Openra: Auto-completion issues

[abmyii]

When using auto-completion it can be a bit annoying when you want to toggle team/all chat - you have to erase everything (I believe pressing Home would also work though I haven't tested it). Perhaps we should change either toggle or autocomplete (Ctrl+Tab/Space?) to another key?

[abcdefg30]

Imho it would be better to change the team chat toggle to another key than to remove tab completion for player names.

[abmyii]

Yeah, it's a useful feature, and I don't suggest we remove it either. Maybe keep autocomplete as Tab and the toggle key to Shift/Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+Space?

[anjew175]

I agree, this is quite an annoyance but is still kind of a rare situation.

Personally I'd rather have consistency with where the message is being sent by having separate key bindings for team chat and all chat like in a lot of modern games and leave tab autocomplete. I've seen quite a few people say things intended for team chat in all because of how it toggles between them.

Short of this, another convention in other games is using tab to toggle the chat so I'd rather keep this functionality bound to tab and move autocomplete to something else. The problem is I don't see any other keybinding as easy as tab for autocomplete and may make the command redundant (except for ridiculous names with symbols etc)

[abmyii]

I find it happening quite often, personally.

bindings for team chat and all chat

More hotkeys aren't desirable.

tab to toggle the chat

Interesting idea - how about tab to enable, and tab again for autocomplete? There's no reason why it cannot be reused.

[anjew175]

More hotkeys aren't desirable.

In some FPS games they add have completely separate keys but I've it quite common in strategies games to make a modifier, so shift+enter is team and enter is all chat (or vice versa).
This is just an option in order to create consistency in chat usage, no writing into the wrong chat because of what you last used.

how about tab to enable, and tab again for autocomplete? There's no reason why it cannot be reused.

Im not 100% sure what you mean by this unless you are saying a double tap to tab is autocomplete. I'd kinda prefer the current logic since double tapping can create some weird situations not too dissimilar to the current issue. The current method doesn't auto-fill a name if the current word doesn't make up somebodies name, so you can still get around it easily without having to delete ur entire sentence.

[abmyii]

Actually I'm all for "as many hotkeys as you need", but others aren't so enthusiastic. Your suggestion is good, but I think there are simpler solutions - one issue I see is that you would have to cancel and switch to the other chat in the case that you decide to write in the alternate chat.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this unless you are saying a double tap to tab is autocomplete.

Sorry, that was a mistake. My proposed solution is to have Ctrl+Tab or Shift+Tab as the toggle between Team/All, and keep Tab as the autocomplete button.

[dragunoff]

Imho it would be better to change the team chat toggle to another key than to remove tab completion for player names.

I am leaning more towards having separate keys to open the chat modes (for example Enter for team and Shift + Enter for all-chat). This takes away the cognitive load of _"Did I toggle the chat?"_ because the chat was opened with a distinct key (key combination). The option to toggle once opened can be preserved even with separate keys. Seems like the best of both worlds 🤔

[abmyii]

So Enter/Shift+Enter & Tab/Shift+Tab if I understand correctly?

[dragunoff]

An example arrangement (I'm not sure what'd be better for Enter - team or all chat):

| Hotkey | Description |
|:---|:---|
|Enter|Open team chat (all chat in case no team)|
|Shift + Enter|Open all chat|
|Shift + Tab|Toggle chat|
|Tab|Autocomplete (player names and chat commands)|

[abmyii]

Should I remove Tab toggling team/all chat even when no completion available?