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Aislinn

Client Cursor Behavior Changes Request

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Quickbar:
Cursor selection (pickup-hand, eye, pointy-finger use, fist use-with) within quickbar should remain independent of everything else and not change if you do something in HUD or inventory bag window.

 

Inventory bag window:
Same thing: cursor selection should be independent and always stick until manually changed within inventory window.

 

HUD:
1. A way to make the selected HUD icon selection stick through other actions going on.  Example: I choose sword cursor,  attack creature,  cast restore, and the sword icon deactivates and it goes back to walk/eye icon.  Ideally this would stay on sword.

 

2.  Eye cursor removed as default when mouse hovers over people, even when walk or sword is selected.

 

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I may have misunderstood but, while the current behaviour is a little complicated, it does appear to work like you describe you want it too.

  • For cursor changes done though right-mouse clicks:
    • The inventory and ground bad windows share their cursor state where they can (not all states are available in the ground bag).
    • The quick-bar window has a separate state from the inventory/ground bag windows.
    • In the game window, right clicking changes states depending on what you are over but maintains independence from other windows.
  • Clicking an icon in the icon window does something different:
    • If the setting is usable by one of the windows, it overwrites the right-click set value.
    • If the setting is not usable, the previously set value is maintained.

This is all based on observing the behaviour of the the client, not looking at the code.

Edited by bluap

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Ehhh but it's not working like I want it to or described or I wouldn't have posted. :wacko:

 

Something overrides quickbar constantly.  If I right-click scroll through the options and choose pointy finger to use in quickbar, that should stay forever in the quickbar no matter what else I do elsewhere: but it doesn't!  It keeps going back to a default of the down pointing hand (pick up?) after I do things like work with inventory bag, cast a spell, attack something, etc.  My choice does not stick.

 

Same with inventory bag.  Other actions outside of that window override it.  If it's the ground bag doing it, meh.  Why would the inventory and ground bags share status?  Say in an invasion, I want the use finger to stick in the inventory bag, but I want to grab stuff from the ground bag.  Two different needs for two different bags.

 

Same with the HUD icons at the bottom. Other actions override my selection. And the salt in the wound is that blasted eye icon popping up unwanted.

 

"If the setting is usable by one of the windows, it overwrites the right-click set value. "

Too much unwanted overwriting is happening.  When fighting, time is of the essence and choices should stick and not have to scroll through all the options every time because stuff got overwritten.

 

"If the setting is not usable, the previously set value is maintained. "

No, it goes to the walk/eye which seems to be the default.  (That eye needs to go anyway from the walk/eye combination.  It's always in the way.) 

 

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Hmm I don't understand how we have different experiences.  The only time I see the cursor choice in the quick-bar overridden is when I select the action from the icon window.  Looking at the code, there are three separate cursor mode variables for items/ground bag, quick bar and game window.  They all get set when you click and icon window, otherwise they are independent and not touched outside their code modules.  It would be easy to add a separate cursor mode variable for the ground bag to give that independence from the items window.  Currently clicking an action icon in the icon window sets all the separate cursor mode variables to the same value if possible.  By possible for example, attack is not possible for the quick-bar windows but if that icon is clicked, the quick-bar mode is set to the pick-up cursor).  Generally, what else could clicking an icon in that window do?  For me, the only weird thing is if you right an empty slot, it changes the cursor but you don't see the change until you are over a used slot; we should probably do something about that.

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"Currently clicking an action icon in the icon window sets all the separate cursor mode variables to the same value if possible."

This is the main problem, I think, for the quickbar.

 

"...for example, attack is not possible for the quick-bar windows but if that icon is clicked, the quick-bar mode is set to the pick-up cursor)."

I don't think this should happen at all.

 

I'm still not seeing the icon window working as you describe.  A specific problem I have is casting a spell undoes the sword icon and puts it back to walk/eye, which is frustrating - and yet trade icon seems to stick too long lol.  Yes I know we have the alt key for attack but it seems we should fix the problem rather than having to use yet another key stroke.

 

Is it possible to:

1. Remove the ability of the cursor window to affect the quickbar at any point?

2. Add separate variable for the ground bag and detach it from inventory window? (already answered, yes please!)

3. Remove the walk/eye combo as default on the icon window?  Or possibly change it to walk/sword (or walk/harv if over a harvestable) if we can't have walk without a secondary cursor for when the mouse passes over things?  If our cursor goes over a mob or person, we want to attack it 99% of the time. If our cursor goes over a harvestable, we want to harv it 99% of the time.  The eye has its uses but it should require manual intervention to trigger it.

