There are actually 3 hotkeys to “center” the hero in H3:

1. H - Centers, but on the next hero with movement points left
2. Return - but only if hero is selected AND not already centered, otherwise it opens the Hero screen (I forgot about this in my other post earlier)
3. Spacebar (introduced in Armageddon’s Blade) - centers + revisits location

So you’re right, maybe we do have enough “centering” hotkeys in H3. I’ll leave however my request for adding NumPad 5, as hotkey to center (and nothing else). It could be useful to implement next to the other NumPad keys for hero movement (unless someone thinks of a better use for it).

I checked and you are also right about M to buy maximum creatures, however typing a number did not work for me. Are you sure about that?

22 Gradual implementation of all H3 shortcuts: [Mostly implemented, except those[/color] in red]

[quote]
Heroes of Might and Magic III - Keyboard Shortcuts:[/quote]

Adventure Map
H - Selects next hero
T - Selects next town
M - Moves current hero
K - Kingdom Overview
U - Toggles map elevation (surface/underground)
C - Cast spell
Z - Puts current hero to sleep
W - Wakens current hero
Q - Quest Log
E - End turn

Arrow Keys - Moves current hero
(Including the NumPad keys, very useful for moving the hero also on diagonal: 1,3,7,9)
Ctrl + Arrow Keys - Scrolls Adventure Map
Return - Centers current hero or town on Adventure Map or Confirm message window
Tab - Send a chat message (multi-player game)
Esc - Quit to Desktop or Exit message window

A - Adventure Options:
V - View World (also available from Adventure Map)
P - Puzzle Map (also available from Adventure Map)
D - Dig (also available from Adventure Map)
I - View Scenario Info (also available from Adventure Map)
R - Replay Opponent’s Turn

O - System Options:
L - Load Game (also available from Adventure Map)
S - Save Game (also available from Adventure Map)
R - Restart Scenario
M - Main Menu
Q - Quit to Desktop
Esc - Return to Game

Combat Screen
A - Automatic combat on/off (hotkey actions the button, but functionality isn’t implemented yet - to check again when implemented)
D - Defend
W - Wait

C - Cast spell
R - Retreat
S - Surrender
O - Combat Options
T - View troop
F5 - Toggles creature pop-up types
F6 - Toggles hex grid display
F7 - Toggles mouse shadow display
F8 - Toggles movement shadow display
Up/Down Arrow Keys - Scrolls combat messages
Space - Selects next creature (in the manual, but it actually acts as “Defend”)
S - Start combat during Tactics phase

Town Screen
Up Arrow - Previous town
Down Arrow - Next town
Space - Switches visiting/garrison heroes

Spell Book
Left/Right Arrows - Turns pages

Up/Down Arrows - Move through bookmarks
A - Displays adventure spells
C - Combat spells

View Army Window
U - Upgrade creature
D - Dismiss creature

General
F1 - Help
F4 - Toggles window/full screen display
Esc - Cancel, Exit, or No
Return - Okay, Accept, or Yes.

The above is extracted from the H3 Manual released with Restoration of Erathia. If you are aware of any other hotkeys introduced later in the add-ons, please let us know. pHOMM already pointed out a couple of examples:

[quote]
Adventure Map[/quote]

Spacebar - Center hero and/or Revisit location (introduced in Armageddon’s Blade)

Combat Screen - Tactics phase
Space - Select next creature
Return - Begin combat (exit Tactics phase)

Town Screen - Recruiting
M - Maximum

**pHOMM **also mentioned the use of digits “for typing number”, but that doesn’t seem to work for recruiting (unless I misunderstood what it refers to). Of course, this can be further enhanced anyway, and here would be an example proposal:

23 (NEW)

[quote]
Town Screen - Recruiting & Marketplace[/quote]

M : Maximum (the only one already existing)
Backspace or 0 : Minimum (0)
Number keys : type in exact value
NumPad +/- : Increase/Decrease amount with 1 unit

By the way, for everyone’s information, the **VCMI **devs have already implemented a few other hotkeys (Tow/TowDragon, feel free to edit my post to add those that I forgot):

[quote]
Adventure Map[/quote]

