Factorio Forums

1.) rebind pipette to middle mouse button
2.) note that it works as expected for things like getting a miners when used on ore, any building etc.
3.a) note it DOES NOT work for ingredients in machines (as described in FFF-404)
3.b) note that it especially DOES NOT work for pipetting items of buildings in the space platform hub. This makes building on the platform much more annoying.

Expected outcome would be that rebinding a key actually does mean rebinding. So I would expect middle mouse button working for those cases too.

Note: I haven't tested every single pipette option so I don't know if more is affected.
Note: I haven't tested a different rebind other than middle mouse button. So I don't know if it's just a problem with rebinding in general or with MMB.

My current solution is that I bound q as secondary key to pipette so I can use MMB as I'm used to and if it doesn't work on something I would it expect to work I can try Q. Of course this is really weird.

EDIT: I think I know why. It's related to MMB also being set filter: See viewtopic.php?p=623724#p623724

Was going to file the same issue, but since it already exists I just add to it

Ref.: 116705

Loewchen wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 23, 2024 4:24 pm

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=116705

This is a very different issue though.

Maybe it's related in the game code, maybe it's not. But from the description it's a very different issue.

I just had a realisation, I think I know why it behaves that way. At least a theory.

MMB is also "set filter". Of course that action only works at specific places like the hotbar and train wagons. (any other?)

So if try middle mouse button in space station cargo hold (or whatever the name is) because it's basically a big chest it tries to set a filter which obviously doesn't work.
I assume ingredient slots in assemblers are a bit similar, so some kind of special inventory, which means MMB also tries to set a filter there, which makes even less sense.

So proposed solution would be something like: If trying to use "set filter" option at places where "set filter" is impossible ignore that and try another action which is bound to that key. Something like that.

So can we unduplicate this now? It's a completely unrelated issue.
EDIT: Thanks!

Ok one last thing now that we assume we know why:

Of course it would be easy to say it's my fault for changing key bindings.
But I never stumbled across this issue before. Pipette is basically used all the time while "toggle filter" only is used rarely. So it never happened before to me.
I don't think it's sensible behavior that the pipette function just gets ignored when a "toggle filter" action failed. That is what lead to the bug report in the first place.
So it would only make sense to pipette to actually apply when "toggle filter" fails.

The interesting case is now what happens when actually "toggle filter" and pipette could both do something?
Well the obvious answer is: just do both. THAT would then make obvious "oh it's my key binding fault" and not "why doesn't this work".

Considering that Factorio is widely regarded as being extremely good with UI/UX and such, I'd say "toggle filter" silently failing and then ignoring the pipette despite there being no reason why it should not just work is maybe something that could get improved?
Even if it's just some special case. And who knows maybe it leads to a rabbit hole of multiple edges cases like this that could get improved.

For now I think I just set "toggle filter" to Q, so that I basically have them switched. MMB for pipette is much more intuitive.
EDIT: Well, I can't use Q for "toggle filter" because it "needs a mouse button" so I now have it on shift+MMB.

Can you check if this is still the case in the latest version? (2.0.13)

Yeah, issue still exists. At least in the one case I tested:
1) remote view space platform
2) open hub
3) trying to pipette (with MMB) something from the inventory
4) nothing happens

Because the hub can't have filters the filtering doesn't happen, which makes sense.
But that's exactly how I orignally stumbled across this issue: Pipetting e.g. placed buildings no problem (because you can't toggle filters on them) but the hub is an inventory and for some inventories it's actually possible to set a filter. The confusing this is that *nothing* happens, neither the pipette (nor the filter obviously) which leads to thinking something is broken. Putting filter on a different key then makes pipetting with MMB possible.

Note that personally I don't have an issue with that behavior anymore since I rebound toggle filter to shift+MMB and now everything's working as it should I guess.
But still I find it very unintuitive that seemingly toggle fitler overrides pipette, even if the filter action doesn't do anything, which lead to the originally false bug report.

Because I read the "Fixed that having multiple key bindings could cause some keys to get stuck." that references 118498 in 2.0.14 I tested my issue with .14 and it still applies.