I was typing in a textfield but must’ve clicked off and hit a bunch of hot keys and the screen went dark just as the “No rules found at:” popup came up. I’m not a tiled veteran, so assuming this was some uncaught runtime error I closed and reopened the editor expecting to see it back to normal, which it was not. I just assumed I triggered some rendering glitch in my level and started searching the issue, it took a while but I finally found that I enabled highlight current layer.
I find it strange that an editor has default shortcuts for global settings as lone keys, I never see this in programs and it’s a recipe for disaster, especially when there are textfields to type into. I recommend mapping all default shortcuts to something involving a modifier key. Typically tools have single key shortcuts and settings involve a modifier key.
Newbs to tiled are the ones who will accidentally trigger this and to the untrained eye these all appear as though something went terribly wrong, where veterans will have already mapped out their own shortcuts.
P.S.: it was be cool if options like “highlight current layer” had toggle buttons in the layer window
Thank you for the feedback, @Geokureli! I guess indeed such things can happen, for example when working on a laptop and accidentally hitting the touchpad while typing. However, I believe it is actually pretty common for applications to use simple shortcuts for their tools. I have seen this at least in GIMP, Inkscape and Photoshop. And for good reason, because the tools are usually used in combination with the mouse, and it can be a real pain if switching tools (or flipping the stamp) would require pressing key combos.
In the menus, single-key shortcuts are rare. I think we have only “Highlight Current Layer” (H) and “Automap” (A) are actually relying on modifier keys. For Automap I could definitely consider changing the default, because it’s a rarely used functionality and it can be time-consuming when a lot of rules are set up, so it is annoying to trigger it accidentally. For the other keys, I’m not really convinced that it will be better overall.
I’m not sure how often the problem you’re describing actually happens. Sure we have text fields for layer names and in the Properties view, but it should be generally rare that you try to type something and do not have a text field focused. But I have no metrics about this.
As I mentioned in my post, typically programs will have single key shortcuts for selecting tools, but not for global settings or commands that will affect the current file. I don’t know of any instances in Gimp or Photoshop where a single key press can change a setting or a file.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is NOT a common occurrence. I just strongly stand by it as a design rule, and see it as an easy fix that will save some newcomers a headache. I also think it will happen much more frequently now that text objects exist.
Hmm, I somehow misread your post, thinking it was about single-key shortcuts in general. Sorry about that!
So yeah, definitely the Automap shortcut should change. I’m not sure about the highlighting of the current layer, since that one actually doesn’t affect your map and it’s something that I’d expect some users to toggle rather frequently. But adding it also as a toggle button in the Layers view probably helps with understanding what’s going on, since pressing H would also toggle that button then.
In the latest development snapshot, I’ve changed the AutoMap default shortcut to Ctrl+M and added a toggle button for Highlight Current Layer to the Layers view.
Sorry about that!