Stop Blueprints escaping their Books

[Mendel]

I propose better would be if clicking a blueprint in the blueprint book once does not pick up the blueprint but instead just selects the blueprint (yellow borders go on that blueprint) and the whole blueprint book is picked up instead.

To pick up the actual blueprint you would then have to put the blueprint book back in inventory, select it again and click on the selected blueprint (with yellow borders) again.

This makes actually picking up a specific blueprint a bit of a pain but using blueprints in blueprint book would be easier in my opinion.

Any seconds?

[Rseding91]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

[bobingabout]

No I didn't know you could do that. How do you do it?

[Rseding91]

No I didn't know you could do that. How do you do it?

Just hold the book in your cursor like you're going to build with it and then use the hotkey to scroll through it.

[5thHorseman]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

I do, though for a long time I didn't.

But for large books with odd groupings of prints, scrolling around is less than ideal especially when I took the time to use the icons to make the prints quickly recognizable on the grid.

[steinio]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

I do, though for a long time I didn't.

But for large books with odd groupings of prints, scrolling around is less than ideal especially when I took the time to use the icons to make the prints quickly recognizable on the grid.

You can give them a proper name which is displayed if you scroll over.

Escaping the books is needed to sort them in a new book or just leave them in the inventory alone.

I don't like the idea because it limits player in handling their blueprints.

[Optera]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

Sorry but that sentence seems a bit conceited.
It's an UI Designers job to create a natural workflow that can be comprehended intuitively. If users don't use your ui as you intended you made a mistake in design.

Having a 2d grid inside a book but using a scroll wheel to scroll through every single blueprint in a 1d list is not intuitive and breaks workflow because it's also very slow for anything above 5-6 blueprints.

The suggestion of opening the book, clicking on the blueprint in the 2d grid to use it and having it return to it's spot after that is a more natural workflow for most pc users.

[BlackKnight]

++1!

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

Sorry but that sentence seems a bit conceited.
It's an UI Designers job to create a natural workflow that can be comprehended intuitively. If users don't use your ui as you intended you made a mistake in design.

Having a 2d grid inside a book but using a scroll wheel to scroll through every single blueprint in a 1d list is not intuitive and breaks workflow because it's also very slow for anything above 5-6 blueprints.

The suggestion of opening the book, clicking on the blueprint in the 2d grid to use it and having it return to it's spot after that is a more natural workflow for most pc users.

I was actually going to say the same thing, its truly a sign of something in need of a design change when, most especially, many users are requesting it/struggling using a feature. It may be programmed intentionally, but if many users are then also suggesting it more intuitive to use a different or alternative method(s), its always recommended that the developer not pass it off as intentional. I am confused at the reaction-much less the decision to limit functionality. And the plus is that there is no draw backs!! - it only adds a new useful functionality as an option.

This issue with finding a blueprint happens to me every so often and I just put up with it -- but it really bugs me because it isn't intuitive and I often end up with a bp or two misplaced sitting in my inventory instead of back in its book.

Problem: Its not intuitive and the reviewing a 2D list by eye/quickly mousing over compared to reviewing a 1D list (that may not even have the thing you are looking for in it) by scrolling is far superior the more bp/bp books you have - though its nice to have the later as an option.

Often I have multiple books and am not sure where a blueprint is located. I set icons for each bp to help find them in my inventory or a bp book but you cant see these icons when you scroll through books with the mousewheel (speaking of which, not everyone has a mouse wheel! so an alt method should be available for such a critical function). Another issue - I often have several bp's that are similar - the only real way to tell them apart (esp for large ones) is to right click them to look at the the bp's shrunk overview to know for sure.. This isnt possible through scrolling unless they are adjacent (though often find them getting out of order).

Present functionality - Click a bp book, skim over the icons until I find one thats close to the one I want and then mousing over it to confirm, Stop self from intuitively picking the bp up directly and move mouse over and click the bp book instead - then scroll all the way through to the spot again until its located. Then Use. Finally done...

Preferable functionality: Click a bp book, skim over the icons until I find one thats close to the one I want and then mousing over it to confirm - then click the bp to use... done!

[Claudius1729]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

If you have a large blueprint book (for instance n-k balancer for n between 1 and 8 and k between 1 and 8), this is very impractical.
If you don't have one, well there's absolutely nothing in the UI or the tutorials that tell you you can scroll through a blueprint book.

In the Friday GUI Improvement thread, there was a lot of people wanting to remove blueprints as physical object, it really would make sense.

[Rseding91]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

If you have a large blueprint book (for instance n-k balancer for n between 1 and 8 and k between 1 and 8), this is very impractical.
If you don't have one, well there's absolutely nothing in the UI or the tutorials that tell you you can scroll through a blueprint book.

