Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

User avatar
benrob0329
Member
Posts: 1341
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2015 22:39
GitHub: Benrob0329
IRC: benrob0329
In-game: benrob03
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by benrob0329 » Post

as of right now Mesecons uses right click, it changes recently.

A lot of people complain that q is too close to w and that they end up dropping their diamond sword into a pool of lava far too often, so z would be close, but out of reach if your trying to hit w.

TAB is another good option for inventory, but is a bit harder to reach than q.

User avatar
kaadmy
Member
Posts: 706
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 23:07
GitHub: kaadmy
IRC: KaadmY
In-game: KaadmY kaadmy NeD

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by kaadmy » Post

sofar wrote:[...]
There's nothing in the game right now that is edible that also doubles as a buildable node.
[...]
Ahem, apples? You can eat them, and you can place them.
Never paint white stripes on roads near Zebra crossings.

Pixture

User avatar
davidthecreator
Member
Posts: 452
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 19:48
GitHub: daviddoesminetest
In-game: DavidDoesMinetest
Location: Lithuania

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by davidthecreator » Post

If you think pc controlls are horrible try punching someone/something on android device...

User avatar
benrob0329
Member
Posts: 1341
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2015 22:39
GitHub: Benrob0329
IRC: benrob0329
In-game: benrob03
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by benrob0329 » Post

Yeah, I think that MT touch controlls need to be closer to Survival Craft (Tap and hold = dig, Tap = place/punch entity)

User avatar
Kpenguin
Member
Posts: 217
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 16:19
IRC: Kpenguin
In-game: Kpenguin
Location: The Birthplace of Aviation

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Kpenguin » Post

davidthecreator wrote:If you think pc controlls are horrible try punching someone/something on android device...
Ya, I still haven't figured out how to craft stuff on Minetest for Android!
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

User avatar
kaadmy
Member
Posts: 706
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 23:07
GitHub: kaadmy
IRC: KaadmY
In-game: KaadmY kaadmy NeD

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by kaadmy » Post

Same.
Items have to be placed in full stacks, you can't copy 1/10 items at a time.
Never paint white stripes on roads near Zebra crossings.

Pixture

Dragonop
Member
Posts: 1233
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:59
GitHub: Dragonop
IRC: Dragonop
In-game: Dragonop
Location: Argentina

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Dragonop » Post

Afaik, yes, you can: Hold the item stack with one finger/tentacle/etc, and then, tap where you want to put only one item from that stack.

User avatar
kaadmy
Member
Posts: 706
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 23:07
GitHub: kaadmy
IRC: KaadmY
In-game: KaadmY kaadmy NeD

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by kaadmy » Post

Dragonop wrote:...tentacle...
-_____-
Never paint white stripes on roads near Zebra crossings.

Pixture

Dragonop
Member
Posts: 1233
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:59
GitHub: Dragonop
IRC: Dragonop
In-game: Dragonop
Location: Argentina

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Dragonop » Post

kaadmy wrote:
Dragonop wrote:...tentacle...
-_____-
That's racist against squid people
EDIT: stay on topic please, I was just adding some humour
EDIT2: It's a metaphor: you never really know who you are talking to in the Internet

User avatar
Kpenguin
Member
Posts: 217
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 16:19
IRC: Kpenguin
In-game: Kpenguin
Location: The Birthplace of Aviation

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Kpenguin » Post

kaadmy wrote:
Dragonop wrote:...tentacle...
-_____-
Ever heard of iBallisticSquid? If not, search him on youtube.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

hajo
Member
Posts: 606
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 10:45
Location: DE
Contact:

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by hajo » Post

Dragonop wrote:vote for more control config options:
I would like to also have an alternate key for each function,
e.g. forward = W or CursorUp, inventory = I or Tab, etc.

BTW, there are no keys for turning the player.
Adding turn-left and turn-right would also improve the controls for the boat.

Sneak would make sense as a toggle (like fly),
so pageup/pagedown could be used for up/down
without interfering with jump or sneak.

Also, it would be nice if commands could be assigned to keys,
e.g. T = "/time; /days" (better yet, a sequence of several commands).

hajo
Member
Posts: 606
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 10:45
Location: DE
Contact:

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by hajo » Post

Minetest 0.4.15 now has been out for some time,
but there were no changes with regard to keys & controls.

When looking thru the threads 'how to make minetest more popular'
and 'portable minetest', I also noticed that F1 doesn't do 'help',
as almost every new user would expect.

F1 really should be "Help", instead of "HUD on/off".
HUD on/off can use any other key (say, F4).

And as a first step, we don't even need a real help-system,
just make it an alias to the ESC-to-pause-menu,
where the standard-keys are listed.

User avatar
Sergey
Member
Posts: 784
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 13:28
Location: Russia

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Sergey » Post

To drop item with [Q] button is the stupid decision.
[Q] is right in the middle of [W] (forward), [A] (left) and [1] (first item in hotbar).
When you want to press any these buttons without looking, you drop item instead! Damn! It's especially great if you are at the edge of abyss!

At least you can change keybindings. So I changed drop function to [L] — far button from main ones.

User avatar
Wuzzy
Member
Posts: 4786
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 15:01
GitHub: Wuzzy2
IRC: Wuzzy
In-game: Wuzzy
Contact:

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Wuzzy » Post

I think long discussions about default keybindings are pretty much pointless, since there are many keyboard layouts around anyway.
Just pick a more or less sane default and be done with it. It's not worth spending too much time arguing what is the “best” default. It's still OK to discuss defaults, I just don't think we should waste too much time on this.