Ctrl - by holding it pressed, we can leave the game interface without causing the map to scroll when our mouse pointer passed the edge of the map on its way "out"
Ctrl+Arrows - can also scroll Adventure Map behind open windows (e.g.: Treasure Chest window, but also Town screen or Battlefield on higher resolutions)
Number keys (1,2,…) - Used for selection in choice windows (Treasure Chest, Hero skill choice, and perhaps later on also Commander skill choice)

Combat Screen
Q - Show stack queue (the attack order of the creatures on the battlefield)

[quote=“Zamolxis”]
23 (NEW)

0 shouldn’t be used to minimum shortcut, because it should be enabled for typing numbers
ie. when we type 106 it shouldn’t be zeroed and after changed to 6 but it should set amount to 106 (as we type)

@ majaczeck: You’re right. I edited my post above to leave only ‘Backspace’ for that function.

[size=75]Regarding the functionality requests, those are more that just minor tweaks, but more like mod requests (as the alter the gameplay), so I’m not gonna give them a log number for this thread. I’ll probably open a new thread soon for this purpose. Or if you want to discuss your proposals more in detail, you can even open a new thread in the General Discussion section.[/size]

24 - (NEW) Double click to select Gold/Experience, or between 2 Primary/Secondary skills when we have a choice window.

25 - In the Scenario Advanced Options panel, of the elements still to be implemented, I’d like first to have the pop-up window when we right-click the starting hero. Especially once that the hero specialties are implemented, it will be useful to be able to easily check that before we start the game:

i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/Zamolxis/VCMI%202009/th_090601-RC-SHero.jpg [IMPLEMENTED]

Yep! hi there, guys(and maybe girls)

I’m terribly sorry for my fault, actually ONLY SPLITSTACK DIALOG uses digits for typing exact number, i thought this helps in recruit dialog and didn’t checked (counting on my experience and kniwledge in heroes) and posted wrong, even without mentioning about splitstackdialog, so sorry guys, esp. Zamolxis

Following the topic :

26 there were lots of wishes in russsian forums about not only stack queue, but also info about retaliation (retaliated this round or not and how many retaliations left - but it only affects griffin, but in future maybe others) and morale effect (had a creature morale already or not, this is important in battles against lots of neutral creatures - when they split in 6-7 stacks)
But really i think the first part(retaliations) is easy to implement but second isn’t worthy a lot

27 improvement request - although we have a stack queue in battle i think there is a way to improve it : if we and opponent have lots of same-typed creatures, then a bit hard to understand which one goes now (i know there is a colored border))))
so the requests are

1. to put digits in a queue (it’s the base i ask)
2. make a highlighting - when mouse cursor is on a queue, the creature, that is pointed by cursor, is blue-highlighted - it’s like we hovered a creature on the battlefield - it’s the same how it’s in H5 made (because it’s easy-to-implement, as i think )), i hope we’ll see this soon)
3. make a long - 2-3-turns long queue, (again like in h5) because often it’s less-pain-to-know when and who makes double-turn (using wait with the same speed of creatures), of course this makes the queue more dynamic, because we need the queue to be affected by haste/slow/blind/creature_abilities (and all types of curing/resurrections/dispells) now it’s even not affected by slow and haste ( i’ll post about in 0.72 bugs thread)

Actually there is a spell called “Counterstrike” so this is not a griffin only thing

I agree about queue improvements

About typing in the creature number - no worries. I just thought maybe that worked in some other version of Heroes, who knows. Anyway, is good you brought it up, as it might be interesting to have it in VCMI as well.

Regarding request 27 (NEW):

1. Putting stack size also in the queue might be indeed useful to distinguish between two same type creatures on the battlefield (correct me if you meant sth else by “digits in a queue”)
2. Marking a creature in the queue when we hover over it on the battlefield is indeed another way to identify it, particularly useful if we end up having same type creature stacks of either same size, or very large but comparable sizes
3. A longer queue might be useful, but I would limit it to the number of creatures also. Something like: “2 turns, but no more than 15 creatures” for example.
   Overall, all good ideas anyway.

