Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Regular reports on Factorio development.

User avatar
Bart
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 81
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 8:56 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Bart »

but it wouldn't be us if we didn't break mod compatibility in a new release.
:lol:
I have the cape.
I make the fucking whoosh noises.

Rhamphoryncus
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue Jul 14, 2015 10:57 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Rhamphoryncus »

I've done a GUI lib before.. my sympathies for the pain involved. I'm sure the result will be worth it though.

User avatar
eradicator
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5206
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2016 9:03 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by eradicator »

I already love you for keeping the gui debug-view in for us modders.
Can you estimate just how bad the gui breakage will be? I'm on the verge of writing some rather large mod gui and if it's too bad i might as well postpone it until release of 0.16.
Author of: Belt Planner, Hand Crank Generator, Screenshot Maker, /sudo and more.
Mod support languages: 日本語, Deutsch, English
My code in the post above is dedicated to the public domain under CC0.

User avatar
MasterBuilder
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 348
Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:22 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by MasterBuilder »

eradicator wrote:I already love you for keeping the gui debug-view in for us modders.
Can you estimate just how bad the gui breakage will be? I'm on the verge of writing some rather large mod gui and if it's too bad i might as well postpone it until release of 0.16.
You'll be waiting a lot longer than that:

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-212
Finally the million dollar question is when will this be in game? Because it's quite a bit of work we already pushed the GUI update to 0.17. On the bright side, this mean 0.16 will come a bit sooner.
Give a man fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Rseding91
Factorio Staff
Factorio Staff
Posts: 13171
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2014 5:23 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Rseding91 »

eradicator wrote:I already love you for keeping the gui debug-view in for us modders.
Can you estimate just how bad the gui breakage will be? I'm on the verge of writing some rather large mod gui and if it's too bad i might as well postpone it until release of 0.16.
Not that bad. It will be mostly find-and-replace kind of fixes that mods need to do.
If you want to get ahold of me I'm almost always on Discord.

PunkSkeleton
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 82
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2016 2:10 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by PunkSkeleton »

Didn't you consider writing your own GUI library from the scratch? From my experience open source software can often be scary (my favorite example is JFreeChart which would randomly crash when using multiple windows until I did single synchronize on the top level of this library drawing function), especially when it wasn't written to do what you want to do. Once you pass certain level of understanding it is often better to rewrite the whole thing from the scratch instead of applying dirty fixes.

User avatar
Gergely
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 595
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:31 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Gergely »

PunkSkeleton wrote:Didn't you consider writing your own GUI library from the scratch? From my experience open source software can often be scary (my favorite example is JFreeChart which would randomly crash when using multiple windows until I did single synchronize on the top level of this library drawing function), especially when it wasn't written to do what you want to do. Once you pass certain level of understanding it is often better to rewrite the whole thing from the scratch instead of applying dirty fixes.
I kind of agree. It will take some time (actually, I think it would take as much time as the multiplayer rewrite did) but then you would have yourself a library that is fine tuned for every "special case" you come across. And in game development, there are a lot of special cases. Trying to fix a third party library( where the writer has no idea what it will be used for) is the same as solving that bridge construction fail with an s-bend and calling it "straight enough":
Bridge Construction Fail

User avatar
Proxy
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 165
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 11:10 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Proxy »

I'm just impressed i'm able to add 10 Module Slots and 33 Fuel slots to a machine and it doesn't break the Game, except for adding scrollbars to the fuel slots

Can't wait when GUIs will actually get some textures or some fancy glass effect (the ray one) or rust or something

User avatar
Durabys
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 233
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2016 3:30 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Durabys »

Bart wrote:
but it wouldn't be us if we didn't break mod compatibility in a new release.
:lol:
Maybe it will finally force the lazybones who haven't fixed bugs in their mods since 0.14 (and basically only made their mods compatible for 0.15 and nothing else) to get up their arse and start working on their mods again. ;)

User avatar
ssilk
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 12888
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 10:35 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by ssilk »

Wonderful.

Byebye for a 1.0 release this year. :) I nearly have won my bet with other webadmins at the release party in June. :D

Keep on this direction. It will look fantastic and will have a superior mod-ablity.

PS: What remains is just to replace lua with javascript ... <duck> ;)
Cool suggestion: Eatable MOUSE-pointers.
Have you used the Advanced Search today?
Need help, question? FAQ - Wiki - Forum help
I still like small signatures...

User avatar
Xterminator
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 981
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2014 4:49 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Xterminator »

ssilk wrote:Wonderful.

