Do we really need a keyboard shortcut for the demo?

[ajtribick]

Personally I find it very annoying when I accidentally start the demo as it changes viewing options and suchlike from the start.

Surely a menu option is sufficient?

[Cham]

I agree. I very often hit the "D" key by accident, and it's very annoying. The "D" key should be remapped for something else.

[PlutonianEmpire]

same here.

[cpotting]

Personally I find it very annoying when I accidentally start the demo as it changes viewing options and suchlike from the start.

Surely a menu option is sufficient?

I would have to disagree. The D=demo mapping serves two useful purposes:

a) It is a great way for newcomers to Celestia to see what the program is about.

b) It provides a great way to start useful scripts. Just change the DemoScript entry in celestia.cfg (or replace demo.cel) and you can access your favourite utility, tour, etc at the touch of a button. In fact, you can create a script that sets Celestia to your personal preferences, and then access that just by pressing D.

I think it is just too useful to remove.

[ajtribick]

a) It is a great way for newcomers to Celestia to see what the program is about.

I'm not advocating removing the demo here, which I agree is a useful introduction for newcomers, but removing the keystroke. Keyboard controls are harder to find for a newcomer than menu options, as the menu options at least have some label associated with what they do, whereas a keystroke could potentially do anything. Provided the demo is accessible from the menu system (which it currently is), I don't think that removing the keystroke would be a significant change for newcomers.

b) It provides a great way to start useful scripts. Just change the DemoScript entry in celestia.cfg (or replace demo.cel) and you can access your favourite utility, tour, etc at the touch of a button. In fact, you can create a script that sets Celestia to your personal preferences, and then access that just by pressing D.

While useful, this comes across as more of a "hack" than use of the demo key for its original purpose. If keyboard execution of scripts is a desired feature, why not have keys dedicated to that purpose - maybe use the numeric keypad for a selection of scripts.

[cpotting]

I guess it's a matter of so many functions - so few keys. Practically every key is mapped to something in Celestia, which has been a problem for me when creating scripts where I want to add a key-activated function, but don't want to interfere with Celestia's normal operation.

Perhaps I would rephrase my statement as "The demo key could go, but there are other keys that personally I consider less useful and better candidates."

For me, I find the speed keys (F1-F7, A, Z, Q and X) to be utterly useless and would gladly see them freed up for use by my scripts (ditto for F8, enable joystick).

I guess its all just a matter of opinion.

Well then, what about having the keys mappable through a configuration file? Many peices of software (particularly games) do this. I imagine that it may add a little to the load time for Celestia, but it would be nice to arrange the keyboard functions so that like functions are grouped together.

[scratt]

As someone relatively new to Celestia. I have to say that the Demo key was invaluable. If I got into a mess it would get me out of it.

It also was a quick way to test the program, and see what it could do..

I agree once you are a hardened Celestia expert it may be useless, but that's not the idea behind Celestia, as far as I can tell..

I think removing it would be a mistake, and making it less intuitive to find would also kind of be a contradiction of it's own meaning and use...

[fsgregs]

I support removing the key and accessing it from the pulldown menu. My students routinely hit the key and mess their render options up, which I then have to fix. It is right next to the S key, which they use frequently.

Frank

[ElChristou]

I agree, the D shortcut is sometime annoying...