Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Regular reports on Factorio development.
Martinowitsch
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:02 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Martinowitsch »

PacifyerGrey wrote:That is why I did suggest to drop the idea of Fkeys to switch tabs.
You should have dedicated keys to open those tabs directly and those will also switch between tabs if one is open.
Lets say:
E - handcrafting menu
L - logistic menu
I - inventory and equipment

If you have any tab open pressing the same key (or Esc) will close window. Pressing any other of 3 will switch to respective tab.
This layout is intuitive and used widely thoughout many games.

I do insist on using Esc to close any active window. This is so much intuitive that after hundreds of hours of Factorio I still try to do it.
Thats mostly allready implemented, there're windows like kills (K), logistics (L), Inventory and Crafting (E) and many more. Try some buttons and look what opens.

Engimage
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1067
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:02 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Engimage »

Martinowitsch wrote:
PacifyerGrey wrote:That is why I did suggest to drop the idea of Fkeys to switch tabs.
You should have dedicated keys to open those tabs directly and those will also switch between tabs if one is open.
Lets say:
E - handcrafting menu
L - logistic menu
I - inventory and equipment

If you have any tab open pressing the same key (or Esc) will close window. Pressing any other of 3 will switch to respective tab.
This layout is intuitive and used widely thoughout many games.

I do insist on using Esc to close any active window. This is so much intuitive that after hundreds of hours of Factorio I still try to do it.
Thats mostly allready implemented, there're windows like kills (K), logistics (L), Inventory and Crafting (E) and many more. Try some buttons and look what opens.
I meant the new tabs that were shown by devs and not current stuff.
All of 3 are in the same game window but there are tabs shown and devs suggested the tabs will be switched by F1..F3 keys which is definitely a bad idea IMO.

Coltaine
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 1:15 am

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Coltaine »

Yes please, all of these are great ideas! Especially the toolbar thing has been annoying the living daylights out of me forever. Oh and the game deciding that certain things shouldn't go to the logistics trash even though I have 4 million of them in my inventory.

millatime21
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:05 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by millatime21 »

Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters
What?
Allow having multiple items in one slot in the toolbar. When setting filters for the toolbar, allow multiple selections. Then, when using that slot from the toolbar, be able to switch between the items in the group by using ctrl+scroll (similar to scrolling between blueprints in the blueprint book).

Image
Why?
No more inserters taking up 3+ spots on your toolbar! By making a group for inserters, you free up valuable space on your toolbelt. You still will always have access to other inserters with just a ctrl+scroll away. This can be expanded to many useful groups, such as:
  • belts
  • splitters
  • undergrounds
  • assembly machines
  • poles
  • turrets (+walls too, if desired)
  • circuit equipment
  • railroad equipment
  • and so on!
There are many possibilities, and the user can define her groups however she wants.
I chose ctrl as the modifier for switching between item groups. That way, there is still functionality with blueprint books and blueprint pages. Ctrl allows the user to switch between blueprint books, and shift allows for switching between blueprint pages in the selected book.

Also, please view this link for more ideas to expand upon this: (Can't post url in first forum post, so deleted unfortunately) - Toolbar Flyout For Selection of Subtype of Objects

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by mrvn »

millatime21 wrote:
Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters
+1

hauke
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:38 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by hauke »

millatime21 wrote:
Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters
I made an account just so I can say how much I'd like to have this. I never thought about it before but it's brilliant.

User avatar
fechnert
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 12:48 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by fechnert »

millatime21 wrote:
Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters
+1, definitely!
Image[url=steam://friends/add/'.76561198066150999.']Image[/url]

innesm
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2017 3:53 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by innesm »

I'm a newbie to Factorio but have been fighting with the hotbar/inventory UI a lot. Stuff like clicking on a filtered hotbar item to select that item and it not working because the game tries to place my existing different item into this filtered slot. And the filtered slot being empty even though I have a bunch of that item. Now I try to always drop everything before clicking to pick up something else (or you can hit the shortcut number for that slot if you remember it - that doesn't try to do the swapping), but often forget. Just seems bizarre and difficult to work with to me. I was delighted to see this blog post because it totally chimed with my experience! I didn't want to start complaining about the UI so soon, because I assumed I was somehow not getting it. I still hope I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.

