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Author Topic: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar  (Read 986 times)

Adam Mantine

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Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« on: May 11, 2016, 03:02:00 pm »

As the interface is now pressing tab during fortress mode shows or hides the minimap and hotkey list. I would like to suggest a slight addition to this functionality.

Pressing tab once would replace the minimap with the loo(k) screen information for whatever square the cursor is on, which would be displayed to the right of whatever menu or readout is currently actually active (the way the minimap usually is when it's on), pressing tab again would replace this with the i(t)ems in buildings readout, and pressing it a third time would expand the key list as currently happens with a single press of the tab key.

(I would suggest also adding the (v)iew creatures readout to the cycle, but that has too many sub-views to be useful without its controls active)
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Dozebôm Lolumzalìs

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2016, 10:48:51 pm »

If by "cursor" you mean mouse cursor:

You do realize that cursor support for this game is incredibly minimal, yes?

Since DFHack adds most of the cursor functionality in the PyLNP, I'd try asking the DFHack folks if they could do something similar.

If you mean "yellow x," I think you're looking for a way to see both k-look and t-look through the same key? Perhaps useful, but the tabtoggles are already annoying. Better not add anything else to the rotation.
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Adam Mantine

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2016, 02:32:20 pm »

I meant the yellow "X".

And it wouldn't be "k-look and t-look through the same key" as much as it would be "k-look (or t-look) and whatever else you happen to be doing at the time"
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DG

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2016, 06:21:05 am »

This would be great if you could use the follow command on a certain creature you want to keep an eye on in the sidebar while you go about playing normally in the main window. But I don't know if that would go against what seems to be the philosophy of DF difficulty, the game purposefully not telling you about certain things so that they have a chance to go wrong. It's also not far from a DF split screen option now that I think about.
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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #4 on: May 13, 2016, 12:03:27 pm »

Sounds good. So have I got this correct?

You press b to build a bed. The sidebar shows a rock underneath the cursor where you were about to build.

Is this how your suggestion would work if implemented?
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Quote from: King James Programming
...Simplification leaves us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes...
Quote from: Salvané Descocrates
The only difference between me and a fool is that I know that I know only that I think, therefore I am.
Sigtext!

Adam Mantine

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #5 on: May 13, 2016, 09:56:11 pm »

Sounds good. So have I got this correct?

You press b to build a bed. The sidebar shows a rock underneath the cursor where you were about to build.

Is this how your suggestion would work if implemented?

Exactly
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2016, 09:20:12 am »

But I don't know if that would go against what seems to be the philosophy of DF difficulty, the game purposefully not telling you about certain things so that they have a chance to go wrong. It's also not far from a DF split screen option now that I think about.

I'm not sure if having a bad interface that doesn't give players critical information unless they explicitly go out to look for it, even if it takes going so far as memory hacking to find some of it, is a deliberate design philosophy so much as the game's massive crippling shortcoming preventing it from being the blockbuster success it by all rights should be.
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Adam Mantine

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2016, 02:56:28 pm »

But I don't know if that would go against what seems to be the philosophy of DF difficulty, the game purposefully not telling you about certain things so that they have a chance to go wrong. It's also not far from a DF split screen option now that I think about.

I'm not sure if having a bad interface that doesn't give players critical information unless they explicitly go out to look for it, even if it takes going so far as memory hacking to find some of it, is a deliberate design philosophy so much as the game's massive crippling shortcoming preventing it from being the blockbuster success it by all rights should be.

Well that and the lack of graphics. But the interface is fixable, whereas the graphics thing isn't, since the game uses a prohibitive amount of memory even as it is and more advanced graphics would also hinder modding.
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Bumber

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2016, 05:00:12 pm »

Well that and the lack of graphics. But the interface is fixable, whereas the graphics thing isn't, since the game uses a prohibitive amount of memory even as it is and more advanced graphics would also hinder modding.
Graphics aren't an issue. There are tilesets and DFHack has TWBT (until Toady gets around to properly separating things.)
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Adam Mantine

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2016, 10:42:43 pm »

Well that and the lack of graphics. But the interface is fixable, whereas the graphics thing isn't, since the game uses a prohibitive amount of memory even as it is and more advanced graphics would also hinder modding.
Graphics aren't an issue. There are tilesets and DFHack has TWBT (until Toady gets around to properly separating things.)

The graphical tilesets aren't so good; too many things are used for multiple things.

On a tangential note, we actually could probably stand to have some larger tilesets and color pallets. Maybe 1024 glyphs and 32 colors foreground and background. That would be less than a byte extra per tile (though even that might have the potential to be troublesome).
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Bumber

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Re: Constant Observation (look/contained items) Sidebar
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2016, 01:02:03 am »

Well that and the lack of graphics. But the interface is fixable, whereas the graphics thing isn't, since the game uses a prohibitive amount of memory even as it is and more advanced graphics would also hinder modding.
Graphics aren't an issue. There are tilesets and DFHack has TWBT (until Toady gets around to properly separating things.)
The graphical tilesets aren't so good; too many things are used for multiple things.
That's what TWBT changes. You can customize everything down to individual workshop tiles. It's fixable.
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Reading his name would trigger it. Thinking of him would trigger it. No other circumstances would trigger it- it was strictly related to the concept of Bill Clinton entering the conscious mind.

THE xTROLL FUR SOCKx RUSE WAS A........... DISTACTION        the carp HAVE the wagon

A wizard has turned you into a wagon. This was inevitable (Y/y)?