Topic: CAPS LOCK indicator  (Read 3308 times)


Brygun

« on: May 22, 2023, 04:51:25 PM »
With "q" for Quaff for drinking being a regular thing the pop up of "do you wish to die" is a bit alarming.. which comes from capital Q aka shift-Q. This happens if caps lock got pressed.

Small thing. Could you add a display in the game screen whether caps lock is on?


JP_Finn

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« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2023, 04:48:28 AM »
Depending your operating system; most of them already have option for audible, and/or visual, notification for Caps status.
Adding it in-game seems, redundant, and not best use of programming time spent.

Maybe the suggestion would be better featured as: "ignore the CapsLock status from the Operating System"
But that runs a possibility of ruining the gameplay for someone who needs to utilize the CapsLock to use any uppercase functions.
Best case, with unlimited programming time: make that an option to toggle in .ini or in-game options.

ineedcords

« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2023, 12:53:28 AM »
With "q" for Quaff for drinking being a regular thing the pop up of "do you wish to die" is a bit alarming.. which comes from capital Q aka shift-Q. This happens if caps lock got pressed. Small thing. Could you add a display in the game screen whether caps lock is on?
Sometimes, this annoys me too! I acknowledge it is a minor problem but would be good to get rid of it.

Having said that, this particular suggestion would solve the problem for very little percentage of people, is my guess because he who makes this mistake in the heat of gaming may also ignore the on-screen CAPS LOCK key status indicator.

Depending your operating system; most of them already have option for audible, and/or visual, notification for Caps status.
Adding it in-game seems, redundant, and not best use of programming time spent.

Maybe the suggestion would be better featured as: "ignore the CapsLock status from the Operating System"
But that runs a possibility of ruining the gameplay for someone who needs to utilize the CapsLock to use any uppercase functions.
Best case, with unlimited programming time: make that an option to toggle in .ini or in-game options.
As a general principle, it is a bad idea to override the O/S functionality in the application when it is not absolutely necessary or hugely beneficial.
Overrides lead to unexpected behaviour for the users who are familiar with the O/S but not yet with the application's particular behaviour.
Some of these overriding actions, such as capturing and sinking O/S-level multi-keystroke functionality in the application, is a source of some strange bugs too.
In this case, I do not think we 'need' to do this and thus would be prudent not to get into it.

In addition to the indicators you mentioned, some physical keyboards also have a light/led indicating the status of the key but as I touched above, someone gaming (and probably punching keys fast) would probably not take the time to check a physical or in-game/virtual led status either.

I think a more natural solution is addressing the root cause by removing the double-bound status from the physical Q key.

In terms of approaching this suggestion, simply because drink/quaff (q) is more frequently used, it makes sense to leave it where it currently is i.e.: very close to the left-hand-parking-row for a QWERTY keyboard for the English language in which the game interface is coded in.
In addition, Q is very close to the WASD location most PC gamers are very used to.
Another benefit is that in the pseudo-default state of the keyboard (with CAPS LOCK in the OFF state) it requires single key press.

Probably the change should come by changing the binding of the QUIT command, ideally by changing it to something hard to hit by mistake.

What that hard-to-hit-by-mistake key combination should be is open to discussion and testing.
My initial suggestion ideas are:
CTRL+O
CTRL+X
CTRL+F10
This could be a good day to utilize your squirrels hides.

Brygun

« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2023, 02:21:46 AM »
Simple is best

A simple screen display for capslock would a be a nice non-critical feature

an ignore capslock isnt desired.

When Im playing im often also writing like for Calle and other long stories. Started with needing to journal when smoked and dreid meats were ready. Some keyboards can be prone to bumping or in the excitement of a battle.

My keyboard is lighted and of course has a capslock light. My game setup though is a 28" (?) monitor so I have a lot of visual real estate and the tiny keyboard lights dont register much.

Its just a simple request for a simple feature to have an on screen "capslock".