I see now that my previous post was somewhat misleading, because I listed every single hotkey and even those which I don't think should get a button. So here is a condensed version:
Important buttons (10-11 buttons)Quit level, Load Replay (perhaps only on preview screen), Fast-Forward, Frame-skips (4 buttons), Directional Select (2 buttons), Select Walker, Restart level
Nice-to-have buttons (8 buttons)Save state, Load state, Show Athlete Info, Highlight Lemming, Nuke, Music, Sound, Save Replay
Hotkeys that should not get buttons (5 buttons)Release mouse, Cheat Level, Select Unused lemming, Save Image, Cancel Replay
I would simply keep it at max ~ 4 or 5 new buttons.
The space of the minimap allows for 7 buttons (and 8 if we remove the decoration next to it). Why would you waste space by putting only 4-5 buttons there, when the player
explicitely asks for more buttons and assigned hotkeys?
In fact I am still not really convinced by the lix layout. Everything is displayed, but it's kinda full down there [...] Too many buttons are as confusing as too many unkown functions.
That is why the
default is the minimap and the current buttons (with the possible exception of the nuke). The other buttons are only displayed if the player asks for them and noone is forced to do that. Actually I think of the new buttons as an emergency feature: "I cannot remember how to select only walkers! HELP!"
What about just one button that would bring up the options menu? Since the hotkeys can be edited through that menu, any hotkey you need can be looked up. There are a lot of fine control hotkeys that would probably cause a lot of clutter if they were all added in.
Allowing access to the hotkey option menu during game-play is a good idea. But unfortunately this option menu isn't that good at answering the question "What is the hotkey for function xyz?". So I would suggest implementing this suggestion in addition to the other proposed changes.
Release mouse: I use it all the time. But this is only useful in windowed mode, if one does some multitasking. So we can probably get away with not including a button for this.
Does alt-tab work during play? That's how I release the mouse in Wine. Never knew there was a NL hotkey for this.
Two problems: Due to the two-window-problem of (Neo)Lemmix, only alt-tab-tab works to get away from NeoLemmix. Secondly, NeoLemmix catches the cursor again if you move over the game window again, forcing you to escape again by alt-tab-tab.
Pressing the "Release mouse" hotkey disables this second behavior as well.
Cheat Level: I like it, but it really isn't essential and serves only as a shortcut.
What does it do? Win current level? Then cull, because all packs are unlock-all.
It is just a shortcut to exit the level and skip the post-view screen. This is very useful if someone posted a large amount of replays for your levels and you want to check them for backroutes or alternative solutions.