how practical is it for the UI to use more mouse buttons?

edited 2015 Jun 14 in User Interface
How practical is it for the UI to make use of more mouse buttons than button 1?

Comments

  • Very practical. To be honest, the reason why the UI currently relies on the left mouse button is mostly 1) simplicity and 2) I use a Mac, so I'm used to operating interfaces with a single button. :)

    My thinking is that all of the functionality should be reachable with the left mouse button, however we can use other mouse buttons for shortcuts and advanced/extra functionality, and things like extra context menus. What kind of things would you like to do with the other mouse buttons?

    There is currently one hidden use of the right mouse button: one can switch the command prompt mode between console and script modes by right-clicking the [>] button.
  • edited 2015 Jun 8
    Well, I admit that I don't have any specific things I would like to see done with specific mouse buttons.

    Currently there is a need/plan to display information (game rules, map number etc) and/or screenshots with a save game and/or MP game. How much of that could be displayed be right clicking on it's box, or simply hovering the mouse over it?

    For instance howes about hovering the mouse over a save game and basic information and a screenshot automatically appears in the currently vacant space on the left side of the screen in an 'information column' (with the vacant area on the right side of the screen perhaps being reserved for horizontal expansion of sections (to tie into my suggestion in my other thread about each section of Home having a max number of rows before expanding horizontally instead).

    I wonder if a right click on a box could be reserved for a future menu that features deleting and any future options along those lines. Until those additional options are actually thought up, perhaps a right click could immediately go to the delete confirmation?

    Of course, what if the 'information column' is ultimately unable to fit all of the information in it? Part of the reason I suggested a max row length for each section of Home is future consideration: 6 save games per game for 5 or so games doesn't lead to a long list, but double that...

    There is of course also a need for some uniformity between Home and the in game UI...

    Co-incidentally, I'm a Windows user :p
  • I agree that the home screen would benefit a lot by breaking up the grid and tabular layout. Something along the lines you suggested but using "feature blocks" which span columns/rows, would both help to improve the presentation and improve the logical organization of UI elements. Imagine opening one of the "folders" in the home screen and the topmost row contains contextual controls and visual elements. Below these would be the grid of game session items.
  • I wonder if each section on the home page (i.e save game etc), should by default display every game when left clicked on. But when right clicked on, a drop down is opened containing a list of every game (and a duplicate 'all' option) that only displays the save games for that particular game.

    Could the new UI also reserve a menu option for mod/game mode (Deathmatch, co-op etc) based filtering? Possibly in the above mentioned drop down, left clicking on a game would display every save game for the game, but right clicking on it, would open another drop down containing some common filtering options (i.e let's say loaded pwads in each save game). Could Dday create such a drop down dynamically, based on a users specific save games?
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