Anyone know of a method to export keys bindings to the actionmaps.xml or otherwise hand-edit the key bindings away from the ludicrous and ill-conceived WASD based defaults?
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wat? are you using arrows?
yes,
WASD renders at lest two fingers as useless ornaments if used with a left hand or ends with my keyboard half hanging off my desk if using my right hand and should I lift my right hand off the keyboard causes it to flip off the edge of the desk, plus I use a left handed mouse (I am right handed BTW) and I find Xbox and PS type controllers nasty/unnatural, so everything about WASD is ludicrous and ill-conceived to me even down to the finger/hand resting position WASD forces vs. the arrow/curser keys.
BTW I have been using the arrow or num pad keys since the mid 80’s before WASD was popularised by Quake etc.
I can understand the force of habit. But I see no logic behind it.
If your hand is placed on WASD (ring finger on A; middle finger on W/S; grooming finger on D) then little finger can be used for pressing shift, ctrl. Thumb can press space, alt, v, b, n, m and even the row above (g to l)
Simply put, you have acces to the big portion of the keyboard.
example (right hand is now placed on the mouse):
I did not exactly understand the placement of your hands, but if you were to put your left hand on arrows. Thumb and little finger have nowhere to reach.
If you put your left hand on numlock, all keys you can reach then are just the numlock keys.
Though you said you use left handed mouse, in that case I can understand why you use arrows/numpad, but still you have less keys accesible than me.
WASD might not be ideal option for you but it surely is not ludicrous or ill-concieved.
Anyway everyone sensible knows that best option for directional keys is “hjkl”
(vi/vim/nethack joke for the uninitiated)
using the arrow keys I have more keys available to use than with silly WASD, as with WASD there is only 5 or so keys that can be used with one’s little finger, with the arrow keys with my little finger and the one next to it I can reach the whole of the num pad baring the top 4 (num lock, /, *, -) while still using the arrow keys, I can also use all 6 keys from insert to page down and also Return, R_Shift, R_Ctrl, etc, which is FAR MORE keys than WASD naturally affords.
the other advantage of the arrow keys is they naturally afford a place to rest ones fingers when not in use and also allow the wrist to be more naturally relaxed due to the arrow keys being closer to the edge of the keyboard than WASD.
and I use a left handed mouse even though I am right handed as it in other games allows me to switch between keyboard arrow keys control and RH analogue joystick control while still retaining the mouse look function - given most quality joystick are RH form format.
There for I maintain WASD is ludicrous and ill-conceived in comparison to more conventional layouts or when one may choose to switch between multiple controllers or even in comparison ESDF, RDFG, TFGH which provide more pinky keys than WASD on QWERTY IBM-M style ANSI\ISO keyboards if your a RH mouse user.
Umm, I totaly respect it’s more comfortable for you to use some alternative layouts, but as the image posted by ProkyBrambora shows, WSAD actualy allows access to far more keys than just the numpad. Plus you would have to move your hand to reach shift/ctrl/enter while resting your hand on numpad. Unless you have some weird keyboard or enormous hands.
“There for I maintain WASD is ludicrous and ill-conceived in comparison to more conventional layouts”
This whole statement is ridiculous. Not only it’s not true, but the WSAD layout is pretty much as conventional as you can get. In 1980 it might have been unconventional, but today it is the default setting for 99,9% od first/third person PC games.
lol, some people must have some crazy long thumbs if they can reach the “L” key on a full size keyboard, its a strain for me to reach the “H” and “B” keys while STILL keeping adequate cover/use of the WASD, as for the image its self, care to explain given the colour coding, how dose the little finger reach keys “F, G and C” without a healthy dollop of BS hand kinematics?
as for the history of WASD it was not popularised until the mid 90’s and then until to well after it was just an optional mapping, back when games developers would take the time to implement BOTH the arrow keys and WASD by default, its only been the last 10 to 12 years that WASD has become pervasive and lazy developers cant even be bothered to map other keys, instead they leave it to end-user to map them which is fine by me, but to omit the ability even at this stage of development the ability to hand edit a user file to put your own key bindings in is silliness.
guess I will have to download the CRYENGINE SDK and use the pak extractor to find the references for putting in the user actionmaps.xml file like in early days of SC.
Sorry the purple coloring of F,G and C is jsut blue and red zone overlapping each other. Ofcourse I cannot reach there with my little finger.
As to how I can reach L:
It is maximum reach with somehow usable placement of fingers on WASD, still not ideal position.
Even though I was a child then I remember transition between arrows to WASD.
Developer do not make mapping for arrows from simple reason: almost no one uses it.
Seems that you are the only one arrow guy here 