Now, coming back to the original H3 features:

28 Spell damage information when we right click on the spell in the Spell Book. Right now I think the window opening when we right click on them in the Spell Book is the same with the one in the Magic Guild, but H3 had extra information regarding the spell damage. But if this was intentionally left out before support for Power & Sorcery is implemented, I understand the delay.
[IMPLEMENTED]

29 Spell damage information in the Battle log - after casting
[IMPLEMENTED]

And a suggestion:

30 (NEW) Spell damage information in the Battle log - before casting. This can be implemented in two ways:
a) Either straight forward (but maybe rather boring) values: "Cast Lightning Bolt on Air Elementals for xx damage"
b) Or mentioning only when necessary the buffs & debuffs: “Cast Lightning Bolt on Air Elementals for yy% extra damage” (due to creature’s vulnerability to that particular spell)

[size=75]All this information about spell damage would make it easier for the testers to check if the damage is correct I think. At least I’d prefer to calculate on the spot, rather than trying to reproduce the same situation (same spell, same hero power etc) in H3 to check that it corresponds to VCMI.[/size]

aa31 (NEW) >> alternate quicksave for hotkey “S” - additional to autosaves but diffrent name and on player demand

aa32 (NEW) >> number of autosaves customizable by setings.txt
(may be default 5, may be less (eg. 3), may be more (eg. 10) on client(server?) demand)

33 (NEW) aa>> computer could ask “are you sure” when digging
in plain homm3 if you press D by mistake it just dig without ask, which is rather unfunny on turn beggining

34 >>load screen access from game “L” hotkey] (it’s currently missing, and thankfully to the curent code is easy to do)
[IMPLEMENTED]

35 (NEW) >> possibility to put custom object in mapmaker
it can be supported by placing local event where message start with “VCMIOBJECT" in first line
and text object signature in next lines (handled by map loading code in VCMI)
where could be more "VCMI…” things ie. “VCMILUAEVENT" "VCMIPYEVENT” or anything that devs thinks VCMI needs
plus code fixup to not show text of local event if starting by “VCMI~~”

^^ Few comments/suggestions on the above:

aa31 >> Hotkey “S” is used for normal Save Game in H3. Perhaps we should have a different hotkey for Quicksave (i.e.: “Ctrl+S” - and then we could have “Ctrl+L” for QuickLoad).

aa33 >> That’s a very good suggestion. Hitting D by accident on Adv.Map was indeed quite annoying in H3. Luckily we have now Autosave in the beginning of the turn, which would save some time, but a confo pop-up for digging would eliminate the risk completely.

aa34 >> That’s kinda included in aa2, but let’s leave that for Main Menu only then, and this for Load (and I took the liberty of adding the “L” hotkey to your post so that it’s implemented together with the function).

36 (NEW) Feature request: on pressing “Print Screen” screenshot capture to game subfolder.
Can be quite useful in testing.

It’d be quite easy to implement. I’ll do that when there is nothing more urgent.

37 Enter key (Main+NumPad) and Double Click to load the selected game from the New Game and Load Game interfaces.
[IMPLEMENTED]

38 (NEW) Spacebar to act same Enter when revisiting map objects (i.e.: Water Wheel, etc). Like this we can easily use the same Spacebar key to open/close the pop-up message, rather than using different ones.

I’ve implemented T hotkey for opening market window. It can be used even if some other windows are opened, so you won’t have to close Magic School popup and revisit it

We have also a good progress with #5 request. (Hero meeting window.) Will be ready for the next release

^^

Ooh… You sure you meant request #5 and not just #4? If yes, that would be awesome!

And regarding T for opening market in any screen, that’s indeed a great feature. Thanks pHOMM for thinking of it, and thanks Tow for implementing it.

Uh, actually I was thinking about #4 but it’s a part of #5 as well. Both requests will be realized

39 Restart Scenario might be a good to have, in case we want to test things like starting armies, starting Tavern heroes, etc.
[IMPLEMENTED]
[size=75]Same as the need to Load a saved game, it’s getting (only) a bit annoying having to first close the application and then restart it to test a certain small thing over and over again - trying to reproduce a bug.[/size]

40 (NEW) Possibility to Save Game during a battle. Either just a quick save, to be accessed only from the Load menu later on, or simply full access to game options (Load/Save/Main Menu/etc) while in battle. This is of course not a priority, but perhaps a good to have in the farther future.

