Improve Hotkeys
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@beelee Lol, fyi. You can edit it further or ask a mod to delete it.
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@beelee HeHe All good Bee Hepp's continuously enjoys pointing out when I have done something dumb as well.
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I've noticed when i go Full screen some units will highlight.
Not a huge deal because it eventually goes away but it is a little distracting. Just thought I'd mention it since it's probably not intended behavior.
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@beelee Guessing it is picking up the 'F' click as well as 'CTRL+F'. As 'F' is used to highlight units that have remaining moves. Might need to change the full screen hotkey.
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@redrum wonder if it'd be better to change "f" ? That's been around for a while and would probably annoy some people that use it though.
Probably cause same problem unless it used a unused letter/character ?
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@beelee Decided to change full screen hotkey to "CTRL+Z". PR: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3345
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@redrum Awesome
Ctrl Z is like a "infinity" type thing. Very intuitive lol. It just keeps going Good Action -
@redrum why does ctrl a = ctrl c now ? I saw something about it a while back but don't remember.
The preRelease
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@beelee Because I wanted to make ctrl+A add attackers to the battle calc.
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@redrum I propose altering CTRL+L to CTRL+I (ctrl+i) for unit help window.
And when doing this, also renaming this window to "Unit Information" It would be more in line with the already used "i" button to get some info when hovering over units/territories.
Also, it would then end any conflict between H standing for history, while people might intuitively think (unit)help. And let's face It, one does not get help by looking at this window, but one does get information.
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@redrum I think the Ctrl+A/D can be significantly improved in 3 ways:
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It would be better if they always add the units to the battlecalculator, as long as you are hovering that zone. Now if you open the battlecalculator, then click on the battlecalculator (maybe to add some units manually), then hover a territory and click Ctrl+A/D, the units will not be added (despite the fact that, for example, you can see them in the "territory" tab), unless you first focus on the board again, by clicking on it (not a big deal, but still one unnecessary click you must always remember to do). Also, having the battlecalculator selected, while adding units on a zone basis, would make the process clear when Ctrl+A/D adding to one battlecalculator with multiple of them open, at the same time.
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It would be good if Ctrl+A switches the selected offensive player to the owner of the unit of the zone you are hovering, in case all eligible units belong to the same player (aside from the facts that in v1 you should be able to use allied fighters on your carriers as fodder in attack (not currently supported, as far as I remember), and that property that allows fully using allied fighters on your carriers in attack (that I believe it is a TripleA only invention, currently used by very few games), you can have only one player attacking, so I think it's safe to have it automatically switching to what you are trying to add, if univocal).
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It would also be good if Ctrl+D opens the battlecalculator, but adding only the defenders, if you have no battlecalculators open already.
Other than those, instead of having Ctrl+A, it would be good having Ctrl+*, where * is any number from 1 onwards (no need to go above 9, really), adding all units in the territory with a movement value equal or bigger than that (so, Ctrl+1 would do the same as currently Ctrl+A). If so, then I would make Ctrl+0 as the key for adding defenders (whatever movement, from 0 to infinite), to keep them together.
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@redrum said in Improve Hotkeys:
@beelee Because I wanted to make ctrl+A add attackers to the battle calc.
Ctrl+A has been a major advancement in usability. Makes playing intermediate or bigger maps so much easier!
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@Frostion said in Improve Hotkeys:
@redrum I propose altering CTRL+L to CTRL+I (ctrl+i) for unit help window.
I think that should be removed, as well removing anything like that. I don't think TripleA should have hotkeys for things that you don't need to call often. I suppose nobody is really using that hotkey.
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@Cernel said in Improve Hotkeys:
@redrum said in Improve Hotkeys:
@beelee Because I wanted to make ctrl+A add attackers to the battle calc.
Ctrl+A has been a major advancement in usability. Makes playing intermediate or bigger maps so much easier!
I don't quite understand how it works. If I open battle calc then hit ctrl A it adds another unit but how do you control which units you want to add ? If I put 1 infantry and 1 armor and 1 fighter in, it adds 1 to each. Would you show an example of how to use it please ?
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@beelee It works similar to ctrl+B in that it adds units from the territory you are hovered over. The idea is so you can easily simulate defenses by adding enemy attackers from say adjacent territories.
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@Cernel Unit help is used by anyone playing a new map or trying a "New" to that person map.
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I'm not sure how I missed this thread. I really recommend "The Design of Everyday Things", it's a UX 101 course of its own right and lays out some really great UX principles.
To summarize a bit:
- usability should be discoverable. You should be able to figure out how to use something by looking at it.
That means if you have to just "know" that you can hit ctrl+a to add units, it's not the best UX. Menu items with their hotkeys listed are a good example of ths.
To paraphrase this from another perspective, any hotkey that modifies or interacts with the UI should have a corresponding UI element that is clickable. Hovering over the UI element ideally lists its hotkey, which leads to another UX principle:
- allow new users to discover how to use the UI, provide shortcuts for masters
An example of the above is the copy-paste command, new users will look to the edit menu to find the feature and click it. 'Master' users who use the feature a lot will be able to use it quickly. It's a similar analogy to the labels on keyboards, new users can type via hunt-and-peck, master users are touch-typists and do not look at the keys.
With that said, the "ctrl+a" and "ctrl+d" are missing a UI element of some sort. We could add a button to the battle calc to help discover this feature "add units to calc", where the cursor mode changes to highlight territories and a click then adds those units. The hovertext could explain the hotkey alternative. We could have a right click menu potentially on territories if a battle calc is in the foreground with options "add to defenders" and "add to attackers" with the hotkey listed next to the menu item.
Overall, something to think about as we design and retrofit features.
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@LaFayette There are buttons for ctrl+A and ctrl+D which list the hotkeys...
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Sure enough @redrum ; the principles are the important point. There is more to UX than just the bedrock principles outlined in DOET, but those are fundamental and we should keep them in mind. The below question indicates further usability issues:
I don't quite understand how it works. If I open battle calc then hit ctrl A it adds another unit but how do you control which units you want to add ? If I put 1 infantry and 1 armor and 1 fighter in, it adds 1 to each. Would you show an example of how to use it please ?
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@LaFayette hey I did a quick search and couldn't find what UX means? Also what is DOET?
I'm sure for doet you weren't meaning the African word for vagina hehehe
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