Factorio Forums

IE like the player Inventory, production graphs, train controller, etc.

It frustrates me to no end that I can open my inventory with 'e' and close it with 'esc', but I can't also close mod guis with 'esc'. A great example of this is Bob's Inserters mod, but there are plenty of others. I can't tell you how many times I've opened the escape menu trying to close those windows. Even if mod authors by default might now want there guis to behave like the normal game guis (IE, you can only have one open at a time, but 'esc' will close them), I would edit that functionality into the mods personally if there was a way.

Maybe instead of 'frame', they can be 'window'? Then make them behave like the default stuff when you register them that way?

Edit: I think that came out a bit more harsh than I intended it. I basically just mean that it can be frustrating that after having played hundreds of hour of (near) vanilla factorio and getting used to the way the keybinds work, that I can't plug a mod in and have keybinds work the same way. For all the vanilla guis I can close them with the key that opens them OR escape, but for mod guys I can only close them with the key that opens them. The inconsistency is the annoying part.

I Was going to point out that I already made the request. Mooncat beat me to it.

bobingabout wrote:I Was going to point out that I already made the request. Mooncat beat me to it.

Because I also wanted to make the same request a few months ago, and then found yours.

I bumped mine. Rseding91 said it's on his to do list.

I'm really happy to have found this post as I find that also very irritating (how many times did I opened the game menu instead of closing the mod gui :/)..

That and the fact that it seems to be impossible to do a focus or a select of an element when opening a gui.
Ie, CTRL + N open my mod gui. I would like it to put the cursor in the search textfield.
So, I don't have to take my mouse, click on the text field and go back to my keyboard, write some chars, than go back to my mouse, select a recipe...
(well, maybe it's because I'm left-handed.. my right hand that is on the right part of the keyboard, manipulates easily the directionals keys and around, but not at all the chars. Maybe for right-handed people, it's not a problem.. I wonder)

I'm glad one of these 2 problems is in a todo list.

If you have the same frustration with my second point, maybe you can ask Rseding91 to add it to his to do list

quenenni: There's a thread here about the focusing feature:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=38511

No response from the devs on that one.

quenenni wrote:(well, maybe it's because I'm left-handed.. my right hand that is on the right part of the keyboard, manipulates easily the directionals keys and around, but not at all the chars. Maybe for right-handed people, it's not a problem.. I wonder)

The game really is designed for left hand on left side of keyboard, right hand on mouse.

Perhaps using the mouse in your right hand, at least for gaming is one of the things you really need to get used to, because WASD and mouse is very standard across the entire gaming industry.

But, I can understand what you're going through there. back when I got my first gaming Joystick for PC, I found that I still needed to use a mouse with it, so there was look around with mouse, and move with joystick. I ended up using the Joystick in my left hand, even though all my life in previous generations of computers I'd always used a joystick in my right hand.

Perhaps instead of the arrow keys, you could configure to use something like IJKL instead of WASD, then you can configure U instead of Q and O instead of E, etc. might be better than arrow keys at least. Fairly common in old games was actually to use the numpad, that's a 9+ key array you can use to move with extra buttons. 8426 would be the WASD equivalent, and 5 is "Fire", aka an action button.

Hello Bobingabout,

Thanks for answer.

Everything in life is made for right-haded people
I saw several documentaries about that subject.
Did you know left-handers have a average lifespan a tiny bit shorter that right-handers, due to the fact that left-handers have to make bad torsions of the body (and so damaging it a tiny bit) to adapt to everything in life.. But we have our advantages too.. A bit of good, a bit of bad.. life.

I met, in my career, two left-handed persons that were using the mouse with their left hand, but also reverse the use of the buttons on the mouse.. That's very very strange (even horrible) to go on their computer to try to do anything.. Luckily for me, I didn't start the habit. If you do that, you will never use another computer than your own.

Anyway..
My first game (on pc) was bard's tale 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard' ... eo_game%29), so since then, I learned to play with the mouse on my left hand.
We still have plenty of keys to use around the arrow keys (well, when games let us choose the key binding, if not, it's indeed very painful).
I tried to use other keys than arrow keys, like IJKL or ZQSD (WASD for azerty), but I really find the arrow keys much nicer with the up key just on top of the down key instead of having a small shift, and also there are spaces around, so you can easily find them when not looking at the keyboard. And it's also easier to find all the keys around the arrow keys when not looking at the keyboard.

Still, I think, even if it helps a bit less right-handers than left-handers, the focus on element when opening a window should be a possibility.
I'm sure everyone will appreciate that small added feature (maybe except modders as they will have to code more ).
You push a key to open a window and without delay, without looking at the screen, without having to click with the mouse somewhere, you start writing..

The only thing I don't know if it's even a possibility to achieve that with Lua scripts. I searched the net when I did my small mod, but I could find any information on it.
I have the impression that lua script are very poor when it comes to graphical stuff. Too bad.

Now, if I have to choose between the 2 features asked here, I will go for the one asked originally in this post (register a mod gui as a normal game window). It's a much more important feature to be added.
The other one, well, let's say I'm used to adapt myself to the constraints of a right-handers world.

Thanks for the time you took to answer me.

Coppermine wrote:quenenni: There's a thread here about the focusing feature:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=38511

No response from the devs on that one.

Thanks for the info.
I'll go check there.