NPPAngband/Moria QT Port (Windows) Beta-1 released

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by Thraalbeast

Wow, this is nice. REALLY nice! Somewhat difficult to play with 20+ years of rogue-like keyset in my palms though, but if an old dog can be trained maybe I can too.

The current keyset definitely isn't an optimum setup at present. When I play I am having trouble entering the correct commands too.

The main thing I want, though to have one keyset for all directional commands, making use of the modifier keys (shift, ctr, alt) to specify the commands. I am just trying to get out of having to separately enter a command and then a direction, as well as having a second roguelike keyset.

When I step back and look at it objectively, the improvements I like are: 1) the 'i' command, where I can handle all of my inventory management in one dialog, 2)being able to rest by simply pressing 'r'. 3) Tunneling with the windows key-{direction}

My end goals are to make it convenient to play with either the keyboard or the mouse (with an eye to towards the upcoming touchscreen for tablets) but also to greatly reduce the learning curve for new players. Balancing those 3 will be interesting. Suggestions are welcome.

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Minor point on birth options. If an option such as ironman is selected, then incompatible options such as connected stairs should be greyed out.

The ironman options have always been separate. Either they should be named a little differently, or combined into a single option. But I suppose if the stores are closed, the NPP ironman options of no services and no quests don't make much sense.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Name your save file kinda comes out of nowhere. Can't NPP handle this for us based on character name, providing there is no conflict.

It should at least offer to use the character name so all you have to do is click enter. Is that no working?

Originally Posted by buzzkill

YOU DIE. Seems like a bit more could be done with this. Can we get a nice tombstone graphic a dry description of the event and perhaps an irreverent comment on one's banding skills.

After death and choosing to continue, you're presented with a mostly blank screen (as when the game is launched). Select an item from the menu or something to that effect would be nice.

Much more to come. I want to have three splashscreens: 1 for the game start, one for being killed, and one for retirement. I was going to reach out to Shockbolt and see if I can compensate him to draw them, along with a rounding out his amazing tiles for NPP. Also, eventually some quality sound effects for various things, death being one of them.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Center screen continuously is still described as "(very slow)" but it's not, hasn't been in ages.

Is it fast on other machines? I play on an ultrabook and I occasionally notice small delays. I agree that note was probably written 20 years ago and needs to go.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

When I restart REMEMBER my birth options from character creation from the last game (replicating name and starting stats) and offer a reset to defaults option.

Your stats and options from the previous game should come up automatically, unless you are starting a new savefile. Please let me know if this is broken.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Maybe offer to save save/load different birth option profiles.

On the to-do list.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

THE TILE MULTIPLIER: some crazy settings there, 16:16= about 2 grids per screen. Some smaller settings might be nice instead, .75:.75 or .50:.50.

LOL. good point. 16x16 is for playing on a TV. It is also relative to font size. You can reduce your font to get the 75:75 and 50:50 effect.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

My first real issue. You seem to have co-opted the Fn key(s) that I use to simulate the keypad on my laptop (sans-keypad). That means I can't move diagonally (Fn+7, Fn+9, Fn+j and Fn+l and my diagonal movement keys).

For keyboards without a numpad, movement keys are centered around the 'h' key (for hold). You should be able to move with
TYU
GHJ
VBN

For the function keys, I had in mind reserving those for macros.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

I don't see where I can alter the movement delay. I like my @'s to walk, perhaps leisurely, not teleport.

LOL. It is currently under the options screen, final tab. It is going to be moved to under the options section of the top toolbar. However it doesn't currently yet tie to anything, so changing it won't help you.

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. The UI definitely needs optimizing, but I wanted to see how it worked on everybody's screen before fine-tuning things. I am stunned the only true bug reported so far is spacing on the one dialog screen.

I am aware of a couple other issues:
*On the knowledge screens, numbers are not sorted as true numbers. So the score of 1150 is considered less than 999.

*At least on my screen, when the inventory or equipment/quiver is full, the equipment dialogs go off the bottom of the screen. I haven't found a good scroll-window setup yet.

* When casting detect traps, the green circles showing edge ends don't seem to update on the outermost squares of the screen.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by nppangband

Re: name save file. It should at least offer to use the character name so all you have to do is click enter. Is that no working?

No. Win7.

Re movement delay: Is it fast on other machines?

I'm playing with tiles on an older laptop and movement is almost instantaneous.

Your stats and options from the previous game should come up automatically. Please let me know if this is broken.

It's broken.

RE tile size: You can reduce your font to get the 75:75 and 50:50 effect.

Noop. Changing fonts and/or sizes has no effect on anything AFAICT.

For keyboards without a numpad, movement keys are centered around the 'h' key (for hold). You should be able to move with <snip>...
For the function keys, I had in mind reserving those for macros.

