Windowed mode usability improvement

[Thalagyrt]

I was just pondering windowed mode, which I use most of the time I'm playing. It'd be really nice if there were an easier way to drop focus when windowed instead of having to hit alt+tab. Most of the more modern games will let you simply mouse in/out of the game at will whenever the cursor is up.

I'd wager they're probably using a different input library as it seems they simply use the OS supplied mouse facilities whereas NC seems to manage its own cursor facilities, so this is likely not as simple a change as it may seem up front, but it's something to consider, and of course there may be alternate methods to achieve the same end goal that are less radical!

[Jack Slater]

Carefull with that! It only makes sense while in RPOS. But when you leave the window while pvping thats pretty deadly.
I don't mind tabbing. Tried Diablo 3 once in window mode and hated it because of the coursor leaving the window.

[Thalagyrt]

There are libraries designed for exactly this use case. NC is capturing and handling *all* cursor functionality itself instead of delegating to a library designed for game input. This is also why the cursor completely ignores any mouse settings you've made.

Diablo 3 is a fundamentally different game; the cursor is part of the gameplay. Yes, it's going to leave the window when you mouse out. That's not a problem when the cursor is captured while you're in mouse look, which is any FPS.

[CoreKeeper]

There are libs for this use case today, but development on the engine started 1999 or earlier (judging from when the domain was first registered).
And it's a clusterfuck of hacks held together by duct tape (just take a look at the source on reakktor.com to get an idea of KK's competence) and there is little manpower available.

I do support the idea though. An undecorated (borderless) window mode would also be nice.

[aKe`cj]

... development on the engine started 1999 or earlier ...
And it's a clusterfuck of hacks held together by duct tape (just take a look at the source on reakktor.com to get an idea of KK's competence)

apples and oranges have more in common than the 2013 reakktor.com excuse for a website and the neocron 1 fundamentals. the core developers, responsible for the framework that powers neocron, left reakktor long before mjs sold out - not to mention that this reinkkarnation thing is a completely separate company from neocrons former shepherd reakktor media.
not saying you may not be right, but if you are going to judge neocrons code quality, maybe you should use some other metric.

[Agent L]

What OP is trying to say can be summarized as "marrying relative mouse mode (like any FPS) with absolute mouse mode (like any point and click)". It's the same "problem" ppl with touchscreens are whining about and it's been there in all games since Windows95, as ppl with Wacoms know.

It is not a library problem, it is a design problem. Libraries are not a magic wands solving world peace. Library is just a piece of code, written by someone else and in 99% cases tailored for HIS project and not yours. There's nothing a library can solve you can't solve on your own, using a library is just a cheaper way to do something.

And if you've ever tired researching, you know that NC is intentionally keeping mouse position secret as a means to make macroing more difficult.

What you are proposing here has about as many cons as pros. While for you easy moving mouse out of game window is an "improvement", others (including me) can recall a dozen of games where exact opposite is true: keeping the mouse from falling out would be a worthy improvement.
If this was to be implemented, it'd have to be optional, alternative mode.

I said it once, that releasing and reacquiring mouse to switch mode every time you hit "tab" might be a non-trivial operation.
Can you imagine pvp when closing rpos have 0.3 sec delay?