 

Another issue I've run into with the quickbar is that sometimes I click on an item thinking it's the use cursor and it changed on me, and it's the pick-up cursor.  When I try to put the item back into the quickbar slot, the item sticks and I can't undo it, or do anything, until I drag the item over to my inventory window and right click it into a slot.

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I always wondered by my quickbar action was being changed. It really bothered me because more than once I've been in a sticky situation and found myself unexpectedly unable to use an item in the quickbar. My intuition always associated the icon window buttons with actions on objects around the map and not on items in the inventory/bag windows or the quickbar.

 

My preferences:

  • Don't change the quickbar icon when changing actions in the icon window.
  • Now that I understand how this works, I'm for leaving the inventory window as-is but having a different variable for ground bags is a good idea.

 

On 8/22/2020 at 11:42 AM, Aislinn said:

HUD:
1. A way to make the selected HUD icon selection stick through other actions going on.  Example: I choose sword cursor,  attack creature,  cast restore, and the sword icon deactivates and it goes back to walk/eye icon.  Ideally this would stay on sword.

 

2.  Eye cursor removed as default when mouse hovers over people, even when walk or sword is selected.

 

 

1. Yes, casting spells (through quick-spells, keyboard shortcut, and magic window) changes the action icon which I think shouldn't happen.

 

22 hours ago, Aislinn said:

3. Remove the walk/eye combo as default on the icon window?  Or possibly change it to walk/sword (or walk/harv if over a harvestable) if we can't have walk without a secondary cursor for when the mouse passes over things?  If our cursor goes over a mob or person, we want to attack it 99% of the time. If our cursor goes over a harvestable, we want to harv it 99% of the time.  The eye has its uses but it should require manual intervention to trigger it.

 

 

Walk/eye is the default but my icon always changes when I hover over mobs and harvestables. When sword is selected and the mouse hovers over a player, it stays as sword so I'm not quite understanding Aislinn's concern. Same with harvestables. When I hover over them, my cursor changes to harvest when I'm in either walk or sword mode.

 

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The change of cursor after clicking a spell is can probably be changed.  Currently, it changes only the game window cursor and it does this mostly to prepare for a spell that needs target.  However, the code can potential be redone so that the cursor is only changed when needed, and goes back to its previous state after a target click second action.

 

The independent cursor for the ground bag should be easily done.

 

Perhaps we can have an option for the icon window buttons to only change the game window cursor.....

Edited by bluap

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17 hours ago, Nogrod said:

Walk/eye is the default but my icon always changes when I hover over mobs and harvestables. When sword is selected and the mouse hovers over a player, it stays as sword so I'm not quite understanding Aislinn's concern. Same with harvestables. When I hover over them, my cursor changes to harvest when I'm in either walk or sword mode.

 

 

Yes when you first click but if you do anything else (tinker with inventory window, use quickbar, harvest, etc), the sword goes away and the walk/eye returns as "default".  Very annoying.

 

Some HUD cursor icons stay activated no matter what you do until you manually intentionally deactivate them but others don't.  What needs to be done to make them all behave the same way?  I'm clearly not doing very well explaining the problem lol but I guess the easiest example of this that most people have experienced is needing to use the alt key to keep the sword active.  Why?

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OK.  I agree there are some inconsistencies and I'm happy to fix them. First, the quick-bar is a simple example to talk about as its already almost fine IMHO.  It is already the case that the only external change that can effect the quick-bar mode, is by clicking an action mode in the icon window.  I think it is consistent, that if you click the LOOK, USE or USE-WITH icons, the quick-bar mode changes.  I do not think it is consistent that currently, clicking WALK, TRADE, or ATTACK that the quick-bar mode changes to the PICK-UP cursor.  Also, the only change in the quick-bar window that can effect the action mode in another window, is to pick up an item with the USE-WITH cursor.  This is necessary for the USE_WITH function.  I can apply a similar approach to the other windows.

 

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Not that these won't be good changes, but can you put a toggle button to go from current behavior to new behavior somewhere in the options menu?

I don't mind the current weirdness with the cursor icons, and I don't mind trying new options, but I don't really see the current quirkiness as brokenness.

