Amendment to Train Orders GUI

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DRY411S
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Amendment to Train Orders GUI

Post by DRY411S »

TL;DR
Move the 'Add station' button to the top of the train orders GUI (and/or have a 2nd button)

What ?
  • Allow stations to be selected for adding to the train orders with the 'Add station' button being at the top rather than the bottom of the list of train stops.
  • Have fixed button(s) rather than the 'floating' '+ Add station' button
  • Perhaps have 2 buttons, one to add a station to the top of the list, and another to add a station at the bottom.
Why ?
  • Train orders are normally quite simple, with 2,3 or 4 stops, and simple conditions
  • The '+ Add station' button remains visible in the GUI
  • Once there are more than 7 stops with 1 condition (or fewer stops with more complex conditions), the '+ Add station' button is no longer visible, and users have to scroll through the orders to bring it back into view.
  • Apart from anything else, this isn't great GUI design, but it's also a chore when having 'PAX' type trains where the orders build up over time. Every new stop for a PAX train needs more and more scrolling to bring the button into view.
  • Intuitively, with the introduction of more complex train orders described in recent FFF, I suspect that this (imo) poor GUI design will become more of an issue.

mrvn
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Re: Amendment to Train Orders GUI

Post by mrvn »

Adding new stations to the bottom is probably more intuitive. But the "add" button could be always visible at the bottom so no scrolling is needed.

Personally I'm not sure if I use the add button more than just shift/ctrl clicking on the map to add stations. But then again I use LTN so most train schedules are generated and I only program the very few exceptions manually.

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DRY411S
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Re: Amendment to Train Orders GUI

Post by DRY411S »

mrvn wrote:
Thu Feb 22, 2024 12:29 pm
Adding new stations to the bottom is probably more intuitive. But the "add" button could be always visible at the bottom so no scrolling is needed.

Personally I'm not sure if I use the add button more than just shift/ctrl clicking on the map to add stations. But then again I use LTN so most train schedules are generated and I only program the very few exceptions manually.
Shift/Control clicking also becomes a bit of a chore as the map grows very large.
But that is kind of moot really. The main issue for me is that it isn't great GUI design that a button disappears off the bottom of the GUI.

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Re: Amendment to Train Orders GUI

Post by Amarula »

Really feeling the pain of this one in my nullius run. With recipes that take small amounts of a whole lot of items (13!), it just doesn't make sense to use that many trains when one multi purpose train can easily pick them all up. Setting up the schedule would certainly be easier if the add button stayed visible.
My own personal Factorio super-power - running out of power.

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