Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

[Mikeuk_3]

Gutted it won't be January now

[DanGio]

Why do people want to persist quickbar pages when starting new game?
In current game you have blue belts, electric furnaces and so on. Will you have them when you start a new game? So, whats the purpose of persisting? Or you just want to have e.g. first 3 rows for early game, 3 for mid and rest for the late game?

With 10 quickbar pages, we'll have enough slots for each belt tier. Also, there isn't different tiers in vanilla for rails, pipes, chemical plants, mining drills...

[kane.nexus]

For the ghost cursor could we please get an option to auto place items in your inventory that are within reaching distance onto ghosts.
This would help the players that might get confused by the ghosts as a placeholder for future placements.

[Blinky]

Love the new quickbar, I don't even mind that 0.17 won't get released in January. Quite happy to wait a few weeks longer for a better release.

In regards to some of the requests for a quickbar that is constant between saves, I don't think this is necessary, you start with only the most basic stuff and your quickbar will evolve over time as you complete research. Makes no sense to have a quick bar with red belts or electric furnaces on it when you can't even craft them yet. Just my 2 pence.

[raiguard]

So they Remove Shift + 1-5 for right side?

Think about it. How would you Access Pages 6-0 fast?
It's very uncomfortable to reach them and I don't have small hands.

For me It allays was just:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.

That's so intuitiv and comfortable. Why not keep that?

There is no use for X(hold) right now the Quickbar change imitatively when you press X.
For me at least I just tap X to get to the other Quickbar so why not make a use for X(hold).

With the new System the Quick bar would change when you release X but not if you pressed 1-5 while X was pressed.
That wouldn't change the old System much but add the new System.

So the Old System + the New System:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.
- X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 1-5
- Shift(hold) + X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 6-0

I hope the Devs consider my Idea and add it to 0.17.

Yes. This is the only issue I have with the new quickbar. 1100 hours of muscle memory will be ruined!

I think it would make more sense to use Ctrl+(1-5) and Ctrl+Shift+(1-5) to change pages, rather than using X. That doesn't take nearly as much adjustment as using X+(1-5) would.

[Jonathan88]

Why do people want to persist quickbar pages when starting new game?
In current game you have blue belts, electric furnaces and so on. Will you have them when you start a new game? So, whats the purpose of persisting? Or you just want to have e.g. first 3 rows for early game, 3 for mid and rest for the late game?

True, just setting 3 bars to each 1/3 of the game means you've got much fewer options at any point in a game.

This means when starting a new game you won't have lots of tempting-but-out-of-reach shortcuts of locked technology, but when joining a server, you'll have all your shortcuts synced which have been unlocked.

I think if you're advanced enough to have blue belts in quickbar, you're advanced enough not to place blue belt ghosts when starting a new game.

It's not that I would be confused - it's just seeing all the rows of locked items that makes me want to go back to my old world where they're unlocked.

Also, how would you remember whether a ghost item from a synced quickbar is just something you don't have crafted, or something you haven't unlocked? I would be planning things with the ghost placer, only to remember I haven't actually researched them on this map.

[VuiMuich]

Why do people want to persist quickbar pages […]?

It might actually Handy if you join a late game l server and have your items where you are accustomed to.

In early game I see as well as you no actual benefit.

[deemer]

I love the new quickbar changes, but...

There is one thing I use the quickbar for that I fear may be lost with the new design. In the late game I often setup a player station near my main base that makes all the building supplies. Next to the player station are requester chests that gather the items I need to place certain blueprints. There are also a few active provider chests, so I can quickly empty my inventory. I use the quickbar to make sure that I don't empty out things like my construction bots, blueprints, extra ammo, combat robots, etc. The idea is I can jump out of my train (or helicopter if I'm using that mod), and in a few clicks clear my inventory and fill it up with the things I need for the next round of construction-by-blueprint.

