Factorio Forums

TL;DR

searching controls settings is real pain

What ?

you want to search for keys
if it's `control + z` that's pretty easy, type `control+f c o n t r o l z`
`control + i` will give you more problem
if it's `e` then your luck is in another castle

search box can smarter.
do you like to type `key:` and have the rest of the text only search keys? that would work.
want it faster? an extra search button could open a box for keys only. you already have boxes which, which clicked, let you enter a key; if the key-only box does just the same, typing `control+shift+f control+i` could search your `control + i` very quickly. `control+f tab control+i`? click on a box to the left of the search button? i'm not a UI designer.

you also want to search for entries which have no key set at all. `not set` will find both those and the ones that have one key set, but `not set not set` doesn't do the thing. it should! even if it was a special case, that would make the function possible

on the other side, you want to search for keys that aren't bound to anything. i just discovered i have no bindings for `i`! that would have been hard to find if i had been searching.

tangentially, you already search the text to the left of keys. but the title sections are ignored! that means lots of scrolling if you want to look at the keys for a specific mod, or one of the larger sections

TL;DR

Users can more easily resolve keybind conflicts if they have more information.

What?

Any keybind that is used for multiple actions should change from grey to blue. This indicates there may be a conflict. The game does not need to determine whether a conflict exists. When the user hovers over the keybind, a tooltip tells them which actions use the same keybind. It is up to the user to determine whether these actions conflict.

Why?

Users want to know their keys make sense and they want to save time resolving conflicts. Finding and resolving conflicts without this feature is a time-consuming process and can be frustrating. Giving them a little more information--with a highlight and tooltip--is all they need to quickly determine where they may have a problem.

Further, resolving keybind conflicts is something the game simply cannot do. Although there is a desire among some in the community for that feature, there is no way for the game to know whether an action that closes a window should not share the same key as entering a vehicle. Only the user can determine that. This simple solution gives maximum power to the user at minimum cost to the development team.