[All] Keyboard interface and keymaps

[Remuz]

Hi everyone,

I am sure this has been beaten to death before, but I was not around at that time, so here it goes. Feel free to point me to an old thread though.

I've been wondering if it's worth creating a new default keymap, together with the current Roguelike and standard ones, but everybody would have different opinions on where the moved keys should go

This was said by Lebannen in another thread, and led me to think about the current keymaps. There is a lot a redundancy, and some commands apply only to a subset of items. Considering that some commands apply to distinct subsets of items, we could fuse them together.

For example :
- 'u'se a staff
- 'a'im a wand
- use 'm'agic to cast a spell from a book
- 'p'ray for priests
- 'A'ctivate an artifact
- 'r'ead a scroll
- 'q'uaff a potion
- 'z'ap a rod
- 'F'uel a lantern/torch

All those commands could be accessed from only one command, say 'u' for 'u'se an item. For people that cannot type like me, this would speed up gameplay, help new players to learn how to play, and overall improve the game. Also, it could ease the introduction of a mouse driven interface (I would love to see my equipment in a term window, and then simply click on an item to use it).

Please note that this kind of reasoning has been applied before, thanks to the existence of the '+' command, that disarms, digs, open and close door, etc.

Optionally, the 'b'rowse command could be discarded, and accessed through the 'u'se book menu, as this command is seldom used after a while.

Other simplifications in the keymap could be as follows. I am not saying all should be done, only that they are technically possible :
- 'w'ear/'t'ake off could be one command (can not be 'u'se, because there is a conflict for activable artifacts).
- '<' and '>' need not to be separate, as one only ever stands on one type of stairs at a time.
- '=', '@', '%' can be a subset of the options menu

That's it, thanks for your comments.