[crossfire] skill window

[Mark Wedel]

On 04/14/10 12:10 PM, Brendan Lally wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> As part of an overall aim to make the cf client a little more
> user-friendly, I have created a patch to add a skill window to the
> client.
>
> This may be found here:
>
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2987308&group_id=13833&atid=313833

  Looks good.

>
> The aim is to enable access to all of the skills that a player has
> without needing to type anything. (I would expect that sooner or later,
> a player will want to bind use_skill praying to trigger a dozen times
> per press of a hotkey rather than clicking repeatedly, but if that is
> something that the player only needs to think about after playing the
> game for a couple of weeks rather than on the first day, then I'd
> consider that a win)

  One could make a compelling case that it shouldn't be necessary for the player 
to hit the same skill 50 times, but that is a more significant change (although 
one way could do it is some setting which basically has character doing the same 
activity under another command is entered, eg, character keeps playing until 
player hits some other command like north).

>
> There are a few things I'd like to add at some future point* but for
> now this is complete.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1) Can the skills and experience pane now disappear?

  Yes, I think so.

> 2) If it goes, should character, protections and core statistics move
> into the same pane? (so one pane with 3 tabs rather than 2 with 2 each)

  This seems to be a layout specific issue - so there isn't a simple answer. For 
example, right now the gtk-v2 layout has a stat area (where the hp, sp, etc, 
bars are) and another area which right now has 3 panes - core stats, skills & 
exp, protections.

  I don't think there is any clear/best answer here.  If you have a large/wide 
window, have 2 pane areas half the width may be more useful than one pane that 
is the entire width but of of which most is just blank.

> 3) Is there time for either or both of 1 and 2 to occur before the
> release of 1.50? (and when is that taking place?)

  I don't have a firm date on when the release for 1.50 will take place, but I'm 
thinking sometime soon.

  Given this is purely a client change, the change is pretty low risk.  However, 
one thing that makes it a little harder is that all the layouts (of which I 
guess there are about a dozen now) should get updated.


>
>
> *The following are things I would like to add probably during the
> next release cycle or the one after:
>
> Columns showing the keyboard shortcuts for the skills (ie looking for
> shortcuts for use_skill or ready_skill) - not sure whether those should
> be settable there, since that treads on the task of the Keybindings
> window a little

  IMO, settable there would be good.   Likewise, letting the player do spell 
binding in the spell window might be handy.

  My thought on this is that right now, the keybinding window is a bit archaic - 
you basically need to know the syntax of the command you are going to bind - 
hardly a simple/beginner thing.  But for skills and spells, the client knows 
what the command is, so can provide a nicer interface, something like the player 
selects the skill, then hits a 'bind key to skill button', and it pops up a 
window or something and says 'press key you want to use to have this skill used 
when you activate it', and all the player has to do is hit a key and maybe 
something like a confirm button (or maybe a bind to ready or a bind to use type 
thing).

  That's much better than having players have to know that they need to do a 
'user_skill praying' syntax in the bind window.

>
> icons for all of the skills (implemented by sending a face number along
> with the reply_info skill_info response)

  Yes - that would be nice.  I'm not 100% sure if there are currently suitable 
faces for all of the skills however.

>
> The 'character' pane on the client to show the icon for the skill
> rather than the name, and clicking on the icon to trigger the callback
> for the skill window in the same way that the menu entry does.

  I'm not sure if I'd want the window to pop up, or just clicking it causes it 
to do the skill - I think the later may be more useful in most cases.