[Csantucci]

Enable/disable of control confirmations on display is present in the OR menu options. However it may be desirable to switch on/off such control confirmations also during game time, depending from the game state, from the experience of the player and from the purpose of the game (e.g. recording a video).
This feature is present since February 2nd in the OR NewYear MG version ( http://www.elvastowe...post__p__245094 ).
Blueprint https://blueprints.l...l-confirmations
Trello box https://trello.com/c...ions-on-display .

[scottb613]

Hi Carlo,

And greatly appreciated as well !!!
:)

Regards,
Scott

[cjakeman]

Csantucci, on 05 February 2019 - 08:58 AM, said:

Enable/disable of control confirmations on display is present in the OR menu options. However it may be desirable to switch on/off such control confirmations also during game time, depending from the game state, from the experience of the player and from the purpose of the game (e.g. recording a video).

Good move. Let's do it.

However that's another keypress taken, so it must surely be time to have a re-think about control from the keyboard.

Issues I see:

• There aren't many key combinations left
• Although the organisation started out rationally, there have been lots of extensions that don't fit well.
• The lengthy list is becoming difficult to remember

Any suggestions?

[James Ross]

Csantucci, on 05 February 2019 - 08:58 AM, said:

Enable/disable of control confirmations on display is present in the OR menu options. However it may be desirable to switch on/off such control confirmations also during game time, depending from the game state, from the experience of the player and from the purpose of the game (e.g. recording a video).
This feature is present since February 2nd in the OR NewYear MG version ( http://www.elvastowe...post__p__245094 ).
Blueprint https://blueprints.l...l-confirmations
Trello box https://trello.com/c...ions-on-display .

I'm not sure I can see the justification for this keyboard command. We have an option for it, so what scenarios would necessitate changing this in-game instead of before hand?

cjakeman, on 05 February 2019 - 11:32 AM, said:

However that's another keypress taken, so it must surely be time to have a re-think about control from the keyboard.

Issues I see:

• There aren't many key combinations left
• Although the organisation started out rationally, there have been lots of extensions that don't fit well.
• The lengthy list is becoming difficult to remember

Any suggestions?

We have tried to keep some things under control, e.g. Alt is generally reserved for debug/very rare commands, but the list is indeed long. There are only two things we can realistically do at this point:

• Remove some commands, e.g. vibrations should probably be a setting not a key command
  
• Rearrange them into better groups, but this will need someone to look at the whole list and think hard :)

In the future we may have better UI options, e.g. context-sensitive key commands and popups for them, to give access to nested/chained commands.

[R H Steele]

James Ross, on 06 February 2019 - 01:40 PM, said:

...Remove some commands, e.g. vibrations should probably be a setting not a key command

That's a good idea for vibrations, I wonder how many other key commands good be freed up by moving them to settings?

[Csantucci]

James,
I've seen one recent comment by you about this on Trello. I'm not able to comment on an already opened card in Trello. So I reply here. A reason: in general I prefer to run without control confirmations, because I prefer to have a "clean" picture. However there are specific moments (e.g. during shunting, or in any particular moment) where I need to see exactly and timely what is occurring, and the control confirmations are a useful tool for this. Or I want to perform a video recording (of course without control confirmations), and between one recording chunk and the following one I prefer to have the control confirmations on.

[Genma Saotome]

carlo's point, above, is spot on. As for the key command, is <cntl-H> available as a toggle? H for hide?

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

While I obviously support this - as I think I requested it - I fully concur with Carlo’s reasoning which echos my own...

If keys are in short supply - just some suggestions:

• I think the 30 or so “debugging” commands could be offloaded somewhere ? I’ve actually never used one... If needed for development - possibly maintain a development copy of ORTS that has them ?
  
• Would it be possible to set an auto hide menu bar across top of the screen to give us more options - similar to Flight Sim or most windows applications ?
  
• Configurable joystick controls could move many of the key presses off to other devices...
  
• Ideally - I’d like to see the control confirmations and HUDs moved off to auxiliary devices such as tablets or a second monitor...

Anyway - as always - just my two cents - greatly appreciate all the Team’s efforts...

Regards,
Scott

[James Ross]

Csantucci, on 20 May 2019 - 11:23 PM, said:

I've seen one recent comment by you about this on Trello. I'm not able to comment on an already opened card in Trello. So I reply here. A reason: in general I prefer to run without control confirmations, because I prefer to have a "clean" picture. However there are specific moments (e.g. during shunting, or in any particular moment) where I need to see exactly and timely what is occurring, and the control confirmations are a useful tool for this. Or I want to perform a video recording (of course without control confirmations), and between one recording chunk and the following one I prefer to have the control confirmations on.

Okay, I am starting to see the cases for this here.

In the long term, I think we might be better served by having an options window in-game rather than using up another precious keyboard shortcut.

scottb613, on 21 May 2019 - 11:55 AM, said:

• I think the 30 or so “debugging” commands could be offloaded somewhere ? I’ve actually never used one... If needed for development - possibly maintain a development copy of ORTS that has them ?

Some of them are redundant now, I suspect, like "Lock Shadows".

I have tried to reserve Alt as a modifier for debugging-like commands and I suspect many are still useful in some cases - I've used the weather changing ones (9), speed (3), and clock (2) commands fairly often when playing about.

And some of them are intended for content creator debugging, like "Tracks" and "Signalling" which both overlay data on the game.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on these keys?

scottb613, on 21 May 2019 - 11:55 AM, said:

• Would it be possible to set an auto hide menu bar across top of the screen to give us more options - similar to Flight Sim or most windows applications ?

We're long overdue an in-game UI refresh, but a menu bar is quite complex to create so would likely have to wait for a big update.

scottb613, on 21 May 2019 - 11:55 AM, said:

• Ideally - I’d like to see the control confirmations and HUDs moved off to auxiliary devices such as tablets or a second monitor...

We have a planned item for this.