munson@sequoia.berkeley.edu (Ethan V. Munson) (10/11/90)
This reports a simple but irritating bug in the user interface for Solarian. If the Command-K key is hit while on the high score screen, the key bindings for the various non-mouse operations are displayed. The user then has the choice of changing the key bindings or quitting. The displayed key binding for the "Scissors Snip" operation is "l". The actual key binding is the simultaneous striking of the "l", ";", and "'" keys. The on-line documentation does not state this, nor does it state that any alternate key bindings are specified by the leftmost key of three adjacent keys, which seems to be the way things work. Ethan Munson munson@cs.Berkeley.EDU
deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ben Haller) (10/13/90)
In message <28696@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, munson@sequoia.berkeley.edu (Ethan V. Munson) writes: > This reports a simple but irritating bug in the user interface for > Solarian. > > If the Command-K key is hit while on the high score screen, the key > bindings for the various non-mouse operations are displayed. The user > then has the choice of changing the key bindings or quitting. The > displayed key binding for the "Scissors Snip" operation is "l". The > actual key binding is the simultaneous striking of the "l", ";", and "'" > keys. The on-line documentation does not state this, nor does it state > that any alternate key bindings are specified by the leftmost key of > three adjacent keys, which seems to be the way things work. Hmm. First of all, I don't think it's true that the "actual" key binding is "l", ";" and "'" struck simultaneously. I think it's "l" and ";" - the scissor sight and the scissor snip keys. I think this is documented on one of the help screens. The "'" key has nothing to do with the scissors in the default key configuration. In past versions of Solarian II, the "'" key was needed. When I added the ability to configure the keys, I took that out since it was really unnecessarily complicated anyway. Second, alternate key bindings, as you call them, are *not* specified by the leftmost key of three adjacent keys. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion, but you can make your scissor sight key the "/" key and your scissor snip the "'" key (backquote intended, upper left of kbd.) at opposite corners of the keyboard, and things should work fine. And in no case is a third key needed. If this is, in fact, not the way it works on your machine, send me private mail. But I have a feeling your post was mostly the result of insufficient research and confusion caused by the way previous versions of Solarian II worked. -Ben Haller (deadman@garnet.berkeley.edu)