Ideas for improving the handcrafting queue

[mrvn]

TL;DR

This is a bit of a mix of several ideas to improve the handcrafting queue to make it easier to manipulate, less chaotic and easier to understand at a glance.

What ?

1. Freeze item positions when the mouse is over the queue or right align queue.
   When the mouse hovers over the queue the item positions should freeze and items would disappear from the front without the queue shifting.

   

   queue-freeze.png (57.07 KiB) Viewed 1328 times

   Alternative instead of having the current item at the left start with the last item on the right. That way as items are produced the queue gets shorter but items don't constantly shift around.

   

   queue-right-align.png (55.54 KiB) Viewed 1328 times

2. Paging mode for really long queues
   When there are more items in the queue then fit on the screen one can either view the first view items or expand the list and view the last items. The middle is unreachable. The items also cover a lot of the screen. It would be nice to have a paging mode with a limited number of lines visible at a time and up and down arrows. In paging mode the queue should not shift when the front isn't visible.

   

   queue-paging.png (140.06 KiB) Viewed 1328 times

3. Arrows should always be drawn at the right.
   The arrow for collapsing the queue is a moving target making it sometimes hard to hit. It should always be drawn at the rightmost position. In combination with the previous item the paging arrows should be at a fixed position as well.
4. Hide intermediaries.
   When crafting items that require intermediaries the list gets long. Add a button to show only result items (grey background).

   

   queue-hide-intermediaries.png (71.35 KiB) Viewed 1328 times

   It might be best to show the intermediaries for the first result, the ones actively being worked on.
5. Mouse over effect for intermediaries
   When hovering over an item in the queue highlight the qroup of intermediaries and result item that would be affected by a change.

   

   queue-highlight.png (79.4 KiB) Viewed 1328 times

6. 2D view of items
   Instead of showing all items left to right show result items left to right and intermediaries for each top to bottom.

   

   queue-2d.png (58 KiB) Viewed 1328 times

7. Drag & drop support.
   Covered by another topic already about Drag & Drop support in a bunch of queues but just to mention it again. It should be possible to drag an item and drop it at a different position to rearange the build order.

Why ?

The handcrafting queue can get long, especially early in the game when production isn't automated yet and there is no logistic zone to deliver items to the player or construction zone to build blueprints automatically. Some players also use the queue to store items, with the plan to remove the crafting job before the crafting of the items actually starts and getting back the ingredients. A long queue gets hard to read and when the queue contains jobs like building 1 iron gear wheel (0.5s) it will constantly shift making it even harder.

Trying to remove an item from the queue becomes near impossible because when the items keeps shifting away out from under the mouse and canceling the wrong item becomes likely. The number of intermediaries produced in long queues are more an irritation than informational, showing barely anything of the queue in collapsed mode and covering valuable screen space in expanded mode. Trying to count how many steal pipes are in the queue when they constantly shift and some are intermediaries and some actuall crafting results becomes impossible. The constant change of position of items becomes a distraction.

So to summarize the idea has 2 goals:

1) Reduce the amount of change in the queue making it less of a distraction and easier to target items with the mouse.
2) Show the information in a easier to read way or allow hiding clutter when not interested in the details.

[jodokus31]

Nice ideas, I like the 2d view approach. However, this could get problematic if one item needs huge amounts of intermediates, but maybe the detailed list of intermediates is not really that interesting, there could be a crafting duration display and/or a limited/shortened list of it intermediates to be crafted.

Alternatively, I also the right alignment idea, that items don't shift around (or the freeze idea, when cursor over queue.) But, thats just a bit more lightweight, to prevent items from shifting around.
Btw. The shifting stop/protection could also be good for player inventory with autosort. I don't know, how often I try to move items from inventory to a chest and clicked on the wrong one, because it shifted around in that moment.

[BicycleEater]

All of these are good suggestions, and any of them would be an improvement - particularly the freeze position of mouseover, and the hide intermediates beyond first craft.
I'd also say that when you have the queue expanded, it should form a window, so you can't click things behind it when manipulating it.

[mrvn]

Nice ideas, I like the 2d view approach. However, this could get problematic if one item needs huge amounts of intermediates, but maybe the detailed list of intermediates is not really that interesting, there could be a crafting duration display and/or a limited/shortened list of it intermediates to be crafted.

Alternatively, I also the right alignment idea, that items don't shift around (or the freeze idea, when cursor over queue.) But, thats just a bit more lightweight, to prevent items from shifting around.
Btw. The shifting stop/protection could also be good for player inventory with autosort. I don't know, how often I try to move items from inventory to a chest and clicked on the wrong one, because it shifted around in that moment.

There can be a lot of intermediaries before the top of the screen is reached. But it could happen. One thing I noticed (in the past, has this already been done?) is that item can appear multiple times as intermediaries. For example 3 intermediaries could need copper wire and then copper wire appears 3 times itself. Those could be combined into a single button. That should cut down on the list of intermediaries a lot.

