DeftCrow Redriver
Gallente Best Path Inc. Cascade Imminent
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Posted - 2011.04.23 01:14:00 -
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Although the new combat hotkeys added a lot of functionalities, it often feels a whole lot clumsier and slower than the previous incarnation. The most glaring problem with the current version of combat hotkeys is that you are no longer allowed to use hotkeys directly on the objects you click from the screen, even though the Overview and the Selected Items menu fully recognize the object you are selecting without any problems.
In order to understand why this inconvenience occurs, we'll have to take a look at how the new combat hoykey system works. Combat hotkeys(target, approach, align, warp, etc) only work when these two conditions are met;
1. An object has to be selected. The selected object is shown in the Selected Items menu, and is highlighted on the overview. The user can select on object by clicking on it or using the up/down key to scroll through the overview.
2. The overview has to be set on focus. When the overview is focused, the window will show a white box within the window boundaries. The user can set the focus to the overview by clicking on it or using the "Set Overview Focus" hotkey. (The up/down key for selection only works when the overview is set on focus.)
By looking at this, the reason why combat hotkeys don't work outside the overview becomes fairly simple; even though the object is selected, the overview is not set to focus. Simply removing the need to focus on the overview won't be advisable, as there is no way the client could know whether the user is chatting or issuing an order from the hotkey, especially when using hotkeys that bind to alphabets or shift/ctrl/alt.
Therefore, I propose this simple fix:
When a user clicks on an object in space, automatically set the focus to the overview.
This way, the user can use combat hotkeys by simply clicking at the object and using the hotkey instead of trying to find the object from the overview or resorting to the Selected Items window. The way combat hotkeys work will be the opposite to the previous method(hotkey-click -> click-hotkey), but it's better than nothing.
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