[CF-Devel] client issues

[Preston Crow]

I've noticed several client issues:

There's a problem with squares with many items.  It's not as bad as it used
to be (the corrupted item list is a thing of the past), but there is still
a problem.  If you have a very large pile of items, it will cause the
client to disconnect.  Since it saves you on the same square, you can't
play that character again until the map resets.  I'm not sure what the
threshold is.  I also found that I was able to move to a square with a
bunch of unidentified items, and it didn't start disconnecting me until I
hit my macro key for all my identification skills (it disconnected when it
got to smithery, and most of the items were weapons).

If you are carrying two identical items, but only one is identified, and
you then identify the other item (using a skill, and possibly using a
spell--I haven't tested that), then the items merge.  This is to be
expected.  Unfortunately, the client leaves one of the old items in the
inventory.  There is no way to get rid of this phantom item, other than to
reset via a bed to reality.

The 'apply' command has options to specify unapplying or applying, which is
useful for keyboard macros.  For example, I've found that in order to use a
rod or horn, I have to:
	apply -u [item];apply -a [item];fire;fire_stop
It would be nice if there were a command that would use a rod once without
altering your range skill.  Something like "fire horn of plenty" might do
the trick--the idea is the equivalent of 'invoke' for things other than
spells.

There seems to be no way to control the behaviour of 'apply' on a
container.  It seems to ignore the flags.  Also, there are times when it
uses the wrong item.  For example "apply key ring" will ignore the ring and
try to apply a key if you have one.  I was trying to write a macro to open
my key ring, pull out a few keys, and then close it; if you can get that to
work, let me know.

There seems to be no way with the GTK client to close a container other
than to click on the close button.  It would be nice if there were a
keyboard-based method.

There are several client commands that aren't documented.  Technically this
is a server issue.  Someone should take a few minutes and compare with
output of 'help commands' with the list of commands in the source.  Then
help text should be added for any command that doesn't have it.  This is
boring, but really necessary for the 1.0 release.

--PC