Under Study

Ok, so I'm pretty sure there's been some previous discussions on this but ...

To clear up confusion and set the language I see two definitions for the term 'Action Bar' being used.  To explain the difference:

Term 1 - is used to refer to your 'Primary' action bar which has 10 separate bars (or pages if you like) available for use with different skills.  For clarity, going forward, I'll refer to these as 'Action Bar Pages'

Term 2 - This is being used to refer to the difference between Action Bar #1 (aka Action Bar /Hands) and Action Bar #2
I've added an img below to show the 2 action bars:



The idea of he second action bar, whilst is a good idea to enable Homins to use skills from more than a single action bar page simultaneously is ok, but it has 1 main limitation. Action Bar #1 and Action Bar #2 are in fact duplicates. But, what if they weren't duplicates and could be used as 2 independent bars?

When looking at the range of skills (Magic, Melee, Dig, Craft, Ranged etc) it's easy to see a situation where Homins run out of space on their action bars. This can be particularly true where a lot of macros are used for equipment groups, dig, boss hunts etc.

Taking crafting as an example:
If a Homin were to level Melee Weapon crafting, the crafting plans can be bought for all 4 races meaning, 1 action bar page could have 4 stanzas (one for each race) just for melee weapon crafting. The same is true for Ranged, Armour, Jewel, Tool crafting stanzas etc and so, it's easy to completely fill 1 action bar page solely with racial crafting stanzas!

Should action bar #1 and action bar #2 be completely separate?

O.o but then it will be need to develop, patent, produce and start selling keyboards with additional numeric buttons 11-20...

Really? :D

Have 2 separated bars will be the same problem xD

You always need additionnals keybinds.
keys 1->10 for bar#1, keys 11->20 for bar#2

Or do you ask that when you press a key both bars will change Oo ?


Btw, separate the bars are just adding a restriction in display.
In bar#1 you only display the rows 1-10
In bar#2 you only display the rows 11-20

and you have separation ;)

Just add more action bar pages.

@Ulukyn

What Hayt said does have some merit, currently you can do ctrl+# to swap to a page (e.g. ctrl+0 goes to page 10 on actionbar1)

Would need to add something like alt+# for the new pages 11-20

maybe ctrl-# and alt-# for actionbar1 1-20
and shift+ctrl-# and shift+alt-# for actionbar2 1-20

Looks like a bunch of ALT+NUM and SHIFT+ALT+NUM will be freed!
https://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=topic/view/31897/1 #1

Yes, sorry, I'm talking more in terms of how to code this than how to use it and thus make confusion.

Currently, actions are a DB entry with 10 pages of 20 slots.

We have 2 options :
1 - Create a new DB entry with 10 pages and 20 slots and so have two independent DB entries, one for each actionbars
2 - Extend the current DB entry with 10 additional pages of 20 slots and display for actionbar#1 only the pages 1-10 and for actionbar#2 the pages 11-20


Both option are for the player exactly the same in terms of shortcuts, since each actionbar will have his own shortcuts to select the page (1-10) and to select the slot.

Now let's leave the code aside, yes it will be in terms of use 2 independent bars, each with their shortcuts :)

I prefer to approach an UI design from a user perspective - and then make the code to reflect that.

Currently we have:
In a single action bar, I access items via <num> or <shift>+<num>.
I switch action bars via <ctrl>+<num>

We have two ways we can extend that:
Adding additional action bars:
switching to further action bars IMHO should hence default to <ctrl>+<shift>+<num>.

Alternatively make a single action bar bigger. Then we can have 20 entries in a single action bar via
<num>
<shift> + <num>
<alt> + <num>
<alt> + <shift> + <num>

and keep changing action bars via <ctrl>+<num>.

Now, one or two action bars?
I'd like to make an argument for two separate action bars, individually configurable and selectable:

a) we already have two bars
b) this allows to have a few 'always-on' stanzas available while using the other more context-sensitive.

The point I don't yet have a good solution for is: this means basically it's action bars 0-9 for one bar and 10-19 for the other. People will want to be able to use either stanza selection on either bar. Maybe just iterating via mouse through them could work with the keyboard shortcuts only acting on one (without <alt> key) and the other (with <alt> key active)

I like the idea of extending the action bar.

My personal preference is to have an extension to the actual bar.
This is because i use my way to shortcut them:

keys 1 to 0 for 1-10 actions
keys q to p for 11-20 actions (easy to remember as they are just bottom of relative numbers)

keys a to ò to switch the bars 1-10 so, once a bar is switched the keys 1 to 0 and q to p works the same.

All other shortcuts work with ctrl and alt, given they are not actions but for other purpose.

In this way i can use the bars even without having them on screen (just to say, not that i hide them).

Of course any solution is okay for me.