Blueprint Library Feedback

[KatherineOfSky]

I am finding the new blueprint library very non-functional. I am a bit shocked. I've been on hiatus from the game because I have severe hand problems, and the BP library feels non-intuitive and hard to work with, even after spending several hours getting used to it. I will do my best to explain the problems I've encountered and suggest solutions:

1. I can create a blueprint and it's in my hotbar/inventory. I then place it in the My Blueprints for overall storage. It appears to copy the blueprint there. I no longer want it in my inventory (because of limited space), so I delete it. The blueprint vanishes from the Blueprint Library! Is one supposed to store all these blueprints in chests around the factory? I thought we went away from that system....

Incidentally, I've already seen a few complaints on the Steam forums of exactly that -- deleting and losing entire books because they thought they were deleting a copy from inventory.

2. I like reusing the same BP square from my hotbar to make blueprints for the library. The shortcut of Shift+Rt Click seems to be missing. Not sure if that is a bug or intentional. Several users on the Steam forums have also asked for it back. The current method takes much more time, movements, and clicks to delete a bp, start a new one, etc. (I'm guessing the bizarre functioning of #1 has a lot to do with this change.... Please please just make make blueprints go into the library as copies like they did in the previous iteration.... it's much less confusing!)

3. Organization is a bit of a nightmare. The BPs and books no longer auto-sort, in the main window so as I was combining things together all of these strange holes appeared. It was sooo tedious to click every single one of them to put them neatly together in lines and consolidate the library. Please add an auto-sort feature to the Options. (When you have as many books and blueprints as I do, automatic alphabetical sorting is much desired).

Also, I found that dragging each BP into an existing book was very tedious. Click, drag, right click, place in an empty square. I would much prefer it to be like a modern OS, where you can select multiple files and drop them into a folder.

4. The title of a BP should autosave like the description does. If the current method is desired: the tiny pen is a terrible icon. Use a green checkmark like in other parts of the UI. I often forget to press enter or click it, so a more visible reminder is better. However, it should autosave like everything else you edit in the blueprint: description, objects, icons. None of those require a second confirmation.

5. The names in the Blueprint Library are extraordinarily confusing. For me: My Blueprints = Game Blueprints. Factorio is the game, so the blueprints are for the whole game. What are "My Blueprints" then? (This seems to be where all my global blueprints are stored). Please change the labels to "Current Map BPs" and "Library" or something similar to prevent confusion.

6. I had to ask for help in finding how to make a new blueprint book. To me it is obvious that an icon, or at least instructions, belong on the Blueprint Library window, since that is the primary area of organization. The lack of the Import icon is also puzzling to me. It makes no sense that they are solely on the hot bar and not in the BP Library main window, especially with the addition of nested books.


Please keep in mind that I am looking from the perspective of a long-time player as well as a new one. The current functionality is not friendly to either player group. I am really worried about how much confusion there will be when new players dive in with 1.0.

[HadrionClifton]

(Using the most recent version, 0.18.40 as of writing)

1. When you create a BP, it is stored in your inventory by default. If you place in in the hotbar, it creates a reference to the BP in your inventory.
   When you then move it from your inventory to the BPL, the storage gets moved, and the quickbar reference is now updated as well. The quickbar BP now refers to the BP in BPL. Deleting this will then delete the BP from the BPL, as would be expected.
   To remove a BP from the bar, press middle mouse button (like any other referenced item).
   Also the references don't take inventory space anymore, so once its in the BPL, it doesn't use your inventory.
   (same goes for books)
2. To create a new BP, you should pin the "Blueprint" button to the shortcut bar. Click this button (or default ALT+B), select BP area, give a name etc., and then press B to drop it into the BPL.
   If you create a new BP, it appears in your hand and as with any item, pressing Q will return it to your inventory. If you took it out from a book (in inventory or BPL) or the BPL, it will return into there.
   
