Interface: double click

[BladeL]

I wonder why isn't there any use for double click in Wesnoth? F.e. it would someway speed up some players if you could use double click:
- On castle tile to hire units (and maybe bring them from previous mission);
- On units to see the description page;
- On empty tile to make a label etc

I think it's not so hard to add and customized. And please kill me if it's already here in some secret form.

[mameluke]

my first thought is: great idea!

On the other hand: it's an unhealthy interface for my finger witch already lets me feel my spent time in front of a mouse

[Turuk]

How is a double click in any way faster then using right click to bring up the window and left click to select recruit, recall, or unit description? That's still two clicks....

[Alink]

Double clicks (or one second click on a already selected unit) are currently used to remove a "goto"(a multi-turn planned move) from an unit. I suppose that you want only one of these 4 possibilities and an option to choose which one, because they are conflicting each other.

Some other details: does double-click select the unit too and thus cancels a previous selection like right-click does ? Maybe unwanted if you just want to read its description or add a label. For example, checking the description of a enemy before attacking will lose your current selection and select that enemy. OK, this kind of problems also happen with the context-menu but not with the hotkey, and right-click will not select the enemy. Also note that canceling this unwanted selection force you to do the right click that you want to avoid

There is also some small detail with the "select" WML-event possibly used by a custom scenario, but that's less important.

Now, and more technically, if double-click doesn't select the unit (or has any similar difference with simple click), then that means that after each normal click, the engine will need to wait some delay to see if it's a double-click (or not) before executing the normal select action and canceling the previous selection. This can possibly slow the responsiveness of the standard interface or force to require very fast double-click, both cases being bad.

PS: I am not saying that the mouse interface can't have new feature like this, I am all for it. But need to be careful, because they all interact with each other at some point, which is already a small problem with the current features. Also don't forget that, even if invisible for the user, all these special cases or options (like a customizable double-click action) need more coding, maintenance and bug fix.

[Lord Ork]

Why do you open your files with double click instead of right click to bring the options and click again on "open"?

Double click: locate element, translate pointer, click1, click2

Current method: locate element, translate pointer, click1, [gui shows], locate option, translate pointer, click2

From the point of view of usability, double click is faster and more confortable to the user that selecting from a menu (in a similar way of shortcuts, note we use them even if the main control is made by mouse). I think it even can be expressed with a formula, but I don't remember so much of that subject.

Thumbs up for the double click "intelligent" behaviour.

[BladeL]

Alink, you're right, this idea needs a pile of brainwork (yeeah, statistic screen on doubleclick isn't really so good), but as far as I see including of this feature in any way would benefit. And maybe middle mousebutton too could use some minor work.

I thout of it as Lord Ork says - first turns in MP games are spent mostly on "RMB - select "hire" - LMB". And it's easy to change a bit.

[Lizard]

I thout of it as Lord Ork says - first turns in MP games are spent mostly on "RMB - select "hire" - LMB". And it's easy to change a bit.

Those guys owning a keyboard can do Strg+R. It is not so "easy to change a bit",
Alink just said that, and he knows what he talks about, there is this word written below his name.

Why do you open your files with double click instead of right click to bring the options and click again on "open"?

I open them with one click

[Turuk]

And maybe middle mousebutton too could use some minor work.

Setting up clicks to work off the middle button might be a bad idea, since that works off of the assumption that all players use a mouse that has three buttons.

[Wintermute]

I find playing without using the keyboard shortcuts maddeningly annoying. Anyone who doesn't like the right-click menu might give that a try.

[Dave]

Personally I don't like double clicks at all. I think they are a usability nightmare: so many users find it so difficult to double click properly, and once they learn to double click on some things, they think everything needs to be double clicked on (how many people do you know who think you have to double click on a hyperlink?)

However, since so many people do know how to double click, I wouldn't be too strongly opposed to having double click added as an extra shortcut to access some things. Just as long as it doesn't become the main way to do things.

David

[Alink]

Yes, it's clear that double-click is faster that most other things. Like I said it's more about the details and link with normal clicks.

I thout of it as Lord Ork says - first turns in MP games are spent mostly on "RMB - select "hire" - LMB". And it's easy to change a bit.

