Keyboard shortcuts?

Development/Design
61

Odd, as I never got that working either.

Looking at the source, it’s clear that SDL_TEXTINPUT events are disabled by default

Of course, that means they can be enabled by

SDL_EventState(SDL_TEXTINPUT, SDL_ENABLE);

which is what SDL_StartTextInput is doing, amongst other things. So perhaps that’s all there is to it.

Incidentally, if you run any of the SDL test programs, such as testdraw2 with

./testdraw2 --info event --log input

and start typing, it will merrily log SDL_TEXTINPUT events with the expected unicode of combined key presses, such as ALT+Q to get @ on my keyboard.

INFO: SDL EVENT: Keyboard: key pressed in window 2: scancode 0x000000E6 = Right Alt, keycode 0x400000E6 = Right Alt
INFO: SDL EVENT: Keyboard: key pressed in window 2: scancode 0x00000014 = Q, keycode 0x00000071 = Q
INFO: SDL EVENT: Keyboard: text input “@” in window 2
INFO: SDL EVENT: Keyboard: key released in window 2: scancode 0x00000014 = Q, keycode 0x00000071 = Q
INFO: SDL EVENT: Keyboard: key released in window 2: scancode 0x000000E6 = Right Alt, keycode 0x400000E6 = Right Alt

Looking further, it seems that SDL_StartTextInput is called during SDL_VideoInit on platforms that do not show onscreen keyboards by default:

Which would explain why it works in the test program (but not why it never worked for me :slight_smile:)

62

Ah, interesting. On my system SDL_TEXTINPUT worked out of the box – maybe because I used SDL_VideoInit(). :slight_smile:

But it’s working if you enable it explicitly with SDL_StartTextInput()?

63

It does. But mind you, the program in question was ported from SDL1.2 to SDL2 in a sloppy way, so it may have not worked initially for any number of reasons. I’d have to actually go in and put a check for the result of SDL_IsTextInputActive right near the start. From all I know now, it should return true.

1 Like
64

Ctrl-Alt-X to skip those hard ‘verify your age’ questions!

65

In Larry? Those are the worst, not only because they are very culture specific (ie only for americans) but also because they are terribly outdated! More like verify your generation and cultural backround! Let alone discriminatory towards supercenterians!

66

What about a QWERTY or QWERTZ keyboard option, so the actual ‘give’ shortcut is located next to the X and C keys as intended on a QWERTZ keyboard (instead of the Z key next to T and U).

Character selection is possible with the 1-5 keys above the letter keys.

CTRL + M or just the M, Enter or Space key (with a quick hint for it after starting chapter 3) to open the map would be really nice, it’s like the telephone… if you decide to use the quick ‘map zip’ frequently, a shortcut for it comes very handy.

An additional future feature could be an external floor map for the hotel (by using a shortcut key with a hint given in or after Franklins flashback “you can now use the H key…”), because waiting time for and in the elevator becomes tedious after numerous times. Some may wonder how much time you wait for the elevator in your normal playthrough.
You can still decide to use the elevator like normal or just zip to each floor like you can do with the normal map.

I second this, too.

67

There are (too) many other keyboard layouts out there. For example AZERTY: AZERTY - Wikipedia

You would have to support all of these layouts and that’s too much work.

I agree with you. But I fear that your suggestion of a map would cause a lot of additional work for the developers.

68

I didn’t had the impression it was that a lot. It mainly stands out when you want to get multiple characters somewhere, e.g. into the penthouse which was the one floor with the longest travel time.

Maybe it’s because of my daily usage of elevator technology that I’m used to wait for them :slight_smile:

Those three mentioned were the ones I knew. There is a list of QWERTY-based ones on Wikipedia. It’s actually not that many as it seems.

The good thing is that on desktop systems you can always change those bindings yourself, but still the default should make sense for most normal users. And non-desktop systems don’t have keyboards by default.

Hm, I wonder if TWP works with the XBox keyboards too like this one:

2 Likes
69

My reaction when looking at this thing:

70

At least it allows quick selection of every verb! Without blowing up.

71

No thanks, I still have enough issues typing using the keyboard on my phone. So this is a real thing and not a mockup then?

Edit: I´ve just checked and saw there is even things like that for playstation. I mean I get why they exist but…no, just no!

72

They were created so we can play Maniac Mansion on XBox efficiently!

1 Like
73

What an abomination. Ugliest thing on the planet. :grimacing:

1 Like
74

Don’t forget the corresponding Apple keyboards. They use the QWERTY layouts but change some keys. For example the @ is on a german Apple keyboard not on Q but on the L.

Then there are different “sub layouts”. For example you can choose between a “dead key” and a “non dead key” variant. Everyone who ever installed Linux knows the loooong list of possible keyboard layouts (here a german example):

d4bffcb3ef215d2c.png1035×706 77.6 KB

Most games just simply use the latin keys (a,b,c,1,2,3…) with an english layout, but allowing the player to re-map the keys in the options.

75

Which would be sufficient for TWP too, it’s mostly about the verb mappings to make sense.

76

Yes, but Ron said already that he needs the “@” or at least shift-a:

And allowing the player to re-map the keys needs additional work.

77

I’m not sure why he actually needs this. Maybe it was because of the numpad thing, e.g. mapping “1” independently from which actual key it comes from.
But verbs are (currently) mapped by key location, not the actual letter, and numeric keys are normally at the same position (above the letters + numpad).
In a game you want those mappings to work no matter if shift or capslock are active.

Do you mean via UI? I don’t think this will ever be added.

78

It was just an example about the complexities of key mapping. I don’t need to @.

79

Leave it in, please! People enter their phone numbers using the numpad all the time without thinking twice that it is actually upside down. If you were to enter a pin code, then muscle memory would get in the way, yes. Perhaps that was one of the reasons to invert it? That and because pocket calculators.

80

A shortkey to use the phone could come in handy if you want to check out a lot of phone messages.

double-clicking a destination on the county map and then clicking the return button could put the actor at the destination, rather than at the start. I had this a few times when walking between the mansion and the bridge, which still is a long walk

Probably too complex to implement, but a follow-me option would be nice. I spend a lot of time walking everyone one by one to the audience of the Ransome look-alike contest hoping to trigger some responses or new dialogue options, but they all just left.

An index of the library sections. Now they are only numbered on mouse over, while they had some named categories at the time of the blog. Perhaps LOOK AT the tron machine could show a closeup with all categories next to each section number? It would allow for a more real-life and alternate solution to locating certain books by USE tron-o-tron