This was mainly an example, but the problem is a bit more complex.
The camera behavior being different for ‘Select all Barracks’ and ‘Select all military production buildings’ is indeed something which is non-consistent (ideally to correct). In fact, ‘Select all Barracks’ is an example but many ‘Select all’ hotkeys (except some exceptions like ‘Select all idle military units’, ‘Select all military units’ and ‘Select all military production buildings’) do not move the camera.
Now, to have something better, I would strongly suggest to take inspiration about what is done in AoE2DE.
In AoE2DE, the ‘Cycle through’ hotkeys (called ‘Go to’ in AoE2DE) always move the camera and center it on the selected unit/building).
The ‘Select all’ hotkeys never move the camera.
This makes a lot of sense. When you use the ‘Cycle through’ hotkeys, you want to find a specific unit/building; so the camera which centers on the unit/building is perfect. For instance, cycling through the town centers is ideal to quickly manage the economy, cycling through the scouts allows to check what they are scouting…
The ‘Select all’ hotkeys are better used without moving the camera.
If only one unit/building exists, then we have the same behaviour as with the corresponding ‘Cycle through’ hotkeys (and this additional hotkey is not needed).
But, if more than one unit/building exist, then the camera will move to their center which is most of the time pointless, except for the few instances where all the units/buildings selected are located very close to each other.
In contrast, not moving the camera is super useful.
For instance, you are pushing the opponent with your units and the battle front is moving. You would like to rally all your new units to the battle location, in which case the ‘Select all military production buildings’ is perfect. But you do not want to move the camera, which will prevent you from having a good micro with your army.
Similarly, using the ‘Select all idle military units’ during a battle can be useful to add idle military units to the location of the battle, hopefully without losing the focus (camera position) on the battle.
‘Select all Barracks’ can be used to queue more units and place the rally point, also ideally without moving the camera.
It is nice that AoE4 introduces more options to let the user choose the behaviour of the camera, like with the ‘Find and Cycle Units & Buildings’ option, but the issue is that it affects many ‘Cycle through’ and ‘Select all’ hotkeys at the same time, preventing to have the aforementioned behavior.
My suggestion would be the following:
- Have a consistent behavior between ‘Select all military production buildings’ and the other ‘Select all’ buildings hotkeys.
- Have separate camera options for all the hotkeys labelled as ‘Cycle through’ and the ones labelled as ‘Select all’. For instance, ‘Find and Cycle Units & Buildings’ could be divided between ‘Cycle Units & Buildings’ and ‘Select all Units & Buildings’ (similar idea with ‘Idle Villager’, ‘Idle Military’…).