powexectoggleon/off parsing

[Luminara]

Every power that we want to bind to a key using powexectoggleon requires 18 characters in addition to the power name.

 

powexectoggleon<space before the power name>$$

 

powexectoggleoff uses 19 characters.

 

powexectoggleoff<space before the power name>$$

 

Binds have a limit of 255 characters, so this really restricts the commands.  The overhead from the commands alone is insane.  The more toggles you bind, the more of the bind string is spent just to use the commands, in a disproportionate way.

 

Here's my Staff/Willpower brute's toggle binds, for example.

 

B "powexectoggleoff Infiltration$$powexectoggleoff Sprint$$powexectoggleon Weave$$powexectoggleon Tough$$powexectoggleon Mind Over Body$$powexectoggleon Heightened Senses$$powexectoggleon Rise to the Challenge$$powexectoggleon Indomitable Will"

 

V "powexectoggleon Infiltration$$powexectoggleon Sprint$$powexectoggleon Form of the Body$$powexectoggleon Maneuvers$$powexectoggleon Stealth$$powexectoggleon Combat Jumping"

 

That B bind is crammed.  I've used almost all of the 255 characters allowed, yet I still have four toggles (Form of the Body, Combat Jumping, Stealth and Maneuvers) that I want active.  I've blown 146 out of my 255 character budget on powexectoggleon and powexectoggleoff.  That's more than half of the character limit used for the commands.  I have to offload almost half of my combat toggles to another key.  Even if I rebound my travel powers to a different set of keys (which would be stupid and pointless, as i'm binding things to these keys to make my interface with the game more efficient), I couldn't turn all of my combat toggles on with one key.

 

We're using more of the character limit on the commands than we're using for the powers.  That's... backwards.  It makes writing binds unnecessarily difficult, it makes using the commands frustrating.  When I'm binding toggles on a character like this, I have to spend a lot of time deleting, backspacing, substituting this power or that power to reduce the character count, rearranging which powers are activated in the sequence, all to compensate for that extra 18-19 characters per toggle that slams me up against the character limit halfway through assigning another toggle to the string.  It takes ten times as long and ten times as much work as it should.  It's neither efficient nor elegant, and it's damn sure not as simple as it could be.

 

I've worked around this annoyance for a long time, but it's one of those things that just keeps bothering me, so I've been thinking about it, how it could be improved.  I have two ideas:

 

Change the command so it only needs the first few letters of a power to activate it.

• B "powexectoggleoff Infil$$powexectoggleoff Sprin$$powexectoggleon Maneu$$powexectoggleon Comba$$powexectoggleon Weave$$powexectoggleon Tough$$powexectoggleon Steal$$powexectoggleon Mind$$powexectoggleon Heigh$$powexectoggleon Rise$$powexectoggleon Indom"

Like that.  That's exactly 255 characters (253 if we disregard the B<space>), and 3 of the 4 toggles I have to assign to the V key are on the B key.

 

Or

 

Change the command so it only requires one use of powexectoggleon, and enacts that command on every power listed in the string.

• b "powexectoggleoff Infiltration&Sprint$$powexectoggleon Form of the Body&Maneuvers&Combat Jumping&Weave&Tough&Stealth&Mind Over Body&Heightened Senses&Rise to the Challenge&Indomitable Will"

Like that ($$ is the command separator, the identifier which tells the engine that what follows it is another command, which is why a different character would (probably) have to be used).  All 10 combat toggles bound to B, plus the toggleoffs I use when I enter a mission, and only 191 characters used (189 without B<space>), so there's enough of the character budget remaining for things like costume toggles or non-combat pets (i use powexeclocation self Pet: Spirit Panther in both B and V on one of my characters, so when i turn my travel power on/off, i'm also summoning the pet).

 

The first option would would make it possible to bind more toggles to a single key, but the overhead of having to repeat the command for every power would still be limiting.  Not as limiting, as it would allow almost twice as many toggles to be bound to one key as the current structure permits, but still not as good as it could be.  It would have complications with toggles using similar names, like Form of the Body/Mind/Soul, so toggles like those would still have to be fully entered.  But it would still be less restrictive and irritating than the existing structure.

 

The second option is, in my opinion, the best possible solution.  It would allow even the most toggle-heavy character to use a single key for all of the toggles, and it would be a much cleaner and easier structure to work with.  It would remove the unnecessary overhead entirely, and it would be much easier to work with.

 

Yeah, we can emulate this with rotating bind files, but that's a clumsy approach that spazzes out if you're pressing keys too quickly (if my toggles are down, i want them back up NOW, not eventually, when the rotating bind finally rolls back around to the ones it skipped) , and on toggle-heavy characters, it means a lot of extra bind files.  A powexectoggleon/off that works well and doesn't clog up the bind with bloat would be much nicer.

[Jacke]

I've also run into issues with keeping Toggle Binds to 255 characters or less.

 

I think the 1st option would have issues if the shortened Power name has multiple interpretations.

 

I think the 2nd option would be too complex.  It might also cause command line parsing issues.

 

I think the better option would be to have shortened alternate forms for "powexectoggleon" and "powexectoggleoff".  Something like "petn" and "petf".

[megaericzero]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

I think the better option would be to have shortened alternate forms for "powexectoggleon" and "powexectoggleoff".  Something like "petn" and "petf".

This. I think aliasing the command with something shorter is simpler and more accessible to both the end user and the dev team than rewriting how the command is parsed.

 

How about /toggleon and /toggleoff?

Edited October 17 by megaericzero

[Vanden]

You sit in a prison of your own design, trapped by toggles you didn't need

[Luminara]

20 minutes ago, Vanden said:

You sit in a prison of your own design, trapped by toggles you didn't need

 

What I do or don't need isn't relevant to how the powexectoggleon/off commands work.

 

Nor is it any of your business.  Hop back on your high horse and go mind yours.

[Psyonico]

2 hours ago, Jacke said:

I think the better option would be to have shortened alternate forms for "powexectoggleon" and "powexectoggleoff".  Something like "petn" and "petf".

This is kind of what I was thinking, and aliasing the name is likely the easier approach than the other two suggestions.