Friday Facts #191 - Gui improvements

[Escadin]

1) It's incredible hard / annoying to pick a specific amount of items.
2) I'll severely miss those 20 extra inventory slots. Omg I won't even be able to fit my ammo into my inventory late game...
3) All in-game windows look like crap, if you must know. Not that I care. I just want them to work but to be honest they aren't exactly a master artist's work. Looks more like a preset style from your GUI library.

/nowit'soutandIfeelbad

[a4dd2b88]

Does this mean we could get multiple toolbars that we could cycle through? I could have my default toolbar, and additionally have a "Train" set, or a "Fluid" set for when I am focusing on those things.

F**** Hell, Pls someone give an Oscar to that guy, sintetized a awesome UI design in on phrase...

[Nova]

Does this mean we could get multiple toolbars that we could cycle through? I could have my default toolbar, and additionally have a "Train" set, or a "Fluid" set for when I am focusing on those things.

O yes please!

I think that default tab should be crafting, second logistics and last character as nobody cares about the character most of the time.

There's an easy solution for the weapon display: Make it only show if needed. A very small intelligent algorithm should be really easy to implement. Show the weapon display if: The player shot in the last X seconds, drives a tank, has aliens near them or is damaged.
The only disadvantage of this is that new players have no idea when the weapons are displayed - which should not really be a problem, because they can still look into the inventory.

If there is one thing I've learned from loaders.... don't ask the players to decide on idea implementations. Just put the ideas in. The player will get used to it. Especially if the ideas make sense.

Don't listen to him. That get's you hated in no time. Even if the players are proposing bad changes, some times bad ideas are better than not listening to the people. That doesn't happen often, but it's still the case.

I can't believe no one has expressed delightment about the sorting options?

Sorting did annoy me, too. There's only "always sorting" (even when we want to split stacks in the inventory, they immediately get sorted again - annoying!) and not sorting at all (oh great, may inventory is a mess - annoying!). We could also always activate and deactivate sorting, but that are more clicks than anyone is comfortable with - annoying.
The whole problem would be solved with a manual sorting button, or a setting to only sort when closing the inventory.

- Un-matched underground belts/pipes should have an error icon overlay on them. There's NO use for half-a-tunnel, but they can be hard to spot in messy setups.

Many advanced player won't like that change because now they have wrong error icons in their factory. (Underground belts can be used as a lane splitter.)
I think the removal of logistics from the main inventory won't make the game better. Most players got the space, and I don't see a problem with just ignoring it when you want to craft something. Having the Power armor in the inventory instead sounds nice. If you decide to now implement the inventory tabs, please just switch the logistic part to the right of the crafting part. Crafting in the middle sounds better than logistic, especially for new players because the old and known inventory won't be splitted by the new logistics.

2) I'll severely miss those 20 extra inventory slots. Omg I won't even be able to fit my ammo into my inventory late game...

They won't be removed, the just wander from the belt into the inventory.

But what I really would like: Splitting stacks like in Minecraft. You take a stack of items, click into a space in the inventory and hold the mouse button and then drag the mouse over multiple inventory spaces. Why doing that the stack will be splitted into as many spaces you did hover.
Example: Get a stack of 70 ammo. Now you click into an empty space and hold, drag it over 2 other spaces and let the button go. The items will be splitted evenly into this 3 spaces for 23 ammo per slot, and the last item stays in your hand.
That would really make it so much easier to distribute stuff in things like furnaces, turrets or labs.

[Dr. Walrus]

I really like the changes to the toolbelt. I was a little skeptical reading the proposals, but the rationale backs it up and moves it more to a shortcut hotbar than the odd half-and-half that it currently is. I would recommend not having the shortcut buttons on the item slots, as it just adds too much clutter. Also I am all in favor of the swapable toolbars other players have mentioned in the comments.

However the rationale for the proposed changes to the character screen is not nearly as strong. The primary problem with these changes is speed of use. Separating the crafting, logistics, and character menus would be adding and extra click to most things that we can do now just by opening the combined crafting and logistics menus. Having tabs in trains is perfectly fine for their use, because the fuel and color tabs are rarely used. But adding tabs and therefore an extra step to many inventory functions will greatly slow down something that is used constantly and doesn't really need changing. There is already a tab splitting logistic requests and auto trash requests, and I think some work could go into that to think of a solution that removes the need to tab between those two screens. Tabs are great for keeping things organized, but if all information can be organized without tabs then that is even better.

