[feature request] improve recall UI

[Lord Tom]

I would appreciate 2 small changes to the way one cycles through monsters when recalling based on a symbol (i.e. the '/' command):

1. Add the ability to iterate forward and backwards in the list -- current behavior is that any key advances the monster list in decreasing depth order, so if you "just miss" the monster you're looking for you may need to cycle through dozens of additional entries.

2. Start recall based on your current max depth -- If I'm at DL 10 and want to see what Brodda can do (assuming I've just teleported him away so I can't just look at him to recall), don't make me start with Sauron and click through all the 'p's.

I'm not sure how often other players use this command to look up monsters that aren't currently in view, but I find myself doing so quite frequently. Thanks!

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by Lord Tom

I'm not sure how often other players use this command to look up monsters that aren't currently in view, but I find myself doing so quite frequently. Thanks!

Generally speaking, I'm not sure it would be that much useful, when there is the monster memory feature already.
You can access it with "~" and then "d", it shows the properties of every monster you, or the ancestors sharing the same savefile, have ever seen

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by Lord Tom

I would appreciate 2 small changes to the way one cycles through monsters when recalling based on a symbol (i.e. the '/' command):

{snip}

I'm not sure how often other players use this command to look up monsters that aren't currently in view, but I find myself doing so quite frequently. Thanks!

This is not well known, but in the '/' command there is actually several commands for how the monsters are filtered sorted (you can do uniques only, monsters only, and a couple other things), and how you cycle through them. They are not documented, but the code supports it. I don't remember the options offhand, but if somebody looks at the code the options are fairly self explanatory.

I think everybody uses the knowledge screens these days, so improving this feature might be a low-priority item.

[buzzkill]

It seems to me that the one of the best solutions for knowledge menu monster recall would be present the player, by default, a list monsters that he has seen recently (maybe the last 100), ordered chronologically and/or geographically. Then also have optional alphabetical sorting as well as the full categorized list. This will require a little bit of extra 'keeping track of stuff' by the game, but it seems like a superior solution. Players aren't' looking up monsters at random, they're looking for info on guys they are fighting, will be fighting, or just finished fighting.

[Lord Tom]

Originally Posted by ghengiz

Generally speaking, I'm not sure it would be that much useful, when there is the monster memory feature already.
You can access it with "~" and then "d", it shows the properties of every monster you, or the ancestors sharing the same savefile, have ever seen

Thanks for pointing this out; that is certainly an improvement over '/' for heavily populated monster races.

Though I'd still prefer an improved '/', as having to type '~', 'd', scroll to the relevant race ("Men" for 'p' monsters) and finally scroll to the relevant monster is still pretty clunky. I think enabling page up/page down (affecting the column currently in focus) would be a big usability improvement, my apologies if it already exists and I just don't know the command.

Obviously these are low-priority suggestions, what with the major changes underfoot...

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by Lord Tom

Though I'd still prefer an improved '/', as having to type '~', 'd', scroll to the relevant race ("Men" for 'p' monsters) and finally scroll to the relevant monster is still pretty clunky. I think enabling page up/page down (affecting the column currently in focus) would be a big usability improvement, my apologies if it already exists and I just don't know the command.

or perhaps combining the best of the two worlds: add a /-like subcommand to ~.
In other words, allow searching in the monster (or artifact, or whatever) memory for an user-defined string, that is the name of the "think" the user is looking for, just like / does a look up for a symbol.

example of usage, borrowing your example about Brodda:
[user input] ~d
[output: the present monster memory]
[user input] /Brodda
[output: the record for Brodda]

it should be trivial to implement, at least if we allow literal strings only (no regexp). Of course it's low-priority

[Lord Tom]

That's a great idea. It may work even better as replacement functionality for the '/' command, as I suppose the need to identify a monster based only on a symbol is left over from when one couldn't look at things that weren't in LOS. (e.g. if you detect an 'R', it's much higher yield to look at it and see it's a Basilisk than to use '/' + 'R' and just see a list of possibilities).

The use I'm thinking of would then be:
1. '/'
2. at prompt, type literal to search for, e.g. "brodda" or "nightcrawler"
3. set of results based on that literal, which can be cycled through

In this case, the '~' monster memory screen would remain as an option for those wishing to see all monsters represented by a particular symbol.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by ghengiz

it should be trivial to implement, at least if we allow literal strings only (no regexp). Of course it's low-priority

I've always thought so too, since such a search function *already exists* for the message recall. It could presumably be adapted to search monster and item names - then we could search stores and home as well as monster memory.

Patches welcome!