Ugh.

I may have added a few more points to my original post (including some genuine bugginess). Post #10.

[buzzkill]

Ugh

Double Ugh! H-key movement is really awkward. I'm sure it's just a matter of getting used to it, but I don't know if I want to. The problem is the shiftiness of the keypad.

Normal pseudo keypad:
7    8    9
 4    5    6
  1    2    3

Yours:
 7    8    9
  4    5    6       ...so far so good, but then
1    2    3         ...arghhhhh!!!

M is for magic or map or whatever, I get it. I just don't know if that (ugh) is gonna cut it. It's so unintuitive that I at first suspected a key mapping mistake before I realized it was WAD.

On the constructive side, doing that thing where pressing two arrow keys at once will move @ diagonally would be a great alternative (IMO). Pressing two opposite directions at once could "hold".

[buzzkill]

Player information screen (previously character screen, ugh) presents as wider than my screen. The horizontal bar chart seem excessively long and thus a likely fix. I'm able be grab and move it to the left to see all the rest of the info, but still. Playing on a standard aspect ratio laptop, 13" or 15" screen (not sure).

As long as we're here, on many info screens hovering-over will bring up useful tool-tip info, but only if you hover over the title. Hovering over the info itself, which is what I find myself repeatedly doing, presents nothing. Can't it be both?

Phrasing: "One of y rations of food was eaten."

That should be all from me for the day. I actually have stuff I need to do.

[Zireael]

It should at least offer to use the character name so all you have to do is click enter. Is that no working?

Nope. Win7.

Player information screen (previously character screen, ugh) presents as wider than my screen.

Slightly wider here, too. 1280x1024, default screen size.

Re movement delay: Is it fast on other machines?

Really fast here, and this is NOT a gaming laptop - Dell Vostro 3450.

I'm playing with tiles and wanted larger status bar text.

I'd like it, too

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

I can resize the status bar, but I can't resize the messages area. Also, seems like a lot more could be done with use of colors and styles, maybe even font sizes in the message area.

Soon. Actually, those are all going to be separate undockable widgets, so the player can move them anywhere andresize them however they want.

And definitely more could be done with colors and sizes. We are only scratching the surface in what QT can do.

My plan is for Nick and the devteam to be impressed by the QT port, port Angband to QT, and then make all these improvements so I just have to copy their work.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

OK. I've been lured back in. If you don't hear from me in three days call the authorities.

I have made it so the current player name comes up by default. You should just have to hit enter at that point.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Changing fonts doesn't seem to work unless it only affects the main window. I'm playing with tiles and wanted larger status bar text.

I confirmed. Changing font size changes tile size. I agree some work could be done on the ratios.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Ctrl-m, trying to bring up a map, produced repeating popup, "Lookup_kind could not find object (0,8)". Was blind at the moment if that matters

We have not incorporated the map command yet. CTRL-m is now the browse spellbook command.

I do see that the new keymapping is getting a lot of negative feedback. I am resisting using the old keymap because I want to reduce the learning curve for new players, and the ultimate goal is to create a tablet interface using only icons and swipes. But if there is a consensus on where the direction keys should be located on the keyboard, I can work around that.

I am also considering creating a dialog that allows the player to customize the key for every command in the game, just to end the debate once and for all. Although first somebody might have to tell me why nobody complained to the maintainers of Sil when they changed the keyset.

[Zireael]

My plan is for Nick and the devteam to be impressed by the QT port, port Angband to QT, and then make all these improvements so I just have to copy their work.

That would be indeed great. Especially for the Android port (keys covering half the screen )

[Nick]

Originally Posted by nppangband

My plan is for Nick and the devteam to be impressed by the QT port, port Angband to QT, and then make all these improvements so I just have to copy their work.

So I think there are two steps in this:

1. Take the Qt bits from NPP and rewrite them as a complete alternative interface for V and
2. Edit the current V core so it becomes NPP.

The first would be more work, and would chiefly benefit V. The second would be not too hard, and kind of fun - in fact I was planning to do it for FA before releasing the new V version, before the devteam talked some sense into me

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Player information screen (previously character screen, ugh) presents as wider than my screen. The horizontal bar chart seem excessively long and thus a likely fix. I'm able be grab and move it to the left to see all the rest of the info, but still. Playing on a standard aspect ratio laptop, 13" or 15" screen (not sure).

I just realized what that is. The width of the horizontal bar, as well as the monster health/mana bars on the sidebar, is based on the size of the font or tile size. It was supposed to factor in the screen size when sizing the bar. But when you make the dungeon squares bigger, that bar gets much wider. That will be an interesting fix to figure out.