Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

Martinowitsch · Post by **Martinowitsch** » Sat Jun 10, 2017 2:04 pm

PacifyerGrey wrote:That is why I did suggest to drop the idea of Fkeys to switch tabs.
You should have dedicated keys to open those tabs directly and those will also switch between tabs if one is open.
Lets say:
E - handcrafting menu
L - logistic menu
I - inventory and equipment

If you have any tab open pressing the same key (or Esc) will close window. Pressing any other of 3 will switch to respective tab.
This layout is intuitive and used widely thoughout many games.

I do insist on using Esc to close any active window. This is so much intuitive that after hundreds of hours of Factorio I still try to do it.

Thats mostly allready implemented, there're windows like kills (K), logistics (L), Inventory and Crafting (E) and many more. Try some buttons and look what opens.

Engimage · Post by **Engimage** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 1:16 pm

Martinowitsch wrote:
PacifyerGrey wrote:That is why I did suggest to drop the idea of Fkeys to switch tabs.
You should have dedicated keys to open those tabs directly and those will also switch between tabs if one is open.
Lets say:
E - handcrafting menu
L - logistic menu
I - inventory and equipment

If you have any tab open pressing the same key (or Esc) will close window. Pressing any other of 3 will switch to respective tab.
This layout is intuitive and used widely thoughout many games.

I do insist on using Esc to close any active window. This is so much intuitive that after hundreds of hours of Factorio I still try to do it.
Thats mostly allready implemented, there're windows like kills (K), logistics (L), Inventory and Crafting (E) and many more. Try some buttons and look what opens.

I meant the new tabs that were shown by devs and not current stuff.
All of 3 are in the same game window but there are tabs shown and devs suggested the tabs will be switched by F1..F3 keys which is definitely a bad idea IMO.

Coltaine · Post by **Coltaine** » Thu Jun 22, 2017 8:16 pm

Yes please, all of these are great ideas! Especially the toolbar thing has been annoying the living daylights out of me forever. Oh and the game deciding that certain things shouldn't go to the logistics trash even though I have 4 million of them in my inventory.

millatime21 · Post by **millatime21** » Fri Jun 23, 2017 1:03 am

Suggestion:

Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters

What?

Allow having multiple items in one slot in the toolbar. When setting filters for the toolbar, allow multiple selections. Then, when using that slot from the toolbar, be able to switch between the items in the group by using ctrl+scroll (similar to scrolling between blueprints in the blueprint book).

Why?

No more inserters taking up 3+ spots on your toolbar! By making a group for inserters, you free up valuable space on your toolbelt. You still will always have access to other inserters with just a ctrl+scroll away. This can be expanded to many useful groups, such as:

belts
splitters
undergrounds
assembly machines
poles
turrets (+walls too, if desired)
circuit equipment
railroad equipment
and so on!

There are many possibilities, and the user can define her groups however she wants.
I chose ctrl as the modifier for switching between item groups. That way, there is still functionality with blueprint books and blueprint pages. Ctrl allows the user to switch between blueprint books, and shift allows for switching between blueprint pages in the selected book.

Also, please view this link for more ideas to expand upon this: (Can't post url in first forum post, so deleted unfortunately) - Toolbar Flyout For Selection of Subtype of Objects

mrvn · Post by **mrvn** » Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:28 am

millatime21 wrote:
Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters

+1

hauke · Post by **hauke** » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:40 am

millatime21 wrote:
Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters

I made an account just so I can say how much I'd like to have this. I never thought about it before but it's brilliant.

fechnert · Post by **fechnert** » Fri Jun 30, 2017 12:56 pm

millatime21 wrote:
Suggestion:
Customizable Item Groups for Toolbar Filters

+1, definitely!

innesm · Post by **innesm** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 4:03 pm

I'm a newbie to Factorio but have been fighting with the hotbar/inventory UI a lot. Stuff like clicking on a filtered hotbar item to select that item and it not working because the game tries to place my existing different item into this filtered slot. And the filtered slot being empty even though I have a bunch of that item. Now I try to always drop everything before clicking to pick up something else (or you can hit the shortcut number for that slot if you remember it - that doesn't try to do the swapping), but often forget. Just seems bizarre and difficult to work with to me. I was delighted to see this blog post because it totally chimed with my experience! I didn't want to start complaining about the UI so soon, because I assumed I was somehow not getting it. I still hope I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.

theRustyKnife · Post by **theRustyKnife** » Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:14 pm

innesm wrote: Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.

That is sometimes a tricky issue for me as well and I do have my hundreds of hours in. What I usually end up doing is grabbing an item that can't be placed into my hand. I can open a chest/car/whatever with that item in hand and drop stuff off. Of course that is assuming you have any such item in your inventory...
Another solution is to CTRL+click on a chest, which should place the item you're holding into the chest. While I have managed to place some unintentional blueprints this way, it's mostly a safe bet. But again, this assumes you have a free chest available nerarby...

Hope this helps. Also, welcome

Cheers TRK

mrvn · Post by **mrvn** » Thu Jul 13, 2017 8:46 am

innesm wrote:I'm a newbie to Factorio but have been fighting with the hotbar/inventory UI a lot. Stuff like clicking on a filtered hotbar item to select that item and it not working because the game tries to place my existing different item into this filtered slot. And the filtered slot being empty even though I have a bunch of that item. Now I try to always drop everything before clicking to pick up something else (or you can hit the shortcut number for that slot if you remember it - that doesn't try to do the swapping), but often forget. Just seems bizarre and difficult to work with to me. I was delighted to see this blog post because it totally chimed with my experience! I didn't want to start complaining about the UI so soon, because I assumed I was somehow not getting it. I still hope I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.