If that isn't enough the item could be shown as multiple columns either side by side or each additional column offset behind the previous so it's only partially visible. Last there could be a "..." button and the list simply shortened. Are you really interested in all the intermediaries when there are more than 20?

I would add a mock-up picture for this too but: "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached."

I also like the idea of the (expanded) queue being a separate window. This would allow configuring it's size and drag it to somewhere on the screen where it's not in the way. Also a scroll bar would fit right in.

[jodokus31]

Nice ideas, I like the 2d view approach. However, this could get problematic if one item needs huge amounts of intermediates, but maybe the detailed list of intermediates is not really that interesting, there could be a crafting duration display and/or a limited/shortened list of it intermediates to be crafted.

Alternatively, I also the right alignment idea, that items don't shift around (or the freeze idea, when cursor over queue.) But, thats just a bit more lightweight, to prevent items from shifting around.
Btw. The shifting stop/protection could also be good for player inventory with autosort. I don't know, how often I try to move items from inventory to a chest and clicked on the wrong one, because it shifted around in that moment.

There can be a lot of intermediaries before the top of the screen is reached. But it could happen. One thing I noticed (in the past, has this already been done?) is that item can appear multiple times as intermediaries. For example 3 intermediaries could need copper wire and then copper wire appears 3 times itself. Those could be combined into a single button. That should cut down on the list of intermediaries a lot.

If that isn't enough the item could be shown as multiple columns either side by side or each additional column offset behind the previous so it's only partially visible. Last there could be a "..." button and the list simply shortened. Are you really interested in all the intermediaries when there are more than 20?

I would add a mock-up picture for this too but: "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached."

I also like the idea of the (expanded) queue being a separate window. This would allow configuring it's size and drag it to somewhere on the screen where it's not in the way. Also a scroll bar would fit right in.

I would not want, that it reach to the top of the screen. Maybe only, if explicitly expanded.
Also, it must be expandable to the left somehow, not sure how that could look.

Maybe it could be a mixture of point 4., where intermediates are hidden and expand vertically instead of row by row.

Or you could only list the main items with hidden intermediates (and crafting duration). When hovering over it, it shows the details in a structured tooltip.
I think, you don't need every details for every intermediates in the queue. It's also not necessary to interact (f.e. cancel) with an intermediate, because if you cancel one intermediate, the whole product is cancelled.

[mrvn]

I would not want, that it reach to the top of the screen. Maybe only, if explicitly expanded.
Also, it must be expandable to the left somehow, not sure how that could look.

With the 2D view I would assume the default is a 1D view with just the results (plus the current intermediaries) and expanded view makes it 2D or something.

Or instead of expand/collapse the button cycles between current view, current expanded, 2D view, hide intermediaries view, ...

Maybe it could be a mixture of point 4., where intermediates are hidden and expand vertically instead of row by row.

Or you could only list the main items with hidden intermediates (and crafting duration). When hovering over it, it shows the details in a structured tooltip.
I think, you don't need every details for every intermediates in the queue. It's also not necessary to interact (f.e. cancel) with an intermediate, because if you cancel one intermediate, the whole product is cancelled.

That is not quite true. One thing I use from time to time early in the game is the following: Pick up a bunch of copper wire from an assembler, click on circuit boards to build all, cancel all copper wires intermediates. That will let me build as many circuit boards as I have copper wires picked up. So sometime interaction with intermediates is wanted. Just not all the time, or even most of the time. A tooltip only view of intermediates would take away that option.

[BicycleEater]

That is not quite true. One thing I use from time to time early in the game is the following: Pick up a bunch of copper wire from an assembler, click on circuit boards to build all, cancel all copper wires intermediates. That will let me build as many circuit boards as I have copper wires picked up. So sometime interaction with intermediates is wanted. Just not all the time, or even most of the time. A tooltip only view of intermediates would take away that option.

True, I do that a lot as well (early rail, belts, etc.), but you could make it so that the intermediates were only visible on the first item, or all items if the queue was expanded...

[mrvn]

That is not quite true. One thing I use from time to time early in the game is the following: Pick up a bunch of copper wire from an assembler, click on circuit boards to build all, cancel all copper wires intermediates. That will let me build as many circuit boards as I have copper wires picked up. So sometime interaction with intermediates is wanted. Just not all the time, or even most of the time. A tooltip only view of intermediates would take away that option.

True, I do that a lot as well (early rail, belts, etc.), but you could make it so that the intermediates were only visible on the first item, or all items if the queue was expanded...

Indeed. I think the default should be a right aligned line (or two when full) showing the intermediates for the current goal and then just the results with an indicator if they need intermediates or not. The "expand" arrow can then cycle through different display modes.

[jodokus31]

That is not quite true. One thing I use from time to time early in the game is the following: Pick up a bunch of copper wire from an assembler, click on circuit boards to build all, cancel all copper wires intermediates. That will let me build as many circuit boards as I have copper wires picked up. So sometime interaction with intermediates is wanted. Just not all the time, or even most of the time. A tooltip only view of intermediates would take away that option.

True, forgot about this.