Factorio Forums

The problem:

I spend too much time finding items, ether in the crafting menu or in my Inventory.

Proposed solution

We can have a mnemonic shortcut for each item which would allow finding it instantaneously.

For example, insertes can be mapped to :ins, :insb, :insl, :insf, :insx, :inss, :inssx for "inserter", "burning inserter", "long inserter", "fast inserter", "filter inserter", "stack inserter" and "filter stack inserter" respectively.
For another example, guns could get :gun, :gunp, :guns, :gunsc, :gunf, :gunr mappings for "Submachine gun", "pistol", "shotgun", "combat shotgun", "flamethrower" and "rocket launcher" respectively.

Mnemonic shortcuts are different from usual shortcuts because they use multiple keys and have structural logic.
They are also different from a regular search on items because mnemonic shortcuts are constructed on semantics rather than naming (see my example with guns).

Mnemonic shortcuts have to be activated by a key, so I put `:` in front of them, but that could be some other easy-to-reach symbol.

Where I've seen it work

You could easily recognize this idea as being copied from the Vim text editor. Vim became quite famous (and popular in some crowds) because of its use of mnemonics. Every action in it has a 2-to-4 letter mnemonic shortcut, which makes remembering them relatively easy. The command mode is activated with typing `:`, after which you type the mnemonic or, in case you forgot it, keywords for fuzzy search.

Problems

The biggest ergonomic problem is that long shortcuts are best used with both hands, which means a player will have to move their right hand between the mouse and the keyboard.

Also, integrating that with mods and keeping all mnemonics unique will be a PITA.

Have you tried the "q" key bind, that selects the item you point at with your cursor from your inventory?

voddan wrote:

Problems

The biggest ergonomic problem is that long shortcuts are best used with both hands, which means a player will have to move their right hand between the mouse and the keyboard.

Also, integrating that with mods and keeping all mnemonics unique will be a PITA.

How to solve both of those: Allow users to set mnemonics and import/export them. Then you can set your own or import from others. Get things like left hand only, specific mod sets, etc.

I wonder if this is createable in Lua/modding? I think it should be. I might try to make this.