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### 2.8 User interface

#### 2.8.1 A reduced set of keys

Liquid War 6 can be controlled using a reduced set of keys. This is to make the game more portable and allow possible ports to platforms where a full keyboard is not available. Depending on the graphics backend, exact mapping might change, they should hopefully be obvious and intuitive.

Those keys are:

- `up` : the arrow up key
- `down` : the down arrow key
- `left` : the left arrow key
- `right` : the right arrow key
- `enter` : the enter / return key
- `esc` : the escape key
- `ctrl` : the control key
- `alt` : the alt / meta key
- `pgup` : the page up key
- `pgdown` : the page down key

Basically,

#### 2.8.2 Combining mouse, keyboard and joysticks

It's also possible to control the game with the mouse only, or with a joystick. By default the interface will trap all events and respond on any of these possible devices.

Keyboard | Mouse | Joystick | Menu action | In-game
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
`up` | mouse pointer | stick | previous menu item | move cursor up
`down` | mouse pointer | stick | next menu item | move cursor down
`left` | mouse pointer | stick | change menu item value | move cursor left
`right` | mouse pointer | stick | change menu item value | move cursor right
`enter` | left-click | button A | validate menu | validate chat line
`esc` | right-click | button B | back to previous menu | quit game
`ctrl` | right-click or double-click on any button | button C | N/A | fire
`alt` | middle-click or triple-click on any button | button D | N/A | alternate fire
`pgup` | wheel up | button E | previous menu item | zoom in
`pgdown` | wheel down | button F | next menu item | zoom out

A final word about joystick buttons: there's no such thing as standard joystick buttons, some will come with `A,B,C,D`, others will have `A,B,start,select,L,R`, there's no way to know. By default, the game will use the buttons with the lowest indexes (returned by your driver) for the most usefull functions. Validate menu entries is the most usefull action, zooming in and out the one you can live without.

#### 2.8.3 Quit with F10

There's also an (almost) hardcoded shortcut which will quit the game immediately, or at least as quickly as possible, without any prompt or warning.

It is the `F10` key.

Think of this feature as the procastinator's “whoops, here comes my boss!!!” emergency function.