Targeting, window focus, & other UI questions

I’m returning to the game after a long hiatus, and I’m having some UI trouble. These things matter to me because keyboarding bothers my hands less than mousing. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my questions.

  1. First, why does the W (orbit) hotkey work against “dead” targets like wrecks, but not against live ones? When I have a rat targeted, W gives me the message: “click on the target.” So I end up clicking on the little orbit icon instead of using the hotkey. But if I have a can or wreck (or data shard or relic) targeted, W works fine.

  2. Also, is there a single-key way to “select-and-target-next rat”? Right now I have to click a rat on the overview, then hit my hotkey to target it. Once the overview has focus, I can use up/down keys to select new targets, but I still have to hit my hotkey to target it.

  3. Why do some windows always ask me whether I want to “close all tabs”? And others don’t? Is there a way just to make all tabs close by default?

  4. My impression is that hotkeys without a CTL or ALT prefix require you to first click on space to give the main window focus. whereas CTL/ALT hotkeys don’t. This drives me batty. But I suppose I see why – if I’m typing in chat, I don’t want cargo to open every time I type a C. Is there at least a hotkey to tell the game “the next hotkey is really a hotkey”?

Thanks in advance for any help!

1 Like

This could be useful.
Scroll down for Keybinding info.
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Keyboard_controls#Modifying_Shortcuts

I don’t think you can do anything to objects in space without first clinking on it in the Overview, that’s why having an overview that works for you is crucial.

to select and target a rat (or a player), just use ctrl-left click on the rat on your overview. No need to select him first

  1. The W key can be used by holding D and then selecting a target to orbit it, or by beginning with a target selected, and then pressing D. Note that having something target locked and having something selected are not the same thing. Your ship can lock multiple things at once, but you can only have one thing selected at a time (and possibly nothing if the last thing you had targeted died or left grid). The thing that is currently selected will show up in the selected item box.
  2. I don’t think there is a hotkey that does exactly what you want, but with the overview selected (alt+Space to set overview focus), you can use the arrow keys to select different things. And once you have something selected, you can then use other hotkeys (such as Ctrl to lock it or W to orbit it).
  3. I don’t know. I opened and stacked multiple windows, and it never asked if wanted to close them all or not, it just closed them one at a time, starting with the one that currently had focus.
  4. I don’t think so. But depending on what you want to do, you can use alt+space to select the overview, and then go from there.

You can also make a proposal in player features and ideas about hotkey changes that could improve accessibility.

Hope this helps, and welcome back.

Thanks for those very helpful replies. I didn’t know about holding D, or about alt-space to give overview focus. I’ll try both of those things.

Odd that no one else seems to have the “close current tab or all tabs” thing I get. I get this with the Market, the Journal, and a few other windows that have multiple elements. It’s very annoying. I do normally want to close all tabs; I have to figure out how to tell the game to do that. I’ll re-check my settings.

Edit: Doh, all I had to do was check “always close all tabs” next time I was asked to close all tabs. That did the trick. Sorry for the bother.

Thanks!

2 Likes

u can also try Settings-Shortcuts-Navigation-Select Next Target/Select Previous Target (remap if necessary). i find this very helpful when micro managing salvage drones or when assigning multiple weapons groups to different targets. CTRL-Click to lock a bunch of rats, Select first locked target - fire/salvage- Select Next Target Shortcut which i have remapped to the ` key- fire/salvage - rince repeat… i too have been looking for a better way to accomplish this, i have tried macros, ask tons of people but this is still the best and only way i can find

1 Like

Thanks. I thought I’d tried hotkeying Next/Prev Target, but maybe not. I’ll give it another try. I appreciate the advice!

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.