   They indeed removed the clear BP shortcut. Probably in favour of the new BP button. I think this is because players might accidentally clear a referenced BP, resulting in an empty BP being somewhere in your inventory, the BPL, inside a book...
3. The auto-sorting got removed apparently. I too find this very annoying for large books. I get that people might want to have their own order, but a button to sort on name would be nice.
   The BPL is the same as an inventory now. Pressing SHIFT-click and CTRL-click work for BPs and the BPL the same as they do for regular items and chests etc.
4. The title already auto-saves like the rest, but just having a textbox like the description would indeed be faster and consistent with the rest.
5. Yes the local per-save BPL is called "Game Blueprints", while the global storage is "My Blueprints". I agree that a change would be more intuitive.
6. The new BP and BP book buttons are inside the hotkey toolbar, but having them in the BPL as well would indeed be easier sometimes.
   Maybe they could add a (tutorial) message on first usage to indicate that the buttons can be pinned to the hotkey bar.
   Same for the import string button, as you mentioned.

[KatherineOfSky]

1. What you are describing is not intuitive to either a new or long-time player: that's my point. I think there needs to be a LOT more instruction within the blueprint window or other ways of teaching the player if this is the final draft.

2. I have 2k hours in the game, just FYI. I'm aware of the hotbar icons. I think you missed the point of what I was saying: the instructions you gave are exactly the high amount of clicks and movements that are required because we don't have the shortcut anymore. I'm advocating efficiency!

4. You're correct. I must have clicked the X at the top instead of the Save at the bottom.

[Serenity]

Shortcuts are great and intuitive. Things being actual items the hotbar was a horrible misstep. In retrospect even the developers can't quite understand how they ever thought it was a good idea

Having x thousand hours just means you are used to how certain things work. How new players deal with this who never knew anything else may be completely different

[Blaine-O]

Having x thousand hours just means you are used to how certain things work. How new players deal with this who never knew anything else may be completely different

By the very same token, both developers and long-time players will find it nearly impossible to perceive the game from new players' perspectives. As far as you know, this new system will be incredibly unintuitive for them.

Certainly, a long-time player who is skilled enough to have written some of the best-rated Factorio Steam guides of all time has found the new BP system unintuitive. I believe that's worth consideration.

Personally, I can't imagine the new system being immediately intuitive for ANYONE, and I'll explain why.

1.) The BP is initially treated as a purely "physical" item, like coal or iron plates, and works in exactly the same way. If you press Q to empty the cursor or directly place the BP into your inventory, there it will be; if you click it into an empty hotbar shortcut, the shortcut shall appear. I argue that this cements the idea of the BP being a physical item and of a BP shortcut being just a shortcut into a player's mind.

2.) If added to the BPL, the BP in question instantly ceases being a purely "physical" item, and instead has now become an "intangible," arguably quasi-meta-game item. There is very little feedback for this change. If the hotbar shortcut is deleted via the BP GUI (which looks the same whether the BP is physical or intangible), then the BPL reference disappears and the BP is totally lost. I argue that the default assumption would be that a meta-game copy has been made, one independent of in-game mechanics (such as "physical" items and shortcuts), rather than a non-copy transformation of physical to meta-game.

It's a narrow window of disconnect, but the disconnect is there, as well as the potential to deceive the player in an undesirable way, resulting in an unpleasant surprise.

Fortunately, a new player won't lose much learning this lesson by destroying one of their first blueprints... but someone like KatherineOfSky might lose something very elaborate, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the BPL is independent of save data and once they're gone, they're gone (I'm not sure, never really had to think about it/examine it before).

Possible solution: Classic one-time pop-up warning window with a checkbox that can be ticked to hide it in future.

[Koub]

That's funny, because despite having in the same order of magniture of hours played as KatherineOfSky (but far less talent I must confess), I have never been able to wrap my head around the legacy blueprint library. At least that's what I had to admit after losing several blueprint books and blueprints by misunderstanding how the whole system used to work, and never used the BP library again. My only blueprint usage was with copy/paste since the feature was added. Thus I can call myself a BP library noob (at least far more noob than most people with even 1/10th of my play time, or the devs).