It is much more important to make ALL actions at least bindable. Currently, one of Minetest's biggest problems is that many actions have hardcoded key bindings which can't be changed (not even in minetest.conf), as many people already pointed out. Fixing this would be an important improvement.

Another annoyance is that the controls menu is very, very incomplete, forcing you to go to minetest.conf for some keys. I think it needs a major rework to show *all* possible key bindings.

Yes, it's sad that Minetest 0.4.15 has not seen any improvements in controls whatsover. Even I have 2 open PRs:
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/4929
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/4537

User avatar
Sergey
Member
Posts: 784
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 13:28
Location: Russia

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Sergey » Post

I totally agree with you. Every action player can make must be bindable. What is bindable now + what is hardcoded.
For example, sometimes I think it would be better to build not with right mouse button, but with plain keyboard button. Same for dig/punch.

Also it would be great to bind keys to any action player can make or is allowed to do.
For example, imagine my home at (5, 2, 10). And when I press

, /teleport 5 2 10 command executes and now I am home. Of course, that will work if I have corresponding privilege to execute teleport command. I press and now I am underground in place I define ( => /teleport 10, -200, 20). And so on...


ABJ
Member
Posts: 3015
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 13:02
GitHub: ABJ-MV
In-game: ABJ
Location: In Earth orbit, with a perigee of 1048 km and an apogee of 1337 km and an inclination of 69 degrees.

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by ABJ » Post

Building and digging with keyboard would be prohibitively hard - at least for me. I suggest keeping the most essential functions as these to the mouse.

By the way, I really like Sergey's idea, but I feel that the smooth way to do it, and the way that fits the theme of this whole idea is to allow each command a hotkey, but then hotkeys would be prohibitively long and confusing trying not to be the same.

But of course we could have a teleport function as part of the game separate from commands.

User avatar
Sergey
Member
Posts: 784
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 13:28
Location: Russia

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Sergey » Post

ABJ wrote:Building and digging with keyboard would be prohibitively hard - at least for me. I suggest keeping the most essential functions as these to the mouse.

By the way, I really like Sergey's idea, but I feel that the smooth way to do it, and the way that fits the theme of this whole idea is to allow each command a hotkey, but then hotkeys would be prohibitively long and confusing trying not to be the same.

But of course we could have a teleport function as part of the game separate from commands.
I don't suggest to dig and build with keyboard for everyone. I suggest the ability to bind any player's action with any mouse/keyboard button. After that, anyone can adjust keybindings for himself or leave them as is.

ABJ
Member
Posts: 3015
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 13:02
GitHub: ABJ-MV
In-game: ABJ
Location: In Earth orbit, with a perigee of 1048 km and an apogee of 1337 km and an inclination of 69 degrees.

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by ABJ » Post

Aha! That's better.

User avatar
Laser0073
Member
Posts: 59
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2016 01:26
GitHub: Laser0073
In-game: Laser0073

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Laser0073 » Post

benrob0329 wrote:Yeah, I think that MT touch controlls need to be closer to Survival Craft (Tap and hold = dig, Tap = place/punch entity)
My thoughts exactly. The controls are great, and very playable on Survivalcraft. IDK how difficult it would be to implement something like this...
i5 6500 OC @3.5GHz, EVGA GTX 960 4GB, 8GB DDR4, ASROCK Pro4S, 128GB.SSD, MT 0.4.17, Linux Mint 18.3 (Ubuntu 16.04)
OwOOOg9CphnceB30eUFX6BOCW8W3jT4i

User avatar
Sergey
Member
Posts: 784
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 13:28
Location: Russia

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by Sergey » Post

Besides left and right mouse buttons, I would like to dig/punch and place/use with keyboard as well.

So I want to say that it would be great to bind different mouse/keyboard buttons with the same action.

ABJ
Member
Posts: 3015
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 13:02
GitHub: ABJ-MV
In-game: ABJ
Location: In Earth orbit, with a perigee of 1048 km and an apogee of 1337 km and an inclination of 69 degrees.

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by ABJ » Post

Hardcoding something seems to almost always end in disaster.

michael314
Member
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Jan 12, 2018 03:39

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by michael314 » Post

ABJ wrote:Hardcoding something seems to almost always end in disaster.
Found this thread because I was trying to figure out how to swap the meaning of the left and right mouse button. On my laptop, the right mouse button clicks weird, it kinda gets stuck and makes a loud clack when it finally clicks. When doing a lot of building, it's also a *lot* less convenient than the right button because my hands don't fall as naturally on it.

Fortunately as a work-around I was swap them at the OS level, but that's a bit of a pain...

User avatar
ThomasMonroe
Member
Posts: 286
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2017 16:21
GitHub: ThomasMonroe314
IRC: ThomasMonroe TMcSquared
In-game: ThomasMonroe TMcSquared
Location: Wherever I am at

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by ThomasMonroe » Post

sounds like you need to clean your keyboard michael314
I don't make messes, I just, er...disturb the local entropy!

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6972
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by rubenwardy » Post

I'm hoping to work on this situation soon. I'd like to make all inputs first class, meaning you'd be able to use keyboard, mouse, or controller for any action. The exception is touchscreen, that would be a later goal.
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
jas
Member
Posts: 593
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 18:15
IRC: Freenode
Location: IRC

Re: Proposal to improve Minetest’s horrible controls

by jas » Post

There's a PR that I've been using since October 23rd, allowing me to bind jump to the right mouse button.

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/6537

I look forward to that day, rubenwardy, when you make all inputs first class and allow me to use my keyboard and mouse for any action. I won't hold my breath, obviously.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests