Unit Flag Hotkeys
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Considering some options:
- No hotkey, would need to turn on unit flags in 'view' menu
- Three hotkeys, one for off, small, & large flags
- Toggle hotkey, to turn on and off and the view menu would be used to set flag size preference.
I suppose the first question is really if there are enough people or anyone really that frequently toggles unit flags on/off - if it's worth having a hotkey to begin with. If so, then it narrows the decision down to (2) and (3).
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@LaFayette I think a 4th option could be a single toggle hotkey that cycles through all 3 options (off, small, large). I actually think that might be best to reduce number of needed hotkeys.
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@redrum not a bad option to suggest. It's a bit frustrating to not have any data or use-cases where we really know what we need out of this feature.
My 2 cents, I think the flags are useful when you are having trouble telling units apart, EG: Cold War in the low countries. As far as that goes, I think folks would want to turn the feature on/off, not necessarily change the size of the flag. Hence I think it would be a bit inefficient to have to cycle through all options to get to the off state and back to the desired flag size (not to mention the dreaded +1 click where you have to cycle through all over again). I also think cycling is not best done through a hotkey necessarily, if someone wants to just see the different looks and leave it, may as well just use the menu.
Option (3) keeps us down to just one hotkey. IMO minimizing the number of hotkeys is not necessarily the right metric. Again we're frustrated by lack of data here to know exactly what/whom we are serving with this feature.
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@LaFayette I think options 3 or 4 are both fine. I don't think many players toggle them on/off frequently within a single game. I think its mostly map dependent and either play with them on or off for the whole game. Most maps you don't need them but there are a few that it helps.
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That makes me seriously wonder if we need a hotkey. A hotkey is best for frequent operations. Rarely used operations are not much a time save when behind a hotkey, and it's hard to remember a hotkey for something you rarely use.
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(4) TBH I do not like. It takes a few seconds to re-render, it's pretty slow to go through each state compared to just selecting the desired option directly. We also gain the cost of a hotkey binding. I'm certainly leaning towards no hotkey at all on this one.
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@LaFayette Ok, I'm fine just removing the hotkey for flags for now. I don't think its used much and I argued against adding a button to the UI for it. I think leaving it as just a menu option is fine.
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@redrum I wonder if it was (presumably) not used much because it's not useful or nobody would have known it existed? We do have some work ahead for better discoverability of the many hotkeys and improving locality of controls (EG: battle settings being available in the battle window).
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@LaFayette I have never used the flags, as when in doubt I have just held the mouse cursor over the territory and looked in the territory tab, right side of screen, where flags are luckily displayed on each unit
I hope those flags in tab will never be removed. -
@LaFayette said in Unit Flag Hotkeys:
Considering some options:
- No hotkey, would need to turn on unit flags in 'view' menu
- Three hotkeys, one for off, small, & large flags
- Toggle hotkey, to turn on and off and the view menu would be used to set flag size preference.
I suppose the first question is really if there are enough people or anyone really that frequently toggles unit flags on/off - if it's worth having a hotkey to begin with. If so, then it narrows the decision down to (2) and (3).
I think flags are better having no hotkey for it, as it is more like a unit size setting. And, as the unit size setting, they should rather be map only related (like also the zoom is) and having a way in the map itself to determine if this setting should be on or off default.
However, if one would want to have a hotkey for it, I think such setting should have 2 hotkeys, behaving the followng ways:
- One hotkey to enable small flags from no flags or large flags, if clicked again while having small flags on will go back to no flags
- One hotkey to enoble large flags from no flags or small flags, if clicked again while having large flags on will go back to no flags
This way, you can keep toggling on and off the kind of flags that you want, with the hotkey doing everything that you need and not obliging you cickling through any flags you don't want to have, also avoiding unnecessary clicks.
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I like the suggestion @Cernel . I'm no longer convinced this feature should have a hotkey for it. Is it really used that often by anyone? Just curious if we can find a person/example where someone really wants to toggle it on/off often enough to want a hotkey.
Having the setting 'stick' with maps seems like a very good idea though.
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Yeah, I agree it should be a per map setting like unit size and @Cernel and I have discussed this a few times before