41 Support for Shipyards
[IMPLEMENTED]
and/or

42 Support for Summon Boat spell
[IMPLEMENTED]
Both requests are because I noticed Navigation secondary skill was implemented since 0.63, however it’s not so easy to test it without boats.

43 Main Menu hotkeys (see full list on 1st page of the thread)
[Mostly implemented,[/color] except the ability to Exit Credits with any hotkey - only mouse click works]

44 (NEW) Possibility to Tab through the clickable buttons in the game menus, and activate them with Enter/Spacebar/Arrows. Again, not a priority of course, just a nice to have.

In case you consider it, I’m thinking of the following behavior for example:

• we are in the Main Menu, we press the standard hotkeys N, then S, and then we are in the New Scenario screen (where in H3 only the mouse could take us further)
• we could however have Tab cycling through the buttons Show Available Scenarios, Random Map, WoG Options, Show Advanced Options, Begin and Back
• These buttons could be activated by Spacebar (or those opening just a half screen in the left side, could open/close with left/right arrow)

Autosaving when loading is indeed redundant, as we already have a Saved Game. But that’s not the case with starting a New Game. In case we notice an issue at game start, and (by mistake) we want to reproduce it by starting again - we may actually lose the chance of having a saved game with that issue. My suggestion would be:

45 (NEW) Same as the Autosaves after End Turn, we could have a set of autosaves at game start (NewGame_1, NewGame_2, etc), which would capture the last 3-5 game starts, in case we need to compare them afterward (as game loading will not override them).

If however you feel that such feature is not worth the (coding) effort, then at least I would include again the first turns in the Autosaves (whoever starts a new game, probably does not need Autosave_1 so much anymore). Or again - alternatively we could have an Autosave_0 file, which saves the last first turn on a map.

But, alternatives aside, I still feel 3 to 5 NewGame files would be the best solution to preserve first turns for a long time. I think such saves would be very useful, as they contain quite some information, which may prove later on useful, in regards to some particular bug:

• Randomly generated resources (weekly generators, but also objects like lean-to)
• Randomly generated artifacts and monsters
• Randomly generated heroes in all Taverns & their armies
• etc (other randomly generated items, which may not be retrievable later on).
  [IMPLEMENTED]

45B Autosave after game start/load should maybe better overwrite the oldest of the 5 Autosave files, rather than always starting with Autosave1.

46 When we recruit creatures from a map location, the message saying: “The (creatures) would join your hero, but there aren’t enough provisions to support them” - is not implemented yet.
[IMPLEMENTED]

46a SUGGESTION Although not yet implemented, I believe it may be more practical if we would replace that message, with the window we get when a creature wants to join us, but our army is full. It would save us quite some mouse clicks, as often there is actually place in our army, we just have to bring together some 2 stacks of the same creature. Full behavior should be:

• If we can make space for the new stack, the transactions is completed after we move it in the army
• If we cannot make space and don’t want the stack for now, we should be able to press the Cancel button and so cancel the transaction (no money lost, creatures still recruitable)
• If we cannot make space, but are willing to sacrifice an existing stack, we should be able to do so, by exchanging slots (transaction completed, sacrificed stack lost).

46b MODDING SUGGESTION: Regarding the 3rd option suggested above, instead of sacrificing the stack, it would be more interesting if we could leave it as defending army for our flagged dwelling. [size=75](I know this thread is not the place for mod suggestions, but as it was related, I though of writing it down somewhere, better than forgetting about it when we’ll discuss mods in the future)[/size]

46c Alternative suggestion If you believe the above would not be a good idea, another alternative (possible only when there is a split stack in our army) would be to replace the message “The (creatures) would join your hero, but there aren’t enough provisions to support them” with a choice window saying “The (creatures) would join your hero, if you are willing to regroup your split stacks” - to which VCMI would automatically regroup the (let’s say) lowest level split stack, adding the new recruits to the army.

Majaczek’s suggestion above was implemented, however only for the Stack Split window. This could be extended to other screens and further enhanced as follows:

47 - Fill-in values @ Marketplace. As originally suggested by majaczek; for both Marketplace screen: “Trade Res.” and “Give res. to other player” (the latter not yet implemented in VCMI)

48 - Fill-in values in Recruit window. It could be useful to have the type-in number possibility in the Recruit screen as well.

