Controlling Zdoom Menus With WASD?

[Per-Scan]

Noob question time: Is it possible to control the menus in (G)Zdoom with the WASD keys? I like to play Doom using my Zboard Fang but Windows 7 doesn't like the software for it so I can't reprogram the keys to act as cursor keys. The problem is that the source ports presume I have access to the cursor keys to navigate the menus. Is there a way to alter the cfg file or something? Thanks in advance. :)

[DaniJ]

Can't you just rebind the menu controls? In the Doomsday betas you can do this from the Controls menu under Options or from the console.

[Graf Zahl]

Unfortunately not. ZDoom's menu code is not its brightest piece (in fact anyone who ever worked on it basically agrees that 'it sucks'.)

It's in desperate need of being replaced with something new.

[kristus]

Personally, I've always preferred being able to use the mouse for the menus. Would be nice if that functionality could be added to the Zdoom menu.

[Graf Zahl]

Before anything can change the menu code needs to be completely replaced. Nobody is willing to work with the current mess more than is absolutely necessary.

[Per-Scan]

Graf Zahl said:

Before anything can change the menu code needs to be completely replaced. Nobody is willing to work with the current mess more than is absolutely necessary.

It's that bad? Is it just a legacy thing (limited from the start) or has it been picked apart over the years? Mouse control wouldn't be a bad option.

So far, I've found a 'workaround'. This evening I have been playing with a 360 controller in my left hand while using the mouse for looking. Now, if only I could plug in my Wii nunchuck I'd bee sorted... :)

[Graf Zahl]

PFL said:

It's that bad? Is it just a legacy thing (limited from the start) or has it been picked apart over the years? Mouse control wouldn't be a bad option.

Years of uncontrolled changes, special cases for 4 games and a relatively shitty base to work from can be enough.

It's not that it's impossible to change but the code is hopelessly cluttered with important parts being used differently by different pages and so on.

It just makes more sense to dump it all and start fresh while making sure that it gets done better than before.

[kristus]

Maybe allowing for custom setup of menus as well?

[Graf Zahl]

There'd be no point in redoing it without that option.

[kristus]

Doom3 uses the GUI system it got for the menus in there. Don't Zdoom also have a similar GUI system? Maybe that could possibly be made to work as a menu as well?

[Maes]

Graf Zahl said:

It's not that it's impossible to change but the code is hopelessly cluttered with important parts being used differently by different pages and so on.

In fact, one of the things I'm trying to do with Mochadoom is to isolate the various contexts of things. E.g. rendering is made up a "drawing" module, a "renderer" module, a "planes" module, a "things" module etc. which need to be partly aware of each other, at certain points, and all need to be aware of the screen buffer and of Doom's status.

The HUD and Menu (which also handles its own keyboard events) reside in different modules, but also need to be able to "talk" to the screen buffer and be aware of the Doom status etc.

Of course the original source code just has a hell of globals that can all see each other, while to go truly OO and make targeted changes, we need to reach the maximum possible isolation between modules.

I'm pretty sure that once I finish isolating things, it might be easier to introduce such changes. Now it's an interdependency nightmare, although I managed to package some stuff like e.g. general Doom status, video renderer and parts of the rendering system into well-defined "context objects" that are shared between interdependent modules.

[Edward850]

kristus said:

Doom3 uses the GUI system it got for the menus in there. Don't Zdoom also have a similar GUI system? Maybe that could possibly be made to work as a menu as well?

How could one possibly relate Doom3's menus to any of Zdoom's menus? They don't seem even remotely similar.