Hi!
I'm starting out by saying: I never played Minecraft. Since Perttu (celeron55) is hinting that he's looking for a different direction, I took my experience with gaming the older RPG's (ultima underworld series, daggerfall, etc) and tried to apply it.
One thing that annoyed me from the start with minetest was switching back and forth between building rocks and using a pickeaxe. I present to you: dual wielding.
Controls:
Left mouse button: use item in left hand
Right mouse button: use item in right hand.
Left hand: selectable through keys 1-4
Right hand: selectable through keys 5-8 and mouse wheel.
Drop item in left hand: Z
Drop item in right hand: X
To use bare hands, use an empty slot. Interactive items still work by right clicking.
Here's a video showcasing a prototype:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8nn24ZuOUIThis opens up efficient combos for left/right mouse buttons. For instance, left hand pick axe, right hand block or maybe a shield/sword combo in the future.
It is just a client-side UI and control change, it does not affect game rules. Using a simple config setting you can disable it to get default (minecraft) behavior.
I've made all the changes to my repos clone, I have nowhere to put a tarball or a patch, please let me know (you in particular, Perttu) if you want the sources to test, etc. Maybe we can add a sandbox repos to the bitbucket project?
I'm also eager to help fix bugs and add some other features as suggested in this forum by other users.
Cheers!