After seeing the proposed character menu, I do think we need a better way to see a combined info screen with information about the current armor, the armor grid, and equipped weapons. This also solves the problem that you can't change what weapons or armor you have equipped while riding in a car or train.

I think the problems with shift clicking an item in the inventory is solved for all practical purposes just with changes to the toolbelt. When shift clicked, ammo or weapons goes the weapon toolbar if available, and everything else goes to logistic trash. There is no reason at least to restrict the player to opening only the logistic tab or the inventory tab at one time, because they have 2 mutually exclusive functions and there is plenty of room on the computer screen for both tabs to be open at the same time.

I never understood why all my weapons and ammo need to be shown on my screen all the time, when 95% of my time is spent building factories.

This comment makes you look like you are looking for a solution to a problem that does not exist. The armor, pickaxe, & weapon toolbar takes up a tiny part of the players screen. That toolbar goes unnoticed most of the time, except during combat, where it becomes critical to know which weapons you have equipped and how much ammo you have. Why make a GUI change that makes it harder to the player see important information? If screen real estate is important, how about small minimize buttons on the toolbelt, weapon toolbar, and minimap. That will allow the player to get more screen space without removing functionality. And the ability to minimize toolbars has already been established in the game with the addition of the ability to expand or minimize the rocket statistics window.

[houkime]

Also there needs to be a way to fill ghosts quicker. Pipette allows it, but it is too slow this way. I propose holding Shift-LMB or sth like that to fill the ghost under the cursor. Dream is to be able to do it while running.

Reviving ghost images to real buildings I still say would work well like this.

Swinging a pickaxe to fill blueprints like you propose would be fun especially if range is limited for realism and cooldown is very little or even nonexistent. (so you're limited by running and not by artificial internal things)

My way is more in the line with already existent placing while running and saves the hassle with weapon though. Maybe a bit less fun.

[Graypup]

Twinsen, I think you have a lot of good ideas in your proposal.

However, I didn't see you bring up what I think are the most unusual and limiting user interaction choices compared to other games and general UI conventions:
1. Wasting the Alt modifier key as a toggle for showing crafting details (and defaulting this to off!)
2. Using Tab as a way to dismiss messages/alerts
3. Using Shift+1 through Shift+5 instead of 6-0 as the default binding on the quickbar

I think addressing these items align very well with your other UI ideas as it opens up a lot more ways to interact with the UI changes that you propose, in a way that is consistent with other games and user interface conventions.

Alt key
Does anyone actually play with "Show info" turned off so they can't see the current assembler recipe? I can imagine people wanting to show/hide some details like inserter direction, but this can be in a dialog. It seems like a huge waste to use one of the major chording keys that is used for shortcuts as a toggle that could easily be a UI button or any other key on the keyboartood.

This key should be made available for toolbelt actions (Alt+1), more complex chords (Ctrl+Alt+key), and so on. For example, City of Heroes used Alt+# bindings to access the second row of powers in the toolbelt equivalent.

Tab key
The only message I recall dismissing is the initial message on starting a game. Maybe this is more common in the tutorials, but I think this could easily be bound to something more common like Space or Enter, given Factorio's capability to have sensible overlapping bindings.

This would free up the Tab key to cycle through user interface elements, which is a pretty universal UI convention. For example, this usage would be extremely applicable for cycling your tabbed character/inventory idea. You could use Ctrl+Tab to cycle backwards. Tab could also be used to toggle between item groups or to cycle between different (future) view in the tech tree screen.

Use other number keys
Other popular games with toolbelts use 1-9 (Minecraft) or 1-0 (Terraria) for their toolbelts. This is also very common in all FPSes that I have ever played. Yet, for some reason, Factorio only uses 1-5 and then uses Shift chords for the next 5 slots and requires a "swap bar" mechanism to switch rows.

Due to this, most players often have to look down at the current state of the toolbelt to see what the current toggle state is. Since there is no ability to assign keyboard shortcuts for the second row using Shift or Alt, people cannot build up muscle memory to remember that "Belts are always 1", because this is not always true.