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15 minutes ago, Diealot said:

Not that these won't be good changes, but can you put a toggle button to go from current behavior to new behavior somewhere in the options menu?

I don't mind the current weirdness with the cursor icons, and I don't mind trying new options, but I don't really see the current quirkiness as brokenness.

I was not planning on making any large scale changes but would would put an option in place before doing that as suggested above.  There are several places where I do not thing the mode should change in the way it does, casting spells for example (targeted spells are slightly more complex case).  The code generally tries to keep the modes in the different windows separate so I'll check the cases where it does not and clean it up.  It would be complex and error prone to make every minor change optional so I'm not going to do that but will revert stuff if needed.

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2 hours ago, bluap said:

OK.  I agree there are some inconsistencies and I'm happy to fix them. First, the quick-bar is a simple example to talk about as its already almost fine IMHO.  It is already the case that the only external change that can effect the quick-bar mode, is by clicking an action mode in the icon window.  I think it is consistent, that if you click the LOOK, USE or USE-WITH icons, the quick-bar mode changes.  I do not think it is consistent that currently, clicking WALK, TRADE, or ATTACK that the quick-bar mode changes to the PICK-UP cursor.  Also, the only change in the quick-bar window that can effect the action mode in another window, is to pick up an item with the USE-WITH cursor.  This is necessary for the USE_WITH function.  I can apply a similar approach to the other windows.

 

 

" I think it is consistent, that if you click the LOOK, USE or USE-WITH icons, the quick-bar mode changes."

I would like an option that negates this.  My idea was that nothing should interfere with quickbar.  That's the whole point of it being "quick".  I truly don't see a point in removing some things that change it but not all.

 

Can anything be done about this?  "I guess the easiest example of this that most people have experienced is needing to use the alt key to keep the sword active.  Why?"

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I've done some minimal changes that should address this request.  Here's the change comment:

Issue #86: Fix inconsistencies with window action modes.

Previously:
The quick-bar window, inventory window and game root window had separate
action  modes.  The ground bag shared the inventory window mode, the
trade window and manufacture window shared the game root window.
Casting a spell would reset the game root window mode to ACTION_WALK,
whether or not a change to ACTION_WAND was needed or the spell failed.
All three mode settings were changed when a action icon was clicked in
the icon window or one of the action keys pressed.  For some actions the
selected modes were not valid for the quick-bar or inventory windows, so
they reset the window modes to the default.

The changes:
  The quick-bar window, inventory window and game root window still
have separate modes but there are options to prevent an action icon or
keypress from changing the quick-bar or inventory window modes; these
options make the windows totally independent.  Even if the option is not
set, only usable modes will now change the quick-bar or inventory window
settings.
  Casting a spell only changes the game window action mode if a target
is needed for the spell (requiring the wand cursor).  Other spells, or
a failed spell do not change the action mode.
  The ground bag in addition to the manufacture and trade windows, now
share the game root window action mode.  They now all behave the same in
that a right click will show the item description.  If the EYE action is
active, the EYE cursor is displayed.  Right-clicking will cancel any
dragged items, or cancel any active eye action mode.  This is a minor
change to the ground bag window and a bug fix for the trade window (it
did not previously show the EYE cursor).  The manufacturing window
behaviours as it did previously. The only time the game root window
action is changed by these windows is when they cancel an active EYE
mode.

Overall, this should see more consistent behaviour of action modes, and
unnecessary changes to the game root window are removed.  The quick-bar
and inventory windows can be total independent by choice.

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Super!  I compiled this and am testing it.  I checked both boxes in options for independent action modes.

 

A couple things I notice right off:

 

1. Nothing has yet upset my chosen setting in quickbar. Yay!  Cycling through cursors works wonderfully.

 

2.  Ground bag isn't letting me cycle through cursor options (pick-up, eye, use, etc) with right-click, just the pick-up cursor.  Is this what you intentionally did?  Also, in the ground bag, when I hover the cursor over items in it, only some items show text as to what it is under the window.  For example, a titanium chain mail, steel  greave, and titanium plate mail show nothing, while a fur cloak and lilacs are identified.

 

3. Sword cursor versus spells.  I understand from your description above what happened the old way and how you set it up this new way.  If I click sword icon, cast magic immunity, no problem. Sword icon stays active.  This is wanted behavior. However, if I cast mana drain that needs a target, the icon window forces walk icon to be the default after that sequence, even though I had chosen sword originally.  Can this be changed to go from sword to wand to sword instead of sword to wand to walk?  We're still in combat so the sword should be the icon returned to, not walk.

