Show keys for tools in the game

[Leartin]

So, the keys assigned in menuconf.tab are visible in the ingame help. However, it's a list that perhaps noone reads properly. I'm pretty sure I learned all shortcuts in programs where I do use them simply because they are shown to me when I try to use the tool via mouse/menu.

1) Mouseover of the icon in the menu, next to the name. Perhaps in square brackets to make it easier to understand it's a key.

2) Similarly, Mouseover in the dialogs. Especially stuff in the Display and Sound settings.

While mouseover is not great for tablets, this information is not needed there anyway, so it should be fine. However, since it's a problem in it's own right:

3) Show the mouseover info of the currently active tool somewhere, eg at the bottom of the screen. This also means that if you are using a tool which you don't know the key for and you want to switch to another for a moment, you can easily look up the key for short-term use.

4) Show it in the corner of the icon in the menu.
This is what paksets do anyway, except they have to do it as a graphic and might mismatch. The issue here: There are various informations a pakset might place on the icon, so no matter where and how it would be displayed by the game, it might hide some other information. Still, I think longterm it would makes sense to try and get a way to show all of those informations (like speed, capacity, electrification,...) directly via the game, such that paksets might eventually switch to buttons without them.

[prissi]

I think 4 is very reasonable, 3 is a good idea but needs some reworking of the bottom scrollbar.

The mousover, hmm, there are quite some tools without.

[Roboron]

So far I've not liked solution #4, the letters are usually hard to read because they are too small and/or contrast is not good (both are related). Solution #1 is the one I like the most.

Another option: in many programs (at least on linux) pressing the "Alt" key on the keyboard shows you the keys to navigate through the menus. A similar thing could be done for key bindings, but in our case replacing (or drawing on top of) the tool icon, the key letter/combination temporarily while this key is pressed.

[Leartin]

I like the alt key idea, add that to the list as number 5.

number 4 isn't really a solution since it doesn't change the status quo. It's more of an adjacent note that ideally, the icon graphic should never need to be edited for any adjustments in the dat file, and for keybinding it's the worst since those are not even in a dat file but menuconf. This is mostly convenience for the pak dev and wouldn't help players much.

[prissi]

For option 1, what to do with icons, that have already a mouseover tooltip?

[Leartin]

For option 1, what to do with icons, that have already a mouseover tooltip?

Isn't that, like, all of them? Pretty sure they all show at least their name, some name and cost. Many icons have more, even though they refer to objects, not tools directly, so I guess there is a function somewhere that concatenates information in a string to be displayed as the mouseover tooltip. And that's where one would add the keybinding.
The mouseover for the removal tool currently says "Destroy/Remove", and I suggest it should say "Destroy/Remove [R]"

[prissi]

Ok, that would rather trivial indeed.