Key mappings are hard to read in texts

[xezon]

Key mappings are hard to read in texts. Uppercase characters at begin of words are ok, but lowercase characters can be difficult to see.

Ok

Not good

[xezon]

At this point I am contemplating to streamlining this to how it is done for Korean and Chinese, with trailing key mapping in parentheses, such as

"Chemical Suits (&I)"

This writing has 3 advantages:

1. Key mapping is always uppercase and therefore larger and better to see
2. Key mapping is always at the end of the name, making it easier to look for
3. Key mapping never needs to be bound to the characters of the words

[commy2]

Looks like the bold text messes with the kerning.

[ImTimK]

I also did all my hotkeys like that

Humvee [&V]

[MTKing4]

Agreed, it would be better if the Key is written outside of the Name

[xezon]

Parentheses before letter looks a bit tight.

[xezon]

Perhaps just a small dash will do. Makes the key look lean.

[xezon]

Or a double dash. Puts it a bit further away from the text and avoids confusion with those writings that have a dash between words such as "Patriot-Batterie".

[xezon]

I think the single dash looks fine. Opinions?

[MTKing4]

You can't space out the brackets? What about Square Brackets?

[ImTimK]

I use square brackets, looks the best imo and doesn't have the spacing problem I'm pretty sure.

Dash looks ok too, it's all preference I guess.

[xezon]

Squared brackets looks equally tight. Spaced out parentheses look weird because the distance is large. Perhaps needs a half space character.

[xezon]

Thin space also looks odd. The problem is the spacing is never really uniform, and also varies on different resolutions. The dash so far looks most gracious with all letters and resolutions.

[xezon]

We can also add a bigger square between title and key. The motivation here was to clarify that it is a button mapping, though it does not clarify it much more than a dash either.

1024x768

1920x1080

[xezon]

I think the square is a bit risky. Probably better to stick to ascii character.

[xezon]

Tilde letter perhaps. It has a bit more visual footprint than the dash (minus) symbol and definitely absent from the title text.

1024 x 768

1920 x 1080

[xezon]

I think I will go with the tilde for now.

1. It is an ascii character
2. It takes a bit more space and is more visible than the dash
3. It is a unique character not used in any title texts
4. It is perfectly centered height-wise on various resolutions, contrary to the dash, parentheses and brackets
5. It does not make the key letter look cramped, contrary to the parentheses and brackets

[xezon]

Upon further review, the tilde has too much of a visual impact.

I have a better idea. We can use colon (:). This makes it consistent with the tool tip texts, Cost: 2000, Power Requires: 1, etc. So visually it fits in the existing design.

1024 x 768

1920 x 1080

[ImTimK]

I like dash better than tilde, tilde looks too busy.

What would look the most clean is if the info box was diplayed like so:

Nuclear Reactor

Hotkey: R
Cost: 1000

Discription blaba.

Requirements blabla.

However most likely requires an entire overhaul.

One advantage the original setup has is how it may help with memorization, making it extra clear how the hotkey came to be and links with the objects name. Perhaps another way to improve the original is to add an underscore, besides the yellow color?

[ImTimK]

Oh colon looks good too.

[MTKing4]

Colon looks a bit weird in a headline text Maybe clearfying it better like so would be better: Hotkey: R That would make the most sense

[xezon]

Hotkey: R on extra line is not possible.

[MTKing4]

Put it on the headline? A bit spaced out from the name though if possible, we don't want it merging with the name

[xezon]

I don't like that. It becomes to long. Original text format also does not specify that the yellow character is a button mapping. So in that regard nothing has changed.

The only thing I can offer for Core bundle pack is to generate in-text key mapping. But for optional pack I definitely would like to keep trailing button mapping because it has more advantages.

[MTKing4]

Well i definitely think trailing button is better for core and optional packs, on second thought i can live with the colons choice it's fine