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1. Great!

2. The non-right-click cycling of the ground bag is intentional, it only offered the PICKUP or EYE cursors previously.  It is no longer needed as right click does the look function.  It also makes it the same functionally as the trade and manufacturing windows.  The missing hover descriptions was already the case.  The ground bag does not contain the unique item ID so the the function cannot distinguish some items.  Nothing I can do about that.

3. Darn, that's what I intended to do but I forgot to make that change. I've set things up to make easier just didn't add the final bit of code.  I'll do that next.

 

Edit: I've added restoring the previous mode after a spell cast.  If you change the mode before completing the spell, then the old mode is not restored.

Edited by bluap

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Okay. As best I can make out with a hasty test after your edit, it works!  Yay!  I'll do more in-depth testing after work.  But!!! The alt key does not force attack anymore if one has another icon selected in the icon window such as trade or use.  Is this intentional or is this "broken" and a casualty of restoring the previous mode?  Ideally the alt key should still force attack mode.

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1 hour ago, Aislinn said:

Okay. As best I can make out with a hasty test after your edit, it works!  Yay!  I'll do more in-depth testing after work.  But!!! The alt key does not force attack anymore if one has another icon selected in the icon window such as trade or use.  Is this intentional or is this "broken" and a casualty of restoring the previous mode?  Ideally the alt key should still force attack mode.

Nothing has changed with the alt-key behaviour, that code has not been touched.  Its is complicated as the shown cursor is not necessarily the current action mode as set by the icon window.  The order of the checks mean that if the current highlighted icon is EYE, USE or TRADE (for non creatures) the ALT key does not override the mode.  That's how it has always been.  Perhaps its feels different because the action is not defaulting back to WALK  as often as it did before.  Anyway, the relevant code is unchanged.

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Quickbar being independent - AWESOME!

 

Ground bag unattached from inventory window - AWESOME! although it did take a bit of getting used to not having the eye icon available but that's a very minor thing.

 

Inventory window keeping my last chosen cursor - AWESOME!

 

HUD icons stay chosen as I would expect them to - AWESOME!

 

Sorry I would have posted sooner but I have been trying to test in as many different scenarios as I could think of and then forgot to post.  I'm loving this.  It does exactly what I was hoping for.  :)  Thank you so so so much!

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19 minutes ago, Aislinn said:

Quickbar being independent - AWESOME!

Ground bag unattached from inventory window - AWESOME! although it did take a bit of getting used to not having the eye icon available but that's a very minor thing.

Inventory window keeping my last chosen cursor - AWESOME!

HUD icons stay chosen as I would expect them to - AWESOME!

Sorry I would have posted sooner but I have been trying to test in as many different scenarios as I could think of and then forgot to post.  I'm loving this.  It does exactly what I was hoping for.  :)  Thank you so so so much!

OK, that's AWESOME I guess :P.

So is the ALT key thing sorted?

 

@Diealot and @Nogrod

Are you OK with the changes too?  I'll do some builds now.

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Yes the alt key is sorted.  User error, sorry.  I was trying to force it when I had traded and forgot that it wasn't automatically going back to walk/eye.  It seems to work as it always did when walk/eye and "fist" is active.  However, it doesn't do that (and I don't think ever did) when eye, use (pointy finger), and trade icons are active.

 

Regarding Diealot, I don't think he can test until a client is built.

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Quick off topic question, why is my ranging window icon a book and not an arrow?  And my minimap isn't a map with a magnifying glass, it's a written page.

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18 minutes ago, Aislinn said:

Quick off topic question, why is my ranging window icon a book and not an arrow?  And my minimap isn't a map with a magnifying glass, it's a written page.

The icon window is defined in main_icon_window.xml located in the root of the data directory.  Those icons are defined in this snippet:

<icon type="window" image_id="58" alt_image_id="59" help_name="range" param_name="range"/>
<icon type="window" image_id="50" alt_image_id="51" help_name="minimap" param_name="minimap"/>

The image_id value refer to the position in the file textures/gamebuttons.dds.  I'd check you have the correct defs and that your gamebuttons.dds file has the icons.

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52 minutes ago, Diealot said:

Bluap, you make updates faster than I can keep up with. If you're happy with the changes then go for it, I don't test everything.

OK, thanks.

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