A Hotkey Suggestion

[jonTucich]

Hi,

My suggestion for hotkeys is to use Shift-WASD for navigating in an item menu, then Shift-E for selecting the highlighted action.  Escape to cancel.

These keys would become active after an item menu is opened, (e.g. by pressing "1").

For items that have a sub-menu (e.g. 'Select Material / Metal'), Shift-A and Shift-D would work for scrolling left and right, with Shift-E selecting the highlighted material.  

One issue would be how to treat focus for materials that can't be selected - should they still highlight and require scrolling, or does focus automatically start with the first valid resource and skip invalid choices.  The advantage of always starting with the first material is that an experienced player would be able to know how many keystrokes to get to a certain material.  The same holds for a main item menu - as research reveals more items, some menus display 'soon to be available', while others just have the new items appear.  A static menu is easier for experienced players to navigate, while a growing menu helps deal with information overload that new players encounter.

 

thanks,

jon