Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Find should search hierarchically so I don't have to do it manually and I can play the game faster.

What ?

There are two places in Factorio where I use search/find a lot:
-- Blueprints
-- Crafting
In both cases, there is a hierarchy (blueprints have books, crafting has tabs). But CTRL-F or magnifier icon doesn't search into the substructure. This forces me to open each tab/book one by one and search within it. If I already knew which tab/book it was in, I wouldn't be searching!

This is especially true of blueprint books, and even moreso for newbie players who are just figuring out blueprints and robots. I often ask stuff like "is there a blueprint to build lasers? robots? modules? plastic?". I've installed several general blueprint books (BobACE, Nilhaus, etc) and I don't really know what is in there, but surely somebody has a nice print for me.

My suggestion: CTRL-F and magnifier always search all crafting tabs, and search all blueprint books. I realize this will make the search results harder to display, because it breaks the nice hierarchy that the crafting-tabs/blueprint-books provide. But it would be so useful!

Thanks!

When searching in the crafting menu, I want to know afterwards which category that thing was in. So next time I don't need to search.

I don't understand. Searching in the crafting GUI already fully works as you describe.

valneq wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 08, 2020 4:15 pm

When searching in the crafting menu, I want to know afterwards which category that thing was in. So next time I don't need to search.

Just look at which tab the item is under. You can see it because the tabs are highlighted.

AmericanPatriot wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 08, 2020 5:14 pm

valneq wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 08, 2020 4:15 pm

When searching in the crafting menu, I want to know afterwards which category that thing was in. So next time I don't need to search.

Just look at which tab the item is under. You can see it because the tabs are highlighted.

Exactly, but the OP wants to not have the categories to click through when looking at search results.

Ah, you are so right about the crafting search. Not sure why I thought that, maybe it was in some beta?

+1 for recursive blueprint book search.