Option in 0.10.4: Lix 0.10.4 will have a single new checkmark option for insert mode. By default, this is off, and you get the old behavior: New assignments first cut the replay, then add the assignment. If you switch it on, it'll be permanently on during play. You'll get (*): All your assignments during replay first cut the same lix's assignments, then add your assignment.
This is mainly to ship 0.10.4 within a week, and to reconcile all experimental work with the stable version. Most likely, I'll change the feature over the months/years.
UI findings from streams: During my livestreams in January 2023, I had (*) active at all times. I got to be the front-line guinea pig of a potential UI revamp.
Insert mode has grown on me, I'd really like to keep playing with (*), and I'd like to improve it even more. There will probably be new hotkeys. There will be options about what those keys do.
Suddenly, air misclicks have become a problem. Now, I'd rather cut the replay with a more explicit action, not merely by clicking the air. Reason: I'm often deep inside the replay, and I'm solving most multitasking levels completely out of their normal timeline. I insert many skills, and each assignment is a click with the deliberate choice to keep other lix' futures.
Dullstar, you've foreseen correctly that, with insert mode, we would probably want a more explicit way to cut replays. I doff my hat.
But if you don't insert habitually, then airclicks are so very very nice to cut replays, and they're deeply rooted in tradition since L3, L3D, NL, earlier Lix, ... I'd like to continue to offer airclick as a way to cancel the replays, and that's why we need options.
Furthermore, at times, I would have liked to cut a single lix's future
without assigning a new skill. There is no good way to do that. You'll have to guess the lix's ID, then erase all her future assignments in the replay tweaker one-by-one. I'm beginning to want a future-cutting skill.
Here's a UI idea. Everybody, feel free to shred it to pieces.
- In the options menu, you choose between insert-by-default or cut-replay-by-default.
- With either choice, the skillbar gets a new button for the other, non-default way.
- The button reacts to a user-configurable hotkey.
- If it's an insert button (because you selected cut-replay-by-default), it can either be hold-hotkey-to-use (I assume that's better) or toggle to insert mode by tapping the hotkey.
- Airclicks cut the replay only in cut-replay-by-default. In insert-by-default, airclicks do nothing. Probably airclicks also do nothing when you're cut-replay-by-default and activate the insert button.
- If it's a cut-replay button, it might become like a skill button: You can either select a regular skill or the cut-replay functionality, not both at the same time. I'm imagining the button to show scissors.
- When you "assign" scissors, you cut that lix's future.
- When you airclick with scissors, you cut the global future.
I'd still like to encourage everybody to try insert-by-default, but if you really don't want, you don't have to throw away tradition or your muscle memory.
Feedback in the UI can also become better regardless of insert-by-default or cut-replay-by-default. For example, when you tweak a lot, you'll want to see a hovered lix's ID printed somewhere.
-- Simon