If you implement the blueprint library integration, then those don't need to be in an inventory at all, and I can make a workaround for the rest of the items: Put them in a requester chest, probably right next to the active providers.

So maybe I'm not asking for any changes to the plan at all. I just wanted to be sure the devs had considered this use-case for the quickbar.

[VuiMuich]

For the ghost cursor could we please get an option to auto place items in your inventory that are within reaching distance onto ghosts.
This would help the players that might get confused by the ghosts as a placeholder for future placements.

You could use the nanobots mod.
In vanilla this would make construction robots in personal roboports kinda obsolete.

[Mernom]

One thing, the change to blueprint mechanics is gonna probably break the Recrucive blueprints mod... I wonder how will it be adjusted.

[JekoRhino]

So they Remove Shift + 1-5 for right side?

Think about it. How would you Access Pages 6-0 fast?
It's very uncomfortable to reach them and I don't have small hands.

For me It allays was just:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.

That's so intuitiv and comfortable. Why not keep that?

There is no use for X(hold) right now the Quickbar change imitatively when you press X.
For me at least I just tap X to get to the other Quickbar so why not make a use for X(hold).

With the new System the Quick bar would change when you release X but not if you pressed 1-5 while X was pressed.
That wouldn't change the old System much but add the new System.

So the Old System + the New System:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.
- X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 1-5
- Shift(hold) + X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 6-0

I hope the Devs consider my Idea and add it to 0.17.

Yes. This is the only issue I have with the new quickbar. 1100 hours of muscle memory will be ruined!

I think it would make more sense to use Ctrl+(1-5) and Ctrl+Shift+(1-5) to change pages, rather than using X. That doesn't take nearly as much adjustment as using X+(1-5) would.

That's something they really need to consider.
Both have some advantages and disadvantages.

For Ctrl it would be reaching the 5 Key and the strain you get doing it. You are rotating your Hand quite Unnatural.
So you press Shift + Ctrl with your Pinky and 1-5 with your index finger.

For X it would be Pinky for Shift and Index for 1-5. X would be thumb or middle Finger but Thumb is more comfortable for me.

I actually don't have 1100 h in Factorio but in my 170 h I already have some muscle memory and hope they don't ruin it...

[Admiral_Arch]

I'm really looking forward to the new quickbar! I think that the shortcuts described in this FFF are perfectly reasonable (even more so when you consider that we'll be able to rebind them), but I'd like to suggest a completely different way of doing things.

How about instead of using keyboard shortcuts to directly switch to a particular page, there were shortcuts for each of the mouse clicks? e.g. pressing the backtick key (key to the left of '1' and below escape) would activate the page selector as if you had clicked the top quickbar, and pressing shift+backtick would activate the page selector for the bottom quickbar. The 1-0 and shift+1-shift+5 shortcuts would work like normal to select things from your quickbar, unless the page selector is open, in which case they just select the appropriate page.

Benefits:
* You can still access the right half of your quickbar just by using your left hand
* You can access pages 6-0 using just your left hand
* You only have to use two keystrokes to swap out the bottom quickbar (activate the page selector with shift+backtick, select the page) instead of three (swap top and bottom quickbars, select page, swap again)

Drawbacks:
* The 1-0 and shift+1-shift+5 shortcuts do different things depending on whether or not the page selector is open
___* I don't think this sort of thing is done anywhere else in Factorio, so it might take a lot of work to implement
___* I don't know if this is something that most users would find to be intuitive (I think it is though)
* It takes two keystrokes to swap out the top quickbar instead of one (backtick followed by your selection, instead of just shift+number)

[morsk]

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.
- X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 1-5
- Shift(hold) + X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 6-0

Maybe that is something for you?

X is hard to press like that, and treating it as a modifier key is unusual. If i had to bind something for "switch to an action bar" it would be Alt+12345, and then either Alt+QWERT, or Shift+Alt+12345. But more than any of these, I'd rather have 1 button I can use for a menu, than to have to find 10 bindings. Especially because the more weird bindings I have, the more likely I am to get conflicts with mods and have to reconfigure them too.