User avatar
theRustyKnife
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 259
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by theRustyKnife »

innesm wrote: Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.
That is sometimes a tricky issue for me as well and I do have my hundreds of hours in. What I usually end up doing is grabbing an item that can't be placed into my hand. I can open a chest/car/whatever with that item in hand and drop stuff off. Of course that is assuming you have any such item in your inventory...
Another solution is to CTRL+click on a chest, which should place the item you're holding into the chest. While I have managed to place some unintentional blueprints this way, it's mostly a safe bet. But again, this assumes you have a free chest available nerarby...

Hope this helps. Also, welcome ;)

Cheers TRK

mrvn
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5682
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2016 9:10 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by mrvn »

innesm wrote:I'm a newbie to Factorio but have been fighting with the hotbar/inventory UI a lot. Stuff like clicking on a filtered hotbar item to select that item and it not working because the game tries to place my existing different item into this filtered slot. And the filtered slot being empty even though I have a bunch of that item. Now I try to always drop everything before clicking to pick up something else (or you can hit the shortcut number for that slot if you remember it - that doesn't try to do the swapping), but often forget. Just seems bizarre and difficult to work with to me. I was delighted to see this blog post because it totally chimed with my experience! I didn't want to start complaining about the UI so soon, because I assumed I was somehow not getting it. I still hope I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.
First thing would be to switch to something I can ctrl-click into an assembler, furnace or existing chest. Second thing would be crafting something to reduce the stack count. I assume all your trash slots are already full, otherwise that's a great place to store stuff if you are quick or out of the logistics network. After that I usually tend to switch to chests, then put a chest somewhere, put the remaining chests in the chest, then open it and sort things.

innesm
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2017 3:53 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by innesm »

Thanks for the tips - the trash slots had completely passed me by - they're very useful for this problem. Damn I love this game - one thing I just realised is I'm playing a different version from the one documented on wiki.factorio.com. Also, I LOVE THIS GAME.

Nofew
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:38 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Nofew »

I haven't read everything so I'm sorry if this was mentioned before, but here's a quickie:

In this FFF, you mention that some functionality is lost because players can't transfer their entire inventory while retaining their toolbar anymore.

I think this can be addressed by "locking" items in the inventory, which basically means they won't be affected by any group operations. Maybe Ctrl+Shift-clicking changes the background to a slightly greyer shade to show this?

If we can do this on a per-slot (not per-item-type!) basis, we should be able to not only retain the old behavior, but actually make it even better!

wvlad
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 215
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:55 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by wvlad »

innesm wrote:I'm a newbie to Factorio but have been fighting with the hotbar/inventory UI a lot. Stuff like clicking on a filtered hotbar item to select that item and it not working because the game tries to place my existing different item into this filtered slot. And the filtered slot being empty even though I have a bunch of that item. Now I try to always drop everything before clicking to pick up something else (or you can hit the shortcut number for that slot if you remember it - that doesn't try to do the swapping), but often forget. Just seems bizarre and difficult to work with to me. I was delighted to see this blog post because it totally chimed with my experience! I didn't want to start complaining about the UI so soon, because I assumed I was somehow not getting it. I still hope I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.
Exactly my situation +++

tmx
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2017 11:05 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by tmx »

I think the game UI is fine and intuitive, but one improvement that can be done is to the tech tree. It's not currently really displayed like a tree, more like a list. You can't often find technologies you need just by looking at it, and so you have to use the search. I had to type 'rocket' every time i researched something in my 8 hour speedrun.. I think a full-screen tech tree like the one in Civilization games or RPGs would be better, for new players especially

Mandabar
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2015 9:49 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Mandabar »

Hi, I heard .16 experimental released. Did this new toolbar filtering (and not an inventory) thing come to pass? I'm sorta excited.

