Factorio Forums

This request could be considered an extension of 684528 and half of 694271.

I would like for the buttons in the side menu (also called "Panels" by the game) and the buttons below the minimap in Remote View (which toggle map overlays) to be extensible using ShortcutPrototype.
ShortcutPrototype is what the shortcut buttons at the bottom-right of the HUD use (also called "Tools" by the game).
To facilitate this, ShortcutPrototype would gain a location property, which can assume one of three values:

• defines.shortcut_location.tools (default)
• defines.shortcut_location.panels
• defines.shortcut_location.map

This would place the shortcut in the current Shortcut tray, the side menu, or in the map overlay buttons respectively.

The side menu and map overlay buttons that currently exist in the base game would be converted to ShortcutPrototypes and declared in __base__/prototypes/shortcuts.lua, so that mods may change them if needed.

There is the question of how to handle an arbitrary number of buttons being added to these places. Either they would need their own analogue to the "hidden shortcuts menu":
Or you could implement a paging system similar to how the game controller UI handles these buttons:
(Did you know there's a Research button for controller users with it's own page? )

+1 for this! like how Shemp says, this covers two other threads for the same suggestion. would love to see this make it into the game at some point!