I hadn't been able to find some time to try the new blueprint library (actually haven't even had time to try 0.18), so, seeing a decent amount of negative feedback, I decided to try for myself.

So I experimented a bit, and the only not-so-intuitive behaviour I could spot is when trying to move a blueprint from the root of my library to an existing blueprint book (which switched them instead of moving the blueprint in the book). And even that totally made sense after half a second thought, because there's no way the game can know you're not just rearranging your BP library.

I could do with a more "Windows explorer"-ish behaviour, but I'm not sure I'd be ready to trade the ability to order my BP library however I see fit for it. A reorder button (by type and alphabetically) would probably be a plus.

I also could do with new blueprints directly created in the library, instead of the inventory, and never being able to move a blueprint from the library to the inventory. However that would break recursive blueprint mod (and any mod relying on adding a blueprint in a container), which could be missed by some people. Or maybe, as a compromise, that a blueprint taken from the library and dropped into the inventory would be copied, and not moved.

As a conclusion, for me, the BP library overhaul is a huge improvement over the legacy BP library, and I suspect it will be far more intuitive to new players than the old was. It could be tweaked and polished with time, some of KoS' suggestions totally make sense on that aspect (the sorting buttons, renaming the library's tabs with "personal blueprints/current map's blueprints", and/or a tooltip to explain the difference), ...

[Qon]

Personally, I can't imagine the new system being immediately intuitive for ANYONE, and I'll explain why.

I think I've gotten used to it, and I like it.

1.) The BP is initially treated as a purely "physical" item, like coal or iron plates, and works in exactly the same way. If you press Q to empty the cursor or directly place the BP into your inventory, there it will be; if you click it into an empty hotbar shortcut, the shortcut shall appear. I argue that this cements the idea of the BP being a physical item and of a BP shortcut being just a shortcut into a player's mind.

All true. Kind of. But it's an item when it's in the library also. And you chose to make it a game item by dropping it in your main inventory. You could drop it in your library inventory instead, cementing that it's an item that belongs there if you so will.

2.) If added to the BPL, the BP in question instantly ceases being a purely "physical" item, and instead has now become an "intangible," arguably quasi-meta-game item.

It's stored in the library inventory, which has no coordinates on the surface. And if it's in "My Blueprints" it is stored outside the savefile. But it's treated as an item anyways, and the libraries are treated as just another inventory apart from having no surface (or savefile) connection. It's tangible, you can pick it up and drop it wherever you like.

There is very little feedback for this change.

Yes some kind of explanatory tooltip that tells you about the blueprint library would be nice to alleviate qonfusion. But the fact that blueprints aren't copied without you explicitly telling the game to means you are in control of what is happening all the time. If you move it, it is moved. If you copy it, it is copied.

If the hotbar shortcut is deleted via the BP GUI (which looks the same whether the BP is physical or intangible), then the BPL reference disappears and the BP is totally lost. I argue that the default assumption would be that a meta-game copy has been made, one independent of in-game mechanics (such as "physical" items and shortcuts), rather than a non-copy transformation of physical to meta-game.

When you press the delete button, the BP is deleted. It's not that complex. Don't delete blueprints you want to keep. Also blueprints now tell you where they are stored with the nested tree view thing.

Just scroll wheel click to unlink from quickbar instead of explicitly deleting blueprints that you want to keep. Seriously. Keeping blueprints in your main character inventory and deleteing copies of non-temporary blueprints and copying BPs without modifying are all bad habits you need to unlearn. Not saying it is easy once you have gotten used to the old ways.

[Blaine-O]

Just scroll wheel click to unlink from quickbar instead of explicitly deleting blueprints that you want to keep. Seriously.

