Factorio Forums

TL;DR

When examining combinators with different input/output states, Descriptions should be scannable.

What?

Simply move the Description field in the UI so it's not displaced by variable-size fields like Inputs and Outputs lists. I would put it above the "Working" flag, but I think below would work well enough. If doable, within the same delimited section as the standard entity description would likely feel best, in my opinion.

In the screenshots below, the tooltip for the combinator hovered in the left section lists my Description immediately below "Working" because all input and output signals are at 0. When I hover a different combinator as shown on the right, my Description is much further down, displaced by the input and output state information.

Why?

When troubleshooting or revising a circuit, one usually needs to answer "Where did I put X" part of the logic. If the Description placement is consistent (especially when tooltips are displayed under the map, as by default - not used here only for screenshot compactness), it will be easy to scan for the Description you're looking for. When it jumps around as you hover different combinators, this process is much slower as you stop to spot the Description of the latest combinator. Additionally, combinators where the number of nonzero signals changes rapidly are not unthinkable. In such a case, the Description may jump up and down just when examining a single combinator, which is certainly visually unpleasant.