[5thHorseman]

I might bind the popup to 6, and keep the 1-5 and Shift 1-5 from before for the other keys. But no way am I wasting 10 binds on switching bars. Even if I were "advanced" enough to memorize them all, it's a waste of so many keys.

Agreed. I think I'd like 1-5, shift 1-5 to pick items, and shift-scrollwheel to cycle through the quickbars. Though I'm not sure how I'd tell the game I wanted the new quickbar to go in the top or bottom quick-quickbar slot.

[5thHorseman]

Or you just want to have e.g. first 3 rows for early game, 3 for mid and rest for the late game?

Basically, though not exactly. I'd like:
Yellow belts and stuff I use with them.
Red belts and stuff I use with them.
Blue belts and stuff I use with them.
Trains (Probably 2 of these, one for lines and one for stations)
Oil
Fighting
Uh... other stuff. Maybe science though probably not.

[JekoRhino]

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.
- X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 1-5
- Shift(hold) + X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 6-0

Maybe that is something for you?

X is hard to press like that, and treating it as a modifier key is unusual. If i had to bind something for "switch to an action bar" it would be Alt+12345, and then either Alt+QWERT, or Shift+Alt+12345. But more than any of these, I'd rather have 1 button I can use for a menu, than to have to find 10 bindings. Especially because the more weird bindings I have, the more likely I am to get conflicts with mods and have to reconfigure them too.

That would make sense too since Alt is for Advanced Info so it's only logical to use it for Advanced Quickbar selection too.
I just figured to use existing Keys that interact with the Quickbar rather than introducing new ones.

[5thHorseman]

Also, how would you remember whether a ghost item from a synced quickbar is just something you don't have crafted, or something you haven't unlocked? I would be planning things with the ghost placer, only to remember I haven't actually researched them on this map.

I didn't think of that (and don't know if the devs did) but why not a different background color (red?) if you don't know how to make the item yet.

[Avezo]

I wish new quickbars were stacking horizontally - having multiple open pages almost in the middle of the screen wouldn't be good if they were stacked vertically in the middle of the screen as in pictures in FFF.

you aren't gonna have these 10 pages opened during gameplay, they're there temporarily just so you can switch between active ones

If only they weren't in the middle of the screen like that, I actually would have all of them open with all possible shortcuts and blueprints in sight on screen. Such a small action bar never worked well for me.

[Amarula]

I like the change from the toolbelt holding items (carrying the weight of the locomotive, tank and car around my waist has been killing me) to shortcuts (all that weight in my backpack is going to be so much more comfortable)!
I also really like the 8 extra rows of shortcuts! I am not too fussed about how to access everything, I am sure that I will either get used to the default, remap the shortcut keys to something I like, or find (or make) a mod to do exactly what I want.
Many thanks again to all the devs for taking the time every week to update the community. Having a glimpse of everything yet to be done for 0.17 helps me to be patient, as you take the time you need to make it a good release. <exit to sounds of the crowd cheering madly, banners waving, as the runners approach the finish line>

[Shingen]

In regards to some of the requests for a quickbar that is constant between saves, I don't think this is necessary, you start with only the most basic stuff and your quickbar will evolve over time as you complete research. Makes no sense to have a quick bar with red belts or electric furnaces on it when you can't even craft them yet. Just my 2 pence.

just like it "makes no sense" to possess blueprints for electric furnace setups with beacons, modules and express belts at the start of the game - are you willing to clear your library from those and readd (or rather: recreate manually) them later? i doubt.
you can have one bar with electric furnaces and red belts, and the other 9 filled with yellow belts and basic inserters if you need to have something for early game so much.
it makes a whole lot of sense to not have to recreate your entire toolbelt (which you most likely would do in the same way) each game.