About the speed of context-menu, note that you can already select your option with a right-click, so using the same button helps a little. And the same button can also cancel the menu by clicking outside of it, which BTW works with most menus of the game. This suggest an other way to speed this, allow the behavior: right-click to open it, keep the right-button down, move the cursor on the wanted option and release it there to activate it. I think that most desktops allow that, but even if not all users like it, both systems can be used. I always wanted to add this, maybe will try in 1.7.

One other problem with special double-click action is to decide which action affect to it. IMHO there is currently none frequent enough. Label need the keyboard anyway, description are rarely needed and some users never use it. Recall is useless in MP and recruit is finally only used few times on a game (compared to other actions) and mainly at the start.

But assuming double-click for recruit, I also fear that it will not be clear for new users. On most locations double-click won't do anything and the user will just stop try to use it. Unless you do like the hotkey which triggers the recruit dialog and then give the message "Your leader must be on keep", hiding the fact that you must also select a castle hex (BTW and for the example, IIRC some users didn't know that you can choose the hex before using the hotkey). Plus, I realize now that it means that any double-click anywhere on the map will trigger the recruit dialog (or equivalent error message), which I think it's a bit weird.

[Alink]

Sorry to reply to myself but after more thinking and since it looks like people mainly want to speed the first chain of recruits, this give me an idea : a "Recruit Mode", probably triggered on/off by a hotkey or a menu item on topbar, which will change the mouse cursor to some recruit icon(?) and then you can recruit unit with simple clicks. This should help these sequence of several recruits. In this mode we could even highlight the hexes where you can recruit (depending of keep and leader position). In fact, it will maybe look a bit like these other games where there is a "place your units" phase, but not sure if it's a good or bad thing.

Alternatively and probably more intuitively, similar visual clues can even be used in normal mode: Each time your leader is on keep and no unit is selected, when the mouse is on a good empty castle hex, add a special icon there or/and change the cursor etc, and then each simple left click on this empty hex triggers a recruit. Probably later need to find a trick for recall but you get the idea. In fact, I would prefer that system instead of the previous recruit mode.

I think that last idea could be fairly intuitive, because it will show on which hex you can recruit and when, and new user will see it on the first turn (assuming the leader start on keep) and it's a good thing because recruiting is the first action usually done. But OTOH it will be only visible when needed (thus not encumber the UI during normal fight/move).

Sorry this was a bit off-topic, but back to the subject: this was because I really think that instead of find a gap in the interface and then try to fill it with some random feature, we better need to identify the action both frequently needed and slow, then find a way to improve it but *specific* to this action. I think this often lead to UI more intuitive or giving more useful info.

[Pk_JoA]

I think that it is a GREAT idea and will make the game more keyboard-dependent (playing without keys shortcuts is just a nightmare for me).

[Wintermute]

Sorry to reply to myself but after more thinking and since it looks like people mainly want to speed the first chain of recruits, this give me an idea : a "Recruit Mode", probably triggered on/off by a hotkey or a menu item on topbar, which will change the mouse cursor to some recruit icon(?) and then you can recruit unit with simple clicks. This should help these sequence of several recruits. In this mode we could even highlight the hexes where you can recruit (depending of keep and leader position). In fact, it will maybe look a bit like these other games where there is a "place your units" phase, but not sure if it's a good or bad thing.

I think this is a great idea! Personally, I think recruiting and recalling (using the hotkeys) is fine as it is - BUT I think it would be faster and, IMHO, simpler to have a recruit mode. I don't really see any downsides (other than the work, obviously ), since I think most players do their recruiting in blocks (I.E. not mixing recruiting and moving very much).

The way I imagine it: Ctrl-R (or something) enters recruit mode, then a single click on a castle hex recruits and a double click recalls units, with Ctrl-R ending recruit mode (or, just clicking on anything that is not a castle would be even better).

Since there is an option to cancel recruiting if that is not the intended move, I doubt this would be annoying to anyone (keyboard shortcuts to the old way of doing things could remain). I think one recruit-mode makes more sense than two separate modes for recruiting and recalling, since often recruits and recalls are mixed.

[Turuk]

I think that it is a GREAT idea and will make the game more keyboard-dependent (playing without keys shortcuts is just a nightmare for me).

Just so you know, as Wintermute mentioned earlier, there are already keyboard shortcuts for most of the actions mentioned here (recruiting, recalling, viewing the description). You just place the mouse over the right hex, or just hit the shortcuts if you do not mind where the unit appears.