Jap2.0
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 2339
Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2017 12:02 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Jap2.0 »

The GUI will be updated in 0.17.
There are 10 types of people: those who get this joke and those who don't.

foodfactorio
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 454
Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:56 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by foodfactorio »

hi, if you are adding the small "Sort" buttons for inventory, is there any chance you could also have a quick look here too:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=57480
and maybe to bear this small request in mind as well (so that it could be easily catered for via a mod, if it is not something you could add to the game your self as an option?)
(also me from the mod portal - im not dustine lol) = https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Dustine/ ... ssion/9108
my 1st Mod Idea :) viewtopic.php?f=33&t=50256

foodfactorio
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 454
Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:56 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by foodfactorio »

i learned recently that i can press "L" and see a small window with logistic info, and this is nice, though if you have a way to also add 1 button to Toggle Expand and Contract on the logistic info, which is shown on the right of the UI currently in 0.16, when we hover the mouse over a Logistic chest, i think it will also be very useful:

for example:
we could click the Purple Circle, and this info expands to the left, and shows it all in the middle of the screen in a larger area.
and if we click the blue circle, (or the purple circle again), it hides/closes/toggles this information.
Toggle_Click_to_Expand_all_these_items_and_contract_again_to_show_lots_in_1_area.png
Toggle_Click_to_Expand_all_these_items_and_contract_again_to_show_lots_in_1_area.png (1.05 MiB) Viewed 6867 times
this way, we will be able to see almost all items (depending on how many mods we play with), in an easy way, and without much scrolling at all or things getting cut off and not shown.
please do keep the "L" key though, because it is still nice to be able to search for something specifically, as up to now, i had been relying on the "advanced-logistics-system" mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/advanced-logistics-system which has not been updated yet.

(if you read this far, then the 1st person to say which item is in Row 2, Column 2, showing 29k items, wins a virtual cookie or cakes) :D
(also me from the mod portal - im not dustine lol) = https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Dustine/ ... ssion/9108
my 1st Mod Idea :) viewtopic.php?f=33&t=50256

User avatar
Lubricus
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 294
Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2017 12:13 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by Lubricus »

I like the ideas.
I also have problem with finding stuff in my inventory. It's much easier to find stuff in the crafting menu but when i craft something it first get's lost in the inventory somewhere.
So i realized that the crafting menu is 1 divided up in tabs, 2 the stuff is always in the same spot, 3 there is a search-option. None of these are true for the inventory so it's harder to find something there. It gets exaggerated by mods like angelbob with several times the number of different items than in vanilla but the problem is also present in vanilla.
I don't know the best solution, but to simply be able to use the Q button in the crafting menu to transfer the item to the hand (if present in the inventory) would help me. Add a search option to the inventory should also be possible.

General for game design don't forget what is the attraction and fun with the specific game you are working with. Games/Computer games is such a wide category so stuff thought about game design could be great for one type of game and just remove what is the fun in others. I think Wube is doing great in this regard and know that Factorio is a "niche" game and what is great about the game and is improving that.

foodfactorio
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 454
Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2017 1:56 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Post by foodfactorio »

hi lubricus, you just gave me a good idea :)
the game currently highlights a new item, as soon as you craft it and it is placed somewhere in your inventory....

but the highlight does not last for much time at all.... it is like only highlighted for a quarter of a second?
maybe a quick fix that could help you (and others too), could simply be to show the highlight for at least 5 seconds, before optionally fading away?
(also me from the mod portal - im not dustine lol) = https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Dustine/ ... ssion/9108
my 1st Mod Idea :) viewtopic.php?f=33&t=50256

Post Reply

Return to “News”