We need two components for User-Definable Options:

Options File

An options text file should be added where various variables such as keybindings can be exposed. This should be high priority.

Options UI

You can add an 'options' button next to the disconnect button on the status window. This would make sense since you wouldn't need the options button to be accessible when the status window is minimized. This does not need to be as high priority if you can have the options text file.

I don't really get it. Why do we need these things? KSP does all of this already...

Example: DMP uses the Tilda key (~) to trigger typing in the chat window. This is hardcoded and cannot be modified.

For me this is a problem, because I use the tilda key for voice chat in things like Mumble and Teamspeak. I would prefer having the chat activate with something like backslash (\).

Similarly if you go back to the original KMP, you'll see that they have several KMP-Specific options defined, which can be modified via either an in-game UI, or by editing a configuration file.

Now, If you are saying that you can extend KSP's existing key binding interface to allow users to set DMP- specific keys, and that there is no need for an options screen such as what KMP relies on, then perfect, do that.

If not, at the very least a separate settings text file will be necessary in DMP's plugin directory.

I'll definitely be creating an options window soon, you're correct - key bindings should not be hard coded.
F8 for the screenshot key might also cause issues.

Other settings should include the ability to change the size of the vessel cache, and maybe possible bandwidth throttle settings so DMP can throw away messages more correctly, but the bandwidth throttle will be coming later.

Implemented via 3257466 - Although it's pretty ugly atm ;)