"Settings in the pause menu" to-do list

[grorp]

Follow-up to #6722 (comment) and #15614

• Add missing setting callbacks

  • Rendering pipeline / RenderingCore (could probably adapt approach in Add Settings to in-game menu, and rewrite pause menu in Lua #14785, grep for reloadGraphics)
  • Dynamic shadows (could probably adapt approach in Add Settings to in-game menu, and rewrite pause menu in Lua #14785)
  • "Effects" implemented in node, object shaders (probably complicated and needs shader recompilation)
  • Hud (scaling settings already done in Limit crosshair scaling to integer multiples to avoid distortion #14501 and Add missing setting callbacks for display_density_factor #15273)
  • TouchControls -> Add setting callbacks for Camera and TouchControls #15700
  • Camera (including FOV) -> Add setting callbacks for Camera and TouchControls #15700
  • Probably many more

• Deal with client-side vs server-side vs both sides settings correctly -> Add server/client annotations to settingtypes.txt and use them  #15756

  • Mark all settings as client-side, server-side or both sides in settingtypes.txt (need to go through all settings?)
  • Only show server-side settings in the pause menu if on local server / in singleplayer

• Deal with settings that cannot be changed in-game and that we don't want/plan to make changeable in-game

  • (Most settings should eventually be made changeable in-game. An example of something that doesn't make sense could be mapgen settings.)
  • Mark relevant settings in settingtypes.txt as "requires rejoin" or "requires restart"
  • Gray out settings that cannot be changed in the pause menu (hiding them entirely would be confusing)

• Allow games/mods to register custom settings for the pause menu

  • Per-player
  • Values stored on the client, so they can be shared across different servers/worlds? (tracking risk?)
  • No implementation concept yet, more like far future, but seems desirable

[Desour]

Gray out settings that cannot be changed in the pause menu (hiding them entirely would be confusing)

Or just put a notice there. It's useful if you can change it in-game and then just rejoin, imo.

Btw., there's also settings where you have to restart the game entirely, not just rejoin. video_driver for example.

[grorp]

Or just put a notice there. It's useful if you can change it in-game and then just rejoin, imo.

Hmm, what about this?

• In the pause menu settings, allow changing settings that require re-joining to apply just like any other setting
• If a setting that needs re-joining to apply has been changed, show a notice with an "Exit" (or, if we're going fancy, automatic "Rejoin") button (notice should disappear if the change is reverted) (state needs to be persisted across dialog close/reopen)

[Desour]

• If a setting that needs re-joining to apply has been changed, show a notice with an "Exit" (or, if we're going fancy, automatic "Rejoin") button (notice should disappear if the change is reverted) (state needs to be persisted across dialog close/reopen)

Sure, sounds good. I've also seen something like this done in other games (e.g. ddnet, x-moto).
But if a setting requires a restart of the entire engine, the pause menu scripting will need to communicate somehow with the main menu (or else you'd be missing the notification to restart if you go to main menu and back). Or just display a temporary notification (like in x-moto).

[ryvnf]

Is there a plan to allow games to register custom client-side settings?

A problem currently is that all game settings are server-side. If you want to add a setting to adjust particles or controls for example, the setting will only work in singleplayer. If you play on a multiplayer server, you are stuck with whatever options are set on the server.

It would be useful to have some mechanism to register client-side settings which are readable by the server. In Mineclonia we are discussing the addition of a formspec UI for this https://codeberg.org/mineclonia/mineclonia/pulls/2834. It would however be much better if such settings could be implemented in the pause menu.

[grorp]

Is there a plan to allow games to register custom client-side settings? [...]

Allowing games/mods to register custom settings to be shown in the pause menu of a player is something I would support, yes. We've briefly discussed this before (#6722 (comment) and #6722 (comment)) and I will add it as a point to the list above. However, I don't see it happening soon. If I were you, I would move ahead with a custom settings formspec, I wouldn't wait for an engine feature.