Accessability: shortcut_bar_expand_button

[Optera]

What?

2020-05-31 205031.png (46.18 KiB) Viewed 1231 times

I have bad mouse aim, trying to hit this tiny 8x16 button is among the hardest challenges of the entire game.

Solution

Increase the size of that button to at least 24x24 like the close button. Better yet make it full 40x40 like every other control element.

[ssilk]

That button is so totally out of the look and feel of the rest of Factorio GUI that I did oversee it for half a year when that was introduced.

P.S.: The configuration of the shortcuts is an XP nightmare.

[Koub]

That button is so totally out of the look and feel of the rest of Factorio GUI that I did oversee it for half a year when that was introduced.

Fun fact, this must be different from one to another depending on personal experience : I saw it right away, because I was kind of expecting something to be there.
... Which doesn't help if one has trouble aiming such a small target.

[slippycheeze]

Fun fact, this must be different from one to another depending on personal experience : I saw it right away, because I was kind of expecting something to be there.

"Usability" is always personal, and worse, sometimes contradictory. That said, I'd definitely support a larger button, for two reasons:

As I've gotten older my vision has gotten worse, and that makes tiny buttons harder to use quickly. Not unusable -- glasses and all that -- but just that little bit more annoying. A larger button would help anyone in a similar position, and shouldn't detract too much for folks who don't need it.

The other reason is that I'd actually like a bigger shortcut bar, since there are more "infrequent enough to use a shortcut button, frequent enough to justify a shortcut button" things I'd like to have than there are slots available right now. Especially with more mods offering a shortcut button rather than a top-left button to open their UI.

I can't have a bigger shortcut bar today. What I did instead was put the second tier stuff -- less frequent than the visible buttons, still frequent enough -- in the popup menu so they were fairly quickly accessible to click the "activate" button once I opened it. Assuming I need to do that longer, easier-to-open menu is a winner from a usability point of view.

Even if the shortcut bar grew, I'd probably still end up needing that. All I need do is look at my logistic/construction toggles, blueprints, copy/cut/paste/undo, etc, and it'll be like my shortcut bar: filled beyond bursting no matter how big.

[ickputzdirwech]

I support this suggestion and want to add some other ideas in order to improve the shortcut bar (especially with mods):

• Add the ability to search the shortcut menu Edit: This has been implemented in 1.1
• Split the shortcuts in categories with tabs or drop down lists (see my mod as a reference for possible categories Shortcuts for 1.0)
• Make the position of the shortcut in the bar fixed. Instead of the dragging maybe add a field where you can set the number of a specific slot
• Add "shortcut bar columns" setting (similar 83878)
• Show "(Not set)" in the tooltip of a shortcut if the associated control input is empty
• Show the associated control input not only in the tooltip but also in the menu
• Open the shortcut menu in front of other windows like the inventory (see 90117)

Sorry for the long list but I didn't think it was helpful if I created a new topic for every small idea. If requested I will do so of course.