Episode 2: Ingame console

In this upcoming episode we finally get down to business.
You don't want to waste time in the menu, which you could spend fragging when you have to adjust a setting? Or the option you are looking for just does not seem to exist?
Then the ingame console is the way to go and we want to make sure you get the best out of it.

After this episode you will be able to:

• set and lookup options via the ingame console
• navigate in the console with ease
• filter the things out you are interested in
• reduce your typing to a minimum

Although the focus for this episode is on Nexuiz newcomers, there are some cherrys for advanced gamers to pick from (ever got frustrated by autocompletion not working for map votes?).
Don't miss it!

• generally: ~ (Tilde key)
• while the menu is open: SHIFT+ESC

• press TAB to use auto-completion
• aplliable to:
  • commands, variables, aliases
  • exec command (completes config file names)
  • changing map (commands map / chmap)
    • map has to be in data folder, not in dlcache
    • fails for vcall chmap - use vmap <mapname> instead
  • playernames (try it while chatting: colors and everything )

• custom cvar means no discription available
• arrow-up/arrow-down navigate through previously entered commands
• auto-completion fails on a dedicated server console
  • alternatively use cvarlist xyz

Hello and welcome to the second episode of the new Nexuiz In-Depth video podcast. My name is Marius Shekow aka GreEn`mArine and this time we will have a closer look at

• console
• auto-completion feature

The level of difficulty of this episode is beginner.

So lets start!

• what is the console and why should you care?
  • Configuration of all Nexuiz settings
  • Needed for using commands that are only available in the console, e.g. mapvote
  • On servers only the console is available
• Opening the console in the menu or in game, show an US keyboard layout for illustration, close with ESC (NOT using the tilde key again)
• The console allows you to define or view the value of variables and aliases, it also allows you execute commands defined by the game.
• Show a cvar dump of variables in a texteditor to get the value, enter the name of a variable and hit enter, explain that the current value and def value in [] is seen. To change the value of a variable, enter the name of it, hit space and then enter the new value.
• (When you change a value in the menu, e.g. a checkbox, Nexuiz will actually change the value of that variable, and we can actually see this change in the console as well)
• Show autocompletion in console and explain that partial completion (narrowing down options). Explain that it will show all variables that STARTED with the characters, as well as all descriptions
  • use sv_timeout
  • use “time” tab for showing
• explain the arrow-up/down usage to get older entries back
• explain “custom cvar”
• don't get confused by long lists and where things start., use clear before
• Autocompletion uses
  • for commands, cvars and aliases (in that order!) as already illustrated
  • configs when using the exec that we will deal with in the next tutorial
  • maps, show an example with chmap on a local server. Explain that, for some reason, you can not use the auto-completion for vcall chmap, use vmap instead, but only for maps in data, not data/dlcache, move if needed
  • playernames, show a live example
• hint: auto-completion doesn't work on a server-console, alternatively use cvarlist sv_time to get all variables starting with sv_time....

Now I'd like to explain the auto-completion feature of the console, which helps to speed up your work a lot. The auto-completion does two things:

• first, it creates a list of all commands, variables and aliases that begin with what you've written in the console and shows them, including their value, default value and description
• second, it automatically completes the variable, command or alias that you started to type. However, this only works up to a point where no ambiguity exists

Allow me to illustrate this: However, before I do, maybe one tip beforehand: in order to get a better overview, it is sometimes recommended to “clean” the console up from stuff that was written there before, you can do so by entering clear into the console. Now, I want to edit the value of the variable timelimit, but since I'm lazy, I only enter t-i-m and then hit tab.

After hitting tab, nexuiz automatically shows me all commands, variables and aliases that start with t-i-m, as well as their values and descriptions. It did also auto-complete a little, because it added the e at the end, so now the console says “time”. However, it was unable to complete it any further, because there's still ambiguity. It doesn't know whether I want to have timeLimit, notice the L, or timeFormat, notice the F. If I supply the console with that information, L, and hit tab again, it will auto-complete to my desired variable, timelimit.

Allow me to summarize what you can use the auto-completion for.

• You can it for commands, variables and aliases as already illustrated
• when using the exec command, which I will explain in another episode, you can use it for autocompleting the name of the config you want to execute, for example I can do exec d<tab> and it automatically completes all the config files that are in my data folder starting with d
• when changing maps using the command map or chmap it will automatically complete the mapnames, for example a chmap agg<tab> will auto-complete to chmap aggressor. There are 2 sidenotes from my side about this, though: first, this will only work with maps that you put into your data folder, it won't work with maps that are only on the server, or maps that are in your dlcache folder. So you might want to move the maps from the dlcache folder to your data folder from time to time. Second, when voting, the auto-completion will fail if you try something like vcall chmap agg<tab> for some technical reason. The workaround is to use the vote-map alias instead, which is spelled vmap agg<tab>
• Another possibility where you can use auto-completion is to auto-complete player names. The great thing is that this actually works in chat, too! I guess I can just show that to you in a live demo......

Before I come to the end of this episodes, I have a few more details for you:

• if the description of a variable in the console says “custom cvar”, this just means that this variable was defined by one of the nexuiz developers and used at some point, but there isn't any description availble,
• Also please notice that you can use the arrow-up and arrow-down key on your keyboard to re-use commands that you entered previously
• You also need to keep in mind that the auto-completion doesn't work on a console of a dedicated server. Alternatively you can enter cvarlist<space>and then the beginning of the variable you want to see, so you will get at least a list of all the variables, in case you are just struggling to figure out the name.

Alright, I think I've wasted enough of your time today. In the next episode I will have a look at the advanced settings menu introduced in Nexuiz 2.5 which offers an alternative way of accessing the variables in nexuiz. This was GreEn`mArine for the AT dev team, have a good time and cu next week!