In the Friday GUI Improvement thread, there was a lot of people wanting to remove blueprints as physical object, it really would make sense.

It says it in the tooltip for the blueprint book: http://i.imgur.com/tzv12Qj.png

[tamanous]

It says it in the tooltip for the blueprint book: http://i.imgur.com/tzv12Qj.png

Yes it does. But:

We are used to handle blueprints in a specific, different kind of way. The new handling could have been introduced in a more highlighted way, what could have reduced the problems that occurred. I believe that people don't read ingame info of items they have already played with for many many hours.

PS: IMO blueprint books never provided a good handling, so I never used their handling abilities. I tried using them to store huge amounts of blueprints ingame, but even there they lacked so much features, that using blueprint handling mods was the way to go for me in many cases.

[Factorie]

Agreed, save us some time +1

[Claudius1729]

It says it in the tooltip for the blueprint book: http://i.imgur.com/tzv12Qj.png

That is helpful but that doesn't resolve the problem of scrolling through a 5/10/20/30+ blueprint book. Or just blueprint inventory management problems.

But I know the team has plans to improve the GUI significantly so I am hopeful.

[Rseding91]

It says it in the tooltip for the blueprint book: http://i.imgur.com/tzv12Qj.png

That is helpful but that doesn't resolve the problem of scrolling through a 5/10/20/30+ blueprint book. Or just blueprint inventory management problems.

But I know the team has plans to improve the GUI significantly so I am hopeful.

The main problem is the blueprint book was never designed to hold > 20~ blueprints but in 0.15 it was changed to support up to 1000 at a time.

[NosajDraw]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

Sorry but that sentence seems a bit conceited.
It's an UI Designers job to create a natural workflow that can be comprehended intuitively. If users don't use your ui as you intended you made a mistake in design.

Having a 2d grid inside a book but using a scroll wheel to scroll through every single blueprint in a 1d list is not intuitive and breaks workflow because it's also very slow for anything above 5-6 blueprints.

The suggestion of opening the book, clicking on the blueprint in the 2d grid to use it and having it return to it's spot after that is a more natural workflow for most pc users.

+1

This.

It needs fixing, it's clear that the users are not using it as intended, not their fault, a failure of design, please just fix it and not keep defending it.

[Slayn25]

Blueprints definitely need some love. Scrolling is cumbersome and should not be the intended method of finding the desired blueprint.

My Ideal method:
1. B to open blueprint book
2. Shift+1-9 open folders within blueprint book
3. 1-9 select blueprints within current folder/book
4. Using blueprints should not take them out of book/folder and place them into inventory

[burner]

Blueprint Books are useful, however I rarely scroll though them, instead I open them, and just select what I need.

Simply put: you're using the book wrong. You're meant to scroll through them. Opening the book is the way of adding or removing blueprints from the book and is not the normal way you select a blueprint to use.

Yes, It is used wrong because current design is not useful. Anyway this is classical case where users ask feature because there is problem A and they use workaround B and that cause more problems so they ask fix for that B instead A. So instead of doing this feature I ask to re think blueprint book UI. Probably taking some hints from windows 10 alt+tab... So then it will fix that original problem why players will take blueprints from book in first place.

With blueprints I think bigger problem is that when you take blueprint from blueprint archive it will return it to inventory instead of archive when you press Q.

[5thHorseman]

With blueprints I think bigger problem is that when you take blueprint from blueprint archive it will return it to inventory instead of archive when you press Q.

This exactly. Or have it stay in the book (like it does now) but simply disappear when you unselect it. The only way it should go into your inventory (if you want that) is by opening your inventory and clicking it there, or clicking on your hotbar/toolbelt.

[whitecold]

I feel like everyone doesn't actually understand how to select things in the book correctly... everyone knows you can hold it in the world and scroll through it right? Seeing the live selected blueprint as the preview in the world without having the GUI open?

One more reason against using this as primary method of selection: You cannot see the icons, and the layout itself may not immediately tell you what the blueprint is about. Is this heavy-light cracking or light-petrol cracking, sulphuric acid or plastic? Is this a blue or a yellow science build? Icons make it painfully obvious, while for a layout you have to search for belt directions etc to figure out what you selected.

[Zool]

No I didn't know you could do that. How do you do it?

Just hold the book in your cursor like you're going to build with it and then use the hotkey to scroll through it.

Well, for a good reason, you can name Blueprints and give them an icon. When you open the blueprint book, you can see these icons and read the description. Due to that, you can find very specific blueprints easily, even if there are different ones that look a bit equal when built.

When scrolling through the blueprints, you don't see icon and description. There is no chance to differenciate just visually when the difference between 2 blueprints are for example just the detailed network settings or things like that.