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[Qcrane]

We REALLY need space instead of esc for going back in the menus. Honestly the menus lost all their flow now that I have to reach to the far corners of my keyboard. Yet I STILL have to make the journey back to un pause the game right AFTER I press esc.

What the heck?

[Felblood]

I will agree that having space back as the consistent unpause key would be a major boon.

It seems like I always try the wrong one first, though it's likely only a small percentage of the time, and it just feels like a constant problem.

[zagibu]

I have set LEAVESCREEN to SPACE in interface.txt, because I couldn't handle the ESC key. Unfortunately, when filtering in the job menu, this doesn't allow to filter for "steel greaves", because if you hit space, it will go back a screen.

[Rotten]

There's been like 15 threads on this already, just search. If it bothers you that much, just got to data.init>interface.txt and change [LEAVESCREEN:ESCAPE] to [LEAVESCREEN:SPACE]. This messes up any menu that you need to type space in, which is why it was changed I think.

[paxanadu]

This is because places where typing in text that contains spece should not be considered as a "menu" by DF, it should be considered as a text box of something.

Example:

In windows, a button is not a popup window, and when chaging the name of a gfilename in explorer it is quite clear by the highliting that you are "just inside this small zone here", so the commands are content sensitive.  For example, right-arrow in file explorer meant "go right one column of files (if my view has multiple columns of course", but when I'm editing the name of a file it becomes "go right one character".  There is absolutely nothing wrong nor "unconsistent" with that.  A text entry box is simply NOT a menu.  DUH.

Having to choose BETWEEN spacebar *or* ESc is also a moot point.  That would be the same as microsoft forcing its users to choose between either
hitting F4
*or*
Alt-f+x
*OR*
Alt+arrow keys until exit menu item is highlighted+enter
*OR*
clicking file then exit with their mouse

in order to use windows explorer, but ONLY ONE of these methods.  Multiple intuitive ways to enter data does not necesseraly mean an unconsistent interface.

So I vote for having alternate keys.  "Important" keys (spacebar, escape, arrows, enter) should ALWAYS default to the most intuitive behavior, never be "oh, that is now a dead key because of some setting somewhere, exiting is done through that OTHER key over there". 

[Deimos56]

This is because places where typing in text that contains space should not be considered as a "menu" by DF, it should be considered as a text box of something.

I would very much like this to be the case once again.
...It was the case in the DF2008-9 version, right?

[Hyperturtle]

I didn't even notice a difference.  Seems that "escape" is the logical choice to "escape" a menu...

[Astarch]

Not really, if you were being consistent with the most common program keybinds, esc would quit DF.

Key consistency or how much a keybind "makes sense" isn't what's important in a game like DF though, what's important in DF is efficency, and space is much more efficient than esc, because you need to move you r hand to hit esc, whereas typically you'll have your left thumb resting on space all the time.

[Lord Shonus]

Like I said in the other thread, having the same key for exiting a menu and unpausing is a Very Bad Thing, because now the squad menu, (and others in the future, IIRC) no longer automatically pause the game.

[Felblood]

Like I said in the other thread, having the same key for exiting a menu and unpausing is a Very Bad Thing, because now the squad menu, (and others in the future, IIRC) no longer automatically pause the game.

Wouldn't being able to enter a menu without having to pause the game be a good thing? Time moves slow enough as it is.

[Lord Shonus]

It is. BUt sometimes you want the game paused when you're managing your squads. Sometimes you don't. If you have Space share the functions of "Pause/Unpause" and "Exit Menu" you lose the choice.

[Snoopicus]

I've set it to be Left Shift + Space. This allows me to continue using Space as my default get out of menu key, but retains the ability to type spaces where necessary.

[ManaUser]

There's at least one screen... I think it's the job manager... that doesn't work very well if LEAVESCREEN is Space, because you may want to type in object names with a space in them (e.g. "wooden bin"). But on the plus side, that means you no longer need to use F9 to exit screens like that.

[duckets]

I thought that originally if you needed to type anything it would default space to serving its function in text.  which is why theres was toggles such as f9 to type in the first place, and if i remember correctly the esc key only "backed out" of character entry.  So there was no point to any of this interface change.

[Lord Shonus]

The point was to eliminate the "special case" commands and to allow certain menus to be left open while pausing/unpausing.