Controls are too "right hand focussed", custom controls

[joeljpa]

Let me start by saying thank you for your work on this! I've definitely spent 5+ hrs on this, I keep a stopwatch and track my own high score list. It helps me stay alert if drowsy sometimes while working, a good coffee break. I've been using this since April 2023.

While I admire your homage to Nethack with the hjkl movement, I think an additional key alternative ought to be there on the left side of the keyboard mainly for . open tile. hjkl coupled with . seem too hard on the one's right hand and I feel I might get RSI XD. I think I played long enough to know it might be too stressful on it. Thankfully, f to flag is on the left side and I feel an alternative to open tile nearby, say either of asd, will ease that strain on players a lot.

[joelekstrom]

Hey, thanks for playing the game! I absolutely agree, these things should be customizable, and I should probably put the controls in a config file some day.

If you want to try compiling it yourself, you can easily change the controls here. For example, take a look at the example for opening a tile:

case ',':

If you want to add an extra button (say 'a') for opening tiles, you can just add another case. For example:

case ',':
case 'a':

This is similar to the toggle flag case above which has both 'g' and 'f', and the movement controls which support arrow keys as well.

Let me know if you need help compiling! But in essence, you just download this project and put in in a folder, cd to that folder in your terminal, and run make. (first time you need to run git submodule update --init first). Then you'll get a binary called terminal-mines in that folder with your changes included.

[joeljpa]

Thanks for your detailed instructions for compiling! When I take a stab at this, I'll be sure to let you know if I stumble across anything.

[joeljpa]

I followed your instructions and I got it to work instantly! Thanks. Voila!

As you said then, we can leave this open as a feature request for customisable controls.

[joelekstrom]

Excellent! Glad it worked out. Yeah, I'll leave this open for others 😃 (and sorry for the slow response time)

[ematth]

Hey @joelekstrom, I've really enjoyed playing terminal-mines in my free time and wanted to contribute. I made a pull request to add a rudimentary method of changing controls (#12) if you wanted to give that a look.