49 - Arrow keys to move sliders. It would be nice to be able to use the left/right arrows to decrease/increase the value of the slider with 1 unit.
[IMPLEMENTED, [/color]also for up/down arrows & mouse wheel, albeit those feel counter intuitive - see #1277]

[size=75]And because we talked about the Marketplace:[/size]

50 - Complete Marketplace interface:

• Add subtitle tooltips
• Add “Give resources to other players” screen, functionality & button
  [IMPLEMENTED]
  //
  51 - CTRL hotkey to use melee attack for ranged creatures in battle.

[size=75]WoG also added r-click on Defend button to open a menu where we can choose between melee, ranged and cast attacks (like H4). Personally I never used that, but I just thought of mentioning it in case you think it’s interesting to implement that as well.[/size]

52 - FADING EFFECTS:

52.01 Fade out of all map items which disappear after interaction with a hero:

• artifacts
• scholars
• campfires
• spell scrolls
• resource piles
• treasure chests
• pandora’s boxes
• flotsams
• sea chests
• ocean bottles
• shipwreck survivors
• quest/border guards
• prisons (fade to hero)
• defeated/disbanded heroes
• defeated/fleeing/joining monsters

52.02 Fade in/out effects for battle spells:

• fade in for Summoned Elementals (and also other creatures later in WoG or other mods)
• fade in effect for Land Mines, combined with a specific animation in the beginning
• fade out effect for Removed Obstacles, in parallel with the animation on top of them
• short fade in effect for Quicksand
• short fade out effect for Teleport (it seems the fade out effect ends with the creature instantly appearing in the new hex, so no fade in - unless my eyes are deceiving me)

52.03 Fade in/out effects for adventure spells:

• fade in/out for Summoned/Scuttled boats (incl. defeated hero in boat)
• faded transition when map is recentering on the new hero position after using Town Portal or Dimension Door

52.04 Fade in/out for heroes landing or embarking

52.05 Faded transition between Surface & Underground when hero passes through the Subterranean Gate

52.06 Fade in effect when building structures in town (and fade out when the WoG destroy structure feature will be supported)

52.07 Fade in for heroes recruited at the Tavern (with same effect for the creatures in their army)

52.08 Fade out effect for the Puzzle Map.

52.09 (WoG only) When this WoG feature will be supported, fade in of monsters/artifacts the hero drops on the map (with r-click)

52.10 Short faded transition when opening/closing Town/Battle screens. And I believe there was also a very short faded transition between the game load interface and the Adventure Map, or upon leaving the Adv.Map to the Main Menu. H3 had these, but so short that we almost didn’t notice the fading effect. And maybe better so, because I don’t want to have to wait more than 1 second for my Town screen to open (and waiting for the intro battle music with armies frozen was sometimes a bit too much already). But it might be interesting to have, especially for higher resolutions, at least some short fade in/out effects when we open those screens on top of the Adventure Map.

These are by no means a priority now, but I thought of listing them all in one place, before people start reporting them one by one in various bug threads (as I already saw a report for just one of the items I listed at 52.01). I hope I didn’t forget anything, so feel free to point out if anything is missing.

//
53 - FADING SOUNDS: All of the above fading effects are accompanied by a specific sound (except for 52.10). It may be a good idea, after implementing one or the other, to check if the associated sound works as well.

[size=75]Best regards,
Zam[/size]

54 - (NEW) Arrow keys to move up & down the hero list in the Hero window.

55 - Lookout Tower functionality. Not urgent, but it was reported as bug 0.71#57 - which is not the case - so I thought I’d better report this in the right place.
[IMPLEMENTED]

56 - Battle Retreat. Currently we can retreat, but hero disappears completely. It should reappear at Tavern with 1 L1 unit and no but same artifacts (and of course spells).
[Partly implemented - see [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view.php?id=1416]#1416]

57 - Battle Surrender. Same as retreat, but paying the fee to keep your troops (it’ll appear at Tavern with same troops, artifacts & spells)
[Partly implemented - see [url=http://bugs.vcmi.eu/view.php?id=1416]#1416]

EDIT: When implementing 56 & 57, make sure Retreat/Surrender function also if the hero has no Tavern, but builds one before the end of the week or finds one on the map.