Byebye for a 1.0 release this year. :) I nearly have won my bet with other webadmins at the release party in June. :D
Seems like bye bye for even a 0.16 release this year, but I'm still remaining hopeful. The new GUI will be great once it does get implemented. Plus cleaning up all the code is good for future development and such. :)
Image Image Image

Loewchen
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 8283
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2015 5:53 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Loewchen »

Xterminator wrote:
ssilk wrote:Wonderful.

Byebye for a 1.0 release this year. :) I nearly have won my bet with other webadmins at the release party in June. :D
Seems like bye bye for even a 0.16 release this year, but I'm still remaining hopeful. The new GUI will be great once it does get implemented. Plus cleaning up all the code is good for future development and such. :)
The GUI update is not part of 0.16.

Olreich
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 4:09 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Olreich »

I'm glad you're cleaning up the GUI code. The GUI and keybindings are the hardest part of this game for newcomers, and having additional help and consistency for new players will be great. While you're playing with the GUI, can you give mod authors a way to create additional views when you click on an object? The biggest thing here is inserters. Customizing inserter positions in Bob's mods is quite ungainly right now (requiring a special key bind). It could be just an additional circuit connection/logistics network connection pop-out view with support.

User avatar
Durabys
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 233
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2016 3:30 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Durabys »

I hope you have the games source code burned on a DVD or two somewhere and not just on a hard drive. I can see the competition trying to send you a virus bomb to destroy your game. It is rumored that Bethesda did that to a Polish company who was making a post-apoc Fallout-esqe game back in 2010 to clear the way off any competition Fallout 3 could have had.

User avatar
Klonan
Factorio Staff
Factorio Staff
Posts: 5148
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 2:09 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Klonan »

Tomik wrote:
I hope you have the games source code burned on a DVD or two somewhere and not just on a hard drive. I can see the competition trying to send you a virus bomb to destroy your game. It is rumored that Bethesda did that to a Polish company who was making a post-apoc Fallout-esqe game back in 2010 to clear the way off any competition Fallout 3 could have had.
That might be a good opportunity to start fresh :lol:

IronCartographer
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 454
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2016 2:07 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by IronCartographer »

Olreich wrote:I'm glad you're cleaning up the GUI code. The GUI and keybindings are the hardest part of this game for newcomers, and having additional help and consistency for new players will be great. While you're playing with the GUI, can you give mod authors a way to create additional views when you click on an object? The biggest thing here is inserters. Customizing inserter positions in Bob's mods is quite ungainly right now (requiring a special key bind). It could be just an additional circuit connection/logistics network connection pop-out view with support.

Couldn't the customization event use a mouse-click binding and operate on the highlighted inserter just as the default hotkey does?

User avatar
eradicator
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 5206
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2016 9:03 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by eradicator »

Rseding91 wrote:
eradicator wrote:I already love you for keeping the gui debug-view in for us modders.
Can you estimate just how bad the gui breakage will be? I'm on the verge of writing some rather large mod gui and if it's too bad i might as well postpone it until release of 0.16.
Not that bad. It will be mostly find-and-replace kind of fixes that mods need to do.
I'll take your word for it 8-) . As long as it doesn't require rewriting half the code i'll hopefully be fine. And if it's been postponed to .17 i don't have a choice anyway, :mrgreen:. Will be looking forward to it.
Author of: Belt Planner, Hand Crank Generator, Screenshot Maker, /sudo and more.
Mod support languages: 日本語, Deutsch, English
My code in the post above is dedicated to the public domain under CC0.

User avatar
Ohz
Fast Inserter
Fast Inserter
Posts: 187
Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 11:40 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by Ohz »

At that time, one of the new programmers wanted to fix some of the hacks. The result was, that he wanted to fix everything, and after 9 months of repeated inability to show anything, he was fired.
This somehow made me sad...
I'm not english, sorry for my mistakes

menschmaschine
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:39 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #216 - Paving a path for the GUI update

Post by menschmaschine »

Kovarex wrote :
At that time, one of the new programmers wanted to fix some of the hacks. The result was, that he wanted to fix everything, and after 9 months of repeated inability to show anything, he was fired.
That makes me sad too and a little bit angry.
Why would a guy be fired after failing at fixing something that by your own admission is a total chaos and only an be resolved by a total rewrite? Not to mention, as you wrote,
he went onto that task out of his own will, not because he was given that task. Also: Letting him try for 9 (nine) months and -then- kicking him out seems to be a little bit weird.
I would have waited 1 month maximum and then i would not have him fired, but taken that task away from him to free him up for other things.

(I do not know the poor guy and it is not my goal to start any drama here, i just express my opinion (which is solely based on this FF#216) about this specific company-behaviour)

I hope the Devs handle such situations better in the future, who knows what talent got lost that time just because he could not fix something that was unfixable?

Post Reply

Return to “News”