That is only a solution after a player is aware of how shortcuts and shortcut removal (via MMB) function and how they interact with BPs, the BPL, and deletion of BPs. To put it more succinctly, "Seriously, just do this!" only works after the fact, and only if someone like you is around to say it. Hell, it took me a little while to figure out that MMB deleted shortcuts after the hotbar update. I was part of an in-progress, long-term multiplayer game when it dropped, and I hadn't read the patch notes that day.

Until the player is aware of how it all works and how everything interacts, I feel it's much more likely that they will assume they're deleting a physical item and/or shortcut only, and not the entire linked master copy. Hence the contention that this new system is unintuitive in a specific way that can cause undesirable results. That unituitive portion may well be easy to overcome and understand once it's encountered and examined, but someone could quite easily and permanently lose their data and hard work until that point.

[Serenity]

But regular items work as shortcuts too. You also remove those with the middle mouse button. And you no longer put actual things in the quickbar. So it's perfectly logical that it's a link to the BPL

Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to delete things directly from the quickbar at all. And the game could force you to go through the library menu for that. But other people may consider that inconvenient

[Blaine-O]

In terms of solutions, a toggle-able warning pop-up window is probably both the best and the easiest, because that doesn't require altering the new BP system in any way, other than adding a script and a few bytes of code and text for the pop-up window.

I wouldn't propose an actual redesign, because the system works perfectly fine now as-is... IF you understand it.

[EnerJi]

Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to delete things directly from the quickbar at all. And the game could force you to go through the library menu for that. But other people may consider that inconvenient

I think this could be a reasonable safeguard. Blueprints stored in one's library should be hard to delete IMO. These are (presumably) where players will be storing blueprints that they most wish to keep long-term, so it should be hard to accidentally delete these.

In terms of solutions, a toggle-able warning pop-up window is probably both the best and the easiest, because that doesn't require altering the new BP system in any way, other than adding a script and a few bytes of code and text for the pop-up window.

In general, modal pop-up windows are considered bad UX, but considering we are two weeks away from "1.0" and there likely isn't time to test and implement significant changes, I wouldn't be opposed to this.

[EnerJi]

1. I can create a blueprint and it's in my hotbar/inventory. I then place it in the My Blueprints for overall storage. It appears to copy the blueprint there. I no longer want it in my inventory (because of limited space), so I delete it. The blueprint vanishes from the Blueprint Library! Is one supposed to store all these blueprints in chests around the factory? I thought we went away from that system....

This must be a bug, if in fact the BP remained in inventory after copying to the library and if subsequently deleting the inventory version also deleted the library version.

(Using the most recent version, 0.18.40 as of writing)

1. When you create a BP, it is stored in your inventory by default. If you place in in the hotbar, it creates a reference to the BP in your inventory.
   When you then move it from your inventory to the BPL, the storage gets moved, and the quickbar reference is now updated as well. The quickbar BP now refers to the BP in BPL. Deleting this will then delete the BP from the BPL, as would be expected.
   To remove a BP from the bar, press middle mouse button (like any other referenced item).
   Also the references don't take inventory space anymore, so once its in the BPL, it doesn't use your inventory.
   (same goes for books)

This makes sense. I mean, I think it's understandably going to be confusing to many people, but the game-logic makes some sense. Perhaps this is what KOS experienced.

What if, as a small design tweak, the devs made the following change:

Assume a BP is in inventory and currently linked on the hotbar. When a player moves the BP from inventory to the library, what if the game automatically deletes the hotbar link? To me, silently updating the hotbar link that once pointed to the inventory to point to the library is just asking for trouble. I can see how it makes "sense" from a certain perspective, but it strikes me as dangerous.

Removing the hotbar link in this scenario would be a low-risk change that could easily be made before 1.0.

[Durentis]

I can create a blueprint and it's in my hotbar/inventory.

After the hotbar's change in behaviour (v17?), you can no longer consider it in the same way as an inventory. I suspect this is an underlying cause of the game behaving contrary to your expectation. The hotbar never contains items (blueprints or otherwise) but instead only links to them.

