Crossfire Forum

1: Reduce the inventoryfilters and give room for other info instead.
2: Make buttons for different commands or place them in menu.
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Explanation of the above....

1: The nine(9) different inventory filters are to no ones gain. At least reduce them to what you wear, what you carry and one for spells/rods/staffs.
This leaves some space for characterinfo such as how many skills the characters have and what type. This area can contain many more optional info. I'll be back with more expamles on this, but a reduction of the many filters is necessary...

2: After playing some time now I find it timeconsuming to do all available commands. usually you either have to write them down manually or do some keybindings. The keybindings technique is way outdated or at least a complement to graphic buttons. As the client interface mostly is based in graphics the different commands ought to be in small buttons or at least reachable from the menu.

.Just my thoughts. /SuMo.

SuMo wrote:1: Reduce the inventoryfilters and give room for other info instead.

Better idea: Make them customisable. When I fight a certain monster I would want to have everything I need with one click without scrolling. So put everything into one filter and you got it.

SuMo wrote:1: Reduce the inventoryfilters and give room for other info instead.

I mostly agree with that - I never used those.

2: After playing some time now I find it timeconsuming to do all available commands. usually you either have to write them down manually or do some keybindings. The keybindings technique is way outdated or at least a complement to graphic buttons.

Well, I quite prefer playing games like crossfire using the keyboard than the mouse, so I tend to find keybindings quite good. It is way faster to hit the 'invoke heal' key than to move your mouse cursor to the matching button. Also note that buttons do take some space, too.

As the client interface mostly is based in graphics the different commands ought to be in small buttons or at least reachable from the menu.

True - but not easy for all commands. Some of them require parameters - for example, 'cast' needs the name of the spell. Besides that, some commands are 'fast action' ones; you need them to be quickly available. Such commands would require some kind of a 'command belt' button list. The problem is of course where to actually put those buttons, given the limited amount of space available. Another problem would be making a graphical representation of each action. But technically speaking, nothing prevents such buttons to exist.

Lauwenmark wrote: True - but not easy for all commands. Some of them require parameters - for example, 'cast' needs the name of the spell. Besides that, some commands are 'fast action' ones; you need them to be quickly available. Such commands would require some kind of a 'command belt' button list. The problem is of course where to actually put those buttons, given the limited amount of space available. Another problem would be making a graphical representation of each action. But technically speaking, nothing prevents such buttons to exist.

Commands requiring parameters could probably be handled with "dynamic menus", the client expends them with info from the server. Under the "Invoke spell"/"Ready spell" menus there could be a list of all spells you know (maybe automaticly divided into submenus when you have learned > 30 spells). Same with "Ready skill" and "Use skill" menus. This would make it easier for newbies. By using hotkeys (or whatever it is called), one could perhaps navigate the menu system fast and easy with the keyboard, so one wouldn't have to write "ready_skill levitation".

It would also be nice if one could manage the keybindings graphically, by reusing those dynamic menus instead of having to enter the crossfire commands.

I think it'd be pretty nasty if you could for example pop up spell list by hitting "c" and then choose a spell by hitting another key..

Yeah. But one could use AltGr + s, f (for fire spells) and then l (large fireball perhaps?) or some other user defined key combo. On windows I belive they usualy write alt + some character from the menu names to bring up the menus (or just alt and cursor keys to find the right menu entry).