First thing would be to switch to something I can ctrl-click into an assembler, furnace or existing chest. Second thing would be crafting something to reduce the stack count. I assume all your trash slots are already full, otherwise that's a great place to store stuff if you are quick or out of the logistics network. After that I usually tend to switch to chests, then put a chest somewhere, put the remaining chests in the chest, then open it and sort things.

innesm · Post by **innesm** » Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:05 pm

Thanks for the tips - the trash slots had completely passed me by - they're very useful for this problem. Damn I love this game - one thing I just realised is I'm playing a different version from the one documented on wiki.factorio.com. Also, I LOVE THIS GAME.

Nofew · Post by **Nofew** » Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:16 pm

I haven't read everything so I'm sorry if this was mentioned before, but here's a quickie:

In this FFF, you mention that some functionality is lost because players can't transfer their entire inventory while retaining their toolbar anymore.

I think this can be addressed by "locking" items in the inventory, which basically means they won't be affected by any group operations. Maybe Ctrl+Shift-clicking changes the background to a slightly greyer shade to show this?

If we can do this on a per-slot (not per-item-type!) basis, we should be able to not only retain the old behavior, but actually make it even better!

wvlad · Post by **wvlad** » Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:35 pm

innesm wrote:I'm a newbie to Factorio but have been fighting with the hotbar/inventory UI a lot. Stuff like clicking on a filtered hotbar item to select that item and it not working because the game tries to place my existing different item into this filtered slot. And the filtered slot being empty even though I have a bunch of that item. Now I try to always drop everything before clicking to pick up something else (or you can hit the shortcut number for that slot if you remember it - that doesn't try to do the swapping), but often forget. Just seems bizarre and difficult to work with to me. I was delighted to see this blog post because it totally chimed with my experience! I didn't want to start complaining about the UI so soon, because I assumed I was somehow not getting it. I still hope I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to get out of the situation where you're holding something but have nowhere to put it to get your hands free, so can't even open a chest to put things into it? I end up dropping whatever I have the least items of onto the ground. It'd be better if there was always a way to get your hands free.

Exactly my situation +++

tmx · Post by **tmx** » Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:58 pm

I think the game UI is fine and intuitive, but one improvement that can be done is to the tech tree. It's not currently really displayed like a tree, more like a list. You can't often find technologies you need just by looking at it, and so you have to use the search. I had to type 'rocket' every time i researched something in my 8 hour speedrun.. I think a full-screen tech tree like the one in Civilization games or RPGs would be better, for new players especially

Mandabar · Post by **Mandabar** » Sun Jan 07, 2018 6:12 am

Hi, I heard .16 experimental released. Did this new toolbar filtering (and not an inventory) thing come to pass? I'm sorta excited.

Jap2.0 · Post by **Jap2.0** » Sun Jan 07, 2018 7:26 am

The GUI will be updated in 0.17.

foodfactorio · Post by **foodfactorio** » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:29 am

hi, if you are adding the small "Sort" buttons for inventory, is there any chance you could also have a quick look here too:
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=57480
and maybe to bear this small request in mind as well (so that it could be easily catered for via a mod, if it is not something you could add to the game your self as an option?)

foodfactorio · Post by **foodfactorio** » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:46 am

i learned recently that i can press "L" and see a small window with logistic info, and this is nice, though if you have a way to also add 1 button to Toggle Expand and Contract on the logistic info, which is shown on the right of the UI currently in 0.16, when we hover the mouse over a Logistic chest, i think it will also be very useful:

for example:
we could click the Purple Circle, and this info expands to the left, and shows it all in the middle of the screen in a larger area.
and if we click the blue circle, (or the purple circle again), it hides/closes/toggles this information.

: Toggle_Click_to_Expand_all_these_items_and_contract_again_to_show_lots_in_1_area.png (1.05 MiB) Viewed 8265 times

this way, we will be able to see almost all items (depending on how many mods we play with), in an easy way, and without much scrolling at all or things getting cut off and not shown.
please do keep the "L" key though, because it is still nice to be able to search for something specifically, as up to now, i had been relying on the "advanced-logistics-system" mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/advanced-logistics-system which has not been updated yet.

(if you read this far, then the 1st person to say which item is in Row 2, Column 2, showing 29k items, wins a virtual cookie or cakes)

Lubricus · Post by **Lubricus** » Fri Feb 16, 2018 5:06 pm

I like the ideas.
I also have problem with finding stuff in my inventory. It's much easier to find stuff in the crafting menu but when i craft something it first get's lost in the inventory somewhere.
So i realized that the crafting menu is 1 divided up in tabs, 2 the stuff is always in the same spot, 3 there is a search-option. None of these are true for the inventory so it's harder to find something there. It gets exaggerated by mods like angelbob with several times the number of different items than in vanilla but the problem is also present in vanilla.
I don't know the best solution, but to simply be able to use the Q button in the crafting menu to transfer the item to the hand (if present in the inventory) would help me. Add a search option to the inventory should also be possible.

General for game design don't forget what is the attraction and fun with the specific game you are working with. Games/Computer games is such a wide category so stuff thought about game design could be great for one type of game and just remove what is the fun in others. I think Wube is doing great in this regard and know that Factorio is a "niche" game and what is great about the game and is improving that.

foodfactorio · Post by **foodfactorio** » Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:49 am

hi lubricus, you just gave me a good idea

the game currently highlights a new item, as soon as you craft it and it is placed somewhere in your inventory....

but the highlight does not last for much time at all.... it is like only highlighted for a quarter of a second?
maybe a quick fix that could help you (and others too), could simply be to show the highlight for at least 5 seconds, before optionally fading away?

Factorio Forums