[Scummvm-devel] RFC: Flexible keymapping via new EVENT_ (post 0.10)

[Thierry Crozat]

Le 4 juin 07 à 22:38, Max Horn a écrit :

> Hi folks,
>
> In short, I'd propose to replace EVENT_PREDICTIVE_DIALOG with a new
> more generic event, by letting a frontend specify an arbitrary list
> of actions which the backend should map to a button or hotkey.
>
> So, what do you think? Am I too ambitious? Is this overdesigned?
> Better ideas? Improvements? Statements why we don't need this anyway?
> Your input is highly welcome (although I don't really expect much, as
> usual).
>

I too think this is a good idea and should not be restricted to small  
devices.
This will bring some flexibility for keys mapping to the backends,  
and if the
code is cleaner I see no objections. From what you wrote the initial
implementation should not require too much work which is a good thing.
Then new functionality can be added later into some backends. There are
several thinks that comes to mind:

First the possibility for the user to map an action to a key or  
another trigger.
The trigger can be anything (for instance the fourth mouse button of my
mouse to show the option dialog, PDA buttons, ...). However this mapping
being done by the backend, it has probably no impact on the design of  
this
event as long as the backends can mapped anything to the actions.

There is something you didn't mention: mapping several triggers to the
same action (for backend that have a lot of triggers). With my above  
example,
I may still want to have the F5 key mapped to option dialog in  
addition to the
fourth mouse button. This is a refinement, but if this features can  
be added
later with the initial design, that would be good. But this probably  
have also
to be managed by the backend.

The third thing I was thinking of is that the scumm engine map a key to
each actions, for instance 'L' to Look. But on non english versions, the
mapping used is the english one and we still have to use 'L' for  
Regarder
(which is the french for Look) and I find it confusing. So having the  
possibility
to change this mapping would be great as well. Most of the actions  
you listed
have to do with dialogs. And the others are Quit and Pause. It would  
be great
If the game actions are within the scope of what you propose.

As I am not familiar with the EventManager I have no comment on your
proposed design, other than it looks fine to me.

Thierry