Keyboard

Hello!

I have a concern about the implementation of keyboard control in the Mac version of Defcon:
It appears to be completely insensitive to layouts other than QWERTY. This makes using WASDQE control (which is very convenient) very awkward on (at least) the French and Belgian, Dvorak, and other Latin keyboard layouts that modify the location of those keys. Non-latin layouts, such as Russian, end up being mapped to Latin characters in an unpredictable way, making them completely unusable.

Using global shortcuts to switch layouts midgame does not work (that's what I do in Windows: QWERTY while playing and Dvorak while typing).
I did find a workaround, although it involves a little hassle:

• Change the default key layout to U.S.

• Launch DEFCON

• Change the screen mode to Windowed.

• Change key layout to the preferred one.
  Now, text entry in Defcon (chat etc.) will use your preferred layout, and moving around on the map will use correct key placements.

• Change back to full screen.

Also, you may be aware that using the boss key (Esc, Esc) while playing the game in full screen mode will return you to Windowed mode when you resume the game. This is uncomfortable, because to switch it back to fullscreen, one must use the menus, and the Cmd-F shortcut provided by the menu does not work.

In short, I believe that people of international backgrounds will benefit immensely from the addition of the following functionality to the game, in order of importance:

• Resolution of the Boss key bug (returning to windowed mode when was originally in full screen)

• Awareness of alternate keyboard layouts: preservation of game keys while allowing comfortable text input (perhaps by analyzing raw keyboard scan-codes for game keys, and using the OS keyboard layout for text fields)

• Ability to use system-wide keyboard shortcuts while in-game

• Support for non-English text (will probably require falling back to system fonts).

This would probably be a better fit for the IV forums, because Introversion actually developed the game. Ambrosia just ported it. I'll alert the appropriate people.

Try "Options" -> "Other" -> "Keyboard Layout". See if that gets you where you need to go.

Oh, and non-English fonts are supported, kind of. It is a bit of a hack to get it to work, but the font files used by Defcon are .bmps. You can add further chars to those. For instance, Ahmed90 has translated most of the game into Russian.

xander

Options > Others > Keyboard allows you to change to AZERTY, QZERTY and DVORAK layouts.

thank you, everyone :))