dirty Harry with a Daisyian Umbrella and getting venereal diseases. That BOSS?

I support merging browse/cast/gain spell into the same command. As for keymaps, they're a bit intimidating but straightforward once you realize that they're just sequences of keypresses combined with special inscriptions.

How about modifying the interface so that when it's prompted for an item to use, hitting 0 first means "collect a multi-digit number that ends with the return key"? E.g. U042<return>a means "Use the first option in the item (presumably a spellbook) inscribed with @42".

[myshkin]

I use V and b a lot. Are you proposing that I pretend I want to cast a spell whenever I want to browse a book? Or would the new unified use command allow me to browse spells and then press a key to cast the currently selected spell?

(x) browses book contents while in stores. I might expect (I) to do the same.

[Magnate]

(x) browses book contents while in stores. I might expect (I) to do the same.

Yes, I have that thought too, every time I browse books in stores. Unifying Inspect and browse makes a lot of sense, since browse != use.

[Derakon]

Keep in mind that we still need a way to tell users that dungeon books are fireproof. 'I'nspect still needs to show generic item details, in other words.

[Antoine]

Actually, you know what would be good for V? An "emote" command that prompts for a string and echos it back to you.

Why? To add interest to chardumps.

You drink the White Potion of Heroism.
You say "Check out my pose!"

Morgoth, Lord of Darkness dies.
You say "Eat hot lantern!"

[Derakon]

You can use comments (hit ':') for this. It doesn't add the emote wrapping for you, but it serves a similar purpose and the notes are added to your character dumps for posterity. For example:

    483618   2450'   32   Found The Beaked Axe of Umend
    483628   2450'   32   --Axe with +3 INT and pConf!
    483628   2450'   32   --pConf on something actually useful!
    483628   2450'   32   --Granted it's because I don't care a whit about melee damage.

[Antoine]

You can use comments (hit ':') for this.

I know and that's way cool, but I think it would be quite nice to be able to emote in the message window as well.

A.

[Antoine]

I support merging browse/cast/gain spell into the same command.

How does that work for priests, who can't choose what spell they gain?

A.

[Antoine]

The same is true with spikes... there are lots of ways to make jamming doors shut (or relocking them or whatever) interesting but they do require a lot of time and energy to plan, build, and then balance/tweak. My sense was that no one was really missing these from the game (and the internal way the game represents door/lock strength represented is kind of bad) so I wanted to just remove them.

Maybe better just to change the interface for now (so you 'U' the spike and choose a direction)?

A.