I then place it in the My Blueprints for overall storage. It appears to copy the blueprint there. I no longer want it in my inventory (because of limited space), so I delete it. The blueprint vanishes from the Blueprint Library! Is one supposed to store all these blueprints in chests around the factory? I thought we went away from that system....

When I create a new blueprint (from Alt-B) and place it on the hotbar, it stays on my cursor as I'd expect. I press Q to get it off of my cursor and find it in my inventory. When I open the blueprint manager and drag it from my inventory to a slot in the My Blueprints tab, it is moved not copied from the inventory. In fact, dragging it back moves it back into my inventory as I'd expect because blueprints are items and can only be copied, it seems, if you explicitly use that button with the blueprint open. If I drag a blueprint that is in my inventory from the hotbar to the blueprint library, I can actually see the blueprint being picked up in the inventory (it turns into a hand) and is moved to the blueprint library.

If you delete a blueprint going forward, know that you are deleting an item - in most cases the item. Not a copy. Not a link. Not some awkward "intangible" of prior versions.

This, from my perspective, is behaving amazingly well and intuitively as I would expect.

2. I like reusing the same BP square from my hotbar to make blueprints for the library. [...] The current method takes much more time, movements, and clicks to delete a bp, start a new one, etc. (I'm guessing the bizarre functioning of #1 has a lot to do with this change....

Middle-click the blueprint in the hotbar and the link to it disappears.
I don't know how you're creating blueprints, but from my perspective it has never been easier. There are even multiple ways of doing it, without the clumsy empty blueprints we needed before.
You can use Alt-B (or click the new blueprint button).
You can use Ctrl-C (or Ctrl-X) to copy (or cut) a selected area and then click in an empty space in your hotbar to create a blueprint (you can middle click with the almost-blueprint on your cursor to free up a space on the hotbar prior to left-clicking to place it).

Please please just make make blueprints go into the library as copies like they did in the previous iteration.... it's much less confusing!)

I strongly disagree with this. It's the side effects of the copying from past versions that is still causing confusion now that they behave more appropriately. Need to unlearn the old system.

3. Organization is a bit of a nightmare. The BPs and books no longer auto-sort, in the main window so as I was combining things together all of these strange holes appeared. It was sooo tedious to click every single one of them to put them neatly together in lines and consolidate the library. Please add an auto-sort feature to the Options. (When you have as many books and blueprints as I do, automatic alphabetical sorting is much desired).

This I can get behind. Sorting would be really nice, or at least the ability to drag a blueprint and insert it between two and shift the others right without making a hole or swapping positions.

Also, I found that dragging each BP into an existing book was very tedious. Click, drag, right click, place in an empty square. I would much prefer it to be like a modern OS, where you can select multiple files and drop them into a folder.

I think the action of dropping on top would currently be ambiguous as to whether you're wanting to swap locations or drop one into another. That you can nest books doesn't help. Dropping blueprints into a book as you suggest would probably require a time-delayed hover over the book and an indicator to disambiguate, during which time you could just right-click and place it in an open slot. The current behaviour doesn't feel too bad to me, but perhaps if there was auto-sorting and we couldn't manually slot blueprints and books at all, then dropping blueprints and/or books into other books would just naturally work very well.

5. The names in the Blueprint Library are extraordinarily confusing. For me: My Blueprints = Game Blueprints. Factorio is the game, so the blueprints are for the whole game. What are "My Blueprints" then? (This seems to be where all my global blueprints are stored). Please change the labels to "Current Map BPs" and "Library" or something similar to prevent confusion.

Agreed.

Also, I find it odd that the "Game Blueprints" tab behaves as an inventory the same as "My Blueprints". As it stands, there may as well only be the one tab (though I think the Game Blueprints tab is shared in multiplayer so you can limit what you share?). I think that the "Game Blueprints" tab should only contain links like the hotbar. That way, you don't feel compelled to create copies of (or accidentally move) blueprints from the "My Blueprints" tab for use in "Game Blueprints". I think there's a potential to lose blueprints if you just move a blueprint from "My Blueprints" to "Game Blueprints" and delete the save but there likely needn't be.

Perhaps the "Game Blueprints" tab could be removed completely by simply having a "shareable" flag on blueprints/books?

6. I had to ask for help in finding how to make a new blueprint book. To me it is obvious that an icon, or at least instructions, belong on the Blueprint Library window, since that is the primary area of organization. The lack of the Import icon is also puzzling to me. It makes no sense that they are solely on the hot bar and not in the BP Library main window, especially with the addition of nested books.

Agreed. The main blueprint library window should have both a button to create a new book and import from a string. Bit surprising to not see those there.

Also, I find it a bit odd/jarring that the list and tile buttons change the dimensions of the window. The window should just have a reasonable size and show the scrollbar as necessary regardless of the view.

Please keep in mind that I am looking from the perspective of a long-time player as well as a new one. The current functionality is not friendly to either player group. I am really worried about how much confusion there will be when new players dive in with 1.0.

I think new players will have less trouble with the 1.0 than you think, because they will be unencumbered by the awkward side-effects of the past behaviour that we were unfortunate to get stuck in our heads.

There is still room for some QoL tweaks to the blueprint library, but I'm very happy with the changes overall and think it's a massive leap forward in usability.

[oby]

I am finding the new blueprint library very non-functional. I am a bit shocked.

[...]

2. I like reusing the same BP square from my hotbar to make blueprints for the library. The shortcut of Shift+Rt Click seems to be missing. Not sure if that is a bug or intentional. Several users on the Steam forums have also asked for it back. The current method takes much more time, movements, and clicks to delete a bp, start a new one, etc. (I'm guessing the bizarre functioning of #1 has a lot to do with this change.... Please please just make make blueprints go into the library as copies like they did in the previous iteration.... it's much less confusing!)

I totally agree, this point is killing me! I wish the clear shortcut (Shift+right click) will come back.

[Qon]

Just scroll wheel click to unlink from quickbar instead of explicitly deleting blueprints that you want to keep. Seriously.

That is only a solution after a player is aware of how shortcuts and shortcut removal (via MMB) function and how they interact with BPs, the BPL, and deletion of BPs. [...]

Look if you hadn't cut out the part, right after, where I explicitly anticipated and acknowledged the point you are trying to needlessly raise then you wouldn't have much to say.

Just scroll wheel click to unlink from quickbar instead of explicitly deleting blueprints that you want to keep. Seriously. Keeping blueprints in your main character inventory and deleteing copies of non-temporary blueprints and copying BPs without modifying are all bad habits you need to unlearn. Not saying it is easy once you have gotten used to the old ways.

[Qon]

What if, as a small design tweak, the devs made the following change:

Assume a BP is in inventory and currently linked on the hotbar. When a player moves the BP from inventory to the library, what if the game automatically deletes the hotbar link? To me, silently updating the hotbar link that once pointed to the inventory to point to the library is just asking for trouble. I can see how it makes "sense" from a certain perspective, but it strikes me as dangerous.

Removing the hotbar link in this scenario would be a low-risk change that could easily be made before 1.0.

How do keep track of what blueprints are in inventory or library? Even if you are forced to relink, you will forget some time. And then it is not helping. And it creates extra work having to relink. More cons and not much actual pros.

Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to delete things directly from the quickbar at all. And the game could force you to go through the library menu for that. But other people may consider that inconvenient

A decent solution. Possibly make it somewhat easy and possible but different in a way that makes it clear that it exists in the library. Like instead of a dlete button, having a button that opens up the library and the book it is stored at, with the blueprint marked so you find it and can open it from the library and open up it again from there.

In terms of solutions, a toggle-able warning pop-up window is probably both the best and the easiest, because that doesn't require altering the new BP system in any way, other than adding a script and a few bytes of code and text for the pop-up window.

In general, modal pop-up windows are considered bad UX, but considering we are two weeks away from "1.0" and there likely isn't time to test and implement significant changes, I wouldn't be opposed to this.

Or just have a trash bin that blueprints are moved to instead of deleted when you press the delete button. It can delete the oldest things automatically once it reaches some max capacity. A solution similar to auto saves. Make recovery easy. And it's as simple to implement as a confirm dialog, but better in every way.

[Blaine-O]

Look if you hadn't cut out the part, right after, where I explicitly anticipated and acknowledged the point you are trying to needlessly raise then you wouldn't have much to say.

Not saying it is easy once you have gotten used to the old ways.

You're quite mistaken.

My point is not and has never been that the new way is difficult to get used to if you're used to the old way. On the contrary, I got used to it instantly.

My main point is that it's unintuitive and can be a nasty surprise when encountered for the first time, by old or new players. This has nothing to do with being "used to the old way."

[EnerJi]

What if, as a small design tweak, the devs made the following change:

Assume a BP is in inventory and currently linked on the hotbar. When a player moves the BP from inventory to the library, what if the game automatically deletes the hotbar link? To me, silently updating the hotbar link that once pointed to the inventory to point to the library is just asking for trouble. I can see how it makes "sense" from a certain perspective, but it strikes me as dangerous.

Removing the hotbar link in this scenario would be a low-risk change that could easily be made before 1.0.

How do keep track of what blueprints are in inventory or library? Even if you are forced to relink, you will forget some time. And then it is not helping. And it creates extra work having to relink. More cons and not much actual pros.

In that case, what about simply removing the ability to hotlink from hotbar directly to the blueprint library? If you want to use a blueprint from the hotbar, it must be moved or copied into inventory first. Thoughts?

Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to delete things directly from the quickbar at all. And the game could force you to go through the library menu for that. But other people may consider that inconvenient

A decent solution. Possibly make it somewhat easy and possible but different in a way that makes it clear that it exists in the library. Like instead of a dlete button, having a button that opens up the library and the book it is stored at, with the blueprint marked so you find it and can open it from the library and open up it again from there.

I think this is the minimum solution that should be considered. It must be made harder and more obvious when deleting a blueprint that exists in the library.

In general, modal pop-up windows are considered bad UX, but considering we are two weeks away from "1.0" and there likely isn't time to test and implement significant changes, I wouldn't be opposed to this.

Or just have a trash bin that blueprints are moved to instead of deleted when you press the delete button. It can delete the oldest things automatically once it reaches some max capacity. A solution similar to auto saves. Make recovery easy. And it's as simple to implement as a confirm dialog, but better in every way.

I think this would be a terrific solution (and very intuitive as the trash bin metaphor is pervasive across many applications and operating systems), perhaps for a post-1.0 patch.

[Serenity]

In that case, what about simply removing the ability to hotlink from hotbar directly to the blueprint library? If you want to use a blueprint from the hotbar, it must be moved or copied into inventory first. Thoughts?

Noooo. One of the reasons for the linking is to stop cluttering up your inventory with blueprints all the time

[Koub]

In that case, what about simply removing the ability to hotlink from hotbar directly to the blueprint library? If you want to use a blueprint from the hotbar, it must be moved or copied into inventory first. Thoughts?

Noooo. One of the reasons for the linking is to stop cluttering up your inventory with blueprints all the time

My shamelessly self-advertised quote here would be consistant with what you say.

I also could do with new blueprints directly created in the library, instead of the inventory, and never being able to move a blueprint from the library to the inventory. However that would break recursive blueprint mod (and any mod relying on adding a blueprint in a container), which could be missed by some people. Or maybe, as a compromise, that a blueprint taken from the library and dropped into the inventory would be copied, and not moved.