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[FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:02 am
by lmarkus001
This is more of a Removal of Feature request...

Please remove the key binding for New Campaign.

I have seen many bug reports where people's campaign randomly vanishes and a clear grassland is all they are left with. This has happened to me a few times and I have FINALLY figured out what is going on! The menu command: New Campaign is tied to Alt-N. So a person can too easily have that occur and insta-wipe the current session.

I do understand we are now given a prompt to save the current campaign before creating the new one, but one can easily get that prompt and hit return long before they knew what they just did. In fact, I wiped a session this past weekend doing just this and I am a long time user.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 4:25 am
by Full Bleed
lmarkus001 wrote:This is more of a Removal of Feature request...

Please remove the key binding for New Campaign.

I have seen many bug reports where people's campaign randomly vanishes and a clear grassland is all they are left with. This has happened to me a few times and I have FINALLY figured out what is going on! The menu command: New Campaign is tied to Alt-N. So a person can too easily have that occur and insta-wipe the current session.

I do understand we are now given a prompt to save the current campaign before creating the new one, but one can easily get that prompt and hit return long before they knew what they just did. In fact, I wiped a session this past weekend doing just this and I am a long time user.
Are you sure this is what you hit? I just want to make sure something else isn't wiping without a warning because...

Another long time user that I game with wiped a campaign in similar fashion this last week... and I've, personally, never done this or see it happen in all the years I've been using MT. He wasn't exactly sure what key combination he used (but he was using one). He said that he *did not* get a confirmation window (though I suppose it could have happened fast enough that he missed it... defeating the use of a confirmation box if that was possible).

At any rate... I concur with your request.

No need for a key binding for this feature. It's, potentially, too destructive.

I just hope that this is what caused the issue and that there isn't some hidden key combo.


NOTE: I will, however, remind you what I ended up reminding him (too late to save our session)... *IF* this happens, immediately open a new instance of MT without closing the one you just wiped. The second instance should see an active "autosave" (i.e. crash recovery) file and ask if you want to use it. If you have your auto save set for the default 5 minutes you should not lose much.


EDIT: I just tried ALT-N and I could not get it to wipe a campaign... will continue testing...

EDIT 2: OK, I had to hit "ALT-F", then "N" to get the Confirmation Box for a New Campaign. Which leads me to believe that this is not what's causing the problem. More investigation of what key combination could do this without a confirmation box should be done.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 6:12 pm
by lmarkus001
I am revisiting this and going to attempt to elevate this to a CRITICAL BUG!

Now, way too many times I have wiped out my campaign mid-session. So we then waste 20 minutes going to a backup and reconstructing the state of the session. And NOW I KNOW HOW I DO IT!!!

Repeatable Bad Key Combination
(press the following keys in order and you will wipe out the current campaign)

Code: Select all

ALT
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
And why would I do such a combo? Because I hit space and the arrow does not pop up, then I miss hit alt, then I spam space because I want the arrow to show up. This is an amazingly easy thing to do.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 6:40 pm
by JamzTheMan
Is this a MacOS thing? Because in Windows/Linux (Debian) I get the Min/max/move standard OS Popup menu?

I'm not able to duplicate this on Windows or Linux so if you can provide more information (OS version) and make sure you don't have any other software interfering, that would be helpful...

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 9:05 pm
by Azhrei
Actually, the output from Help>GatherDebugInfo would be useful since it'll include the Java version as well... I don't think there will be a "theme" issue using TinyLAF, but it can't hurt to have as much information as possible.

Edit: now that I think about it, all of MT's custom keystrokes use Ctrl on Windows and Cmd on Mac, so I can't see how an Alt key would be something MT would respond to! And especially in a way that doesn't bring up the "Do you want to save your campaign?" dialog...?

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:34 pm
by lmarkus001
This is 100% repeatable on my 4 Windows 10 boxes:
Windows 10
MapTool 1.3.b87 -- Java6 64-bit
MapTool 1.3.b91 -- Java7 64-bit
MapTool 1.4.1.7 -- Java8 jre1.8.0_111 64-bit
MapTool 1.4.3.8 NERPS! w/JWrapper

This is 100% repeatable on the 2 Windows 7 boxes I tested:
Windows 7
MapTool 1.3.b87 -- Java6 64-bit
MapTool 1.3.b91 -- Java7 64-bit
MapTool 1.4.1.7 -- Java8 jre1.8.0_111 64-bit



ONCE AGAIN...

Launch MapTool
Press ALT, SPACEBAR x3... viola new campaign... BLAT!

ALT - activates the File menu
SPACEBAR - pops down the File menu and highlights New Campaign
SPACEBAR - selects New Campaign and yields the prompt "Discard current Campaign?"
SPACEBAR - selects the Yes option of the New Campaign dialog and WIPES the current campaign...

in fact, I cannot fail to make this happen now that I know the combo. This is 100% repeatable in all Windows versions of MapTool I have been able to dig up.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 10:59 am
by OpusAndi
I can verify this key combination reliably behaves in the manner Imarkus001 describes running MT 1.4.1.7 on Windows 10.

What we are seeing is the default behavior built into Windows, not something specific to MT coding or Java.

Windows accessibility is designed such that pressing the ALT key activates the menu systems keyboard access. You then have quick access to application defined key mappings as well as arrow keys for manual navigation and the space bar for activating the current selection. I would expect the same functionality regardless of Windows version.

I completely understand how frustrating losing your current campaign would be.
I also know I am someone who takes complete advantage of this functionality so have grown accustomed to this behavior. I for sure would miss it if we were to disable the alt key functionality.

Thinking outside the box, maybe we could add an option within MT that would lock the current session. That could provide behavior during game play such that when activated you could not create a new or open an existing campaign. Maybe you would be limited to just saving the existing campaign.

Just some thoughts I hope you find helpful.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 11:10 am
by wolph42
JamzTheMan wrote:Is this a MacOS thing? Because in Windows/Linux (Debian) I get the Min/max/move standard OS Popup menu?

I'm not able to duplicate this on Windows or Linux so if you can provide more information (OS version) and make sure you don't have any other software interfering, that would be helpful...
you got that because you did alt+space instead of alt, space.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 12:21 pm
by JamzTheMan
All yes, comma's matter :-)

I see the issue now. I don't want to get rid of the Alt keybinding (for accessibility/no mouse use) but I do see a problem with the dialog prompts default focus on "Yes".

If I change those to "No", would that be acceptable? I would change this for "Open Campaign" as well. So worst case you get the dialog but it closes safely...that is, as long as you don't Alt, Space, Tab, Space. :-)

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 5:08 pm
by Full Bleed
lmarkus001 wrote:And why would I do such a combo? Because I hit space and the arrow does not pop up, then I miss hit alt, then I spam space because I want the arrow to show up. This is an amazingly easy thing to do.
Woah. Nice catch... can totally see how this could happen (especially since you're generally looking at the screen when pounding on the space bar with your off-hand and moving the pointer around with the mouse).

I think Jamz' solution would fix it.

Re: [FREQ] Remove the keybinding for New Campaign

Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2016 9:27 am
by lmarkus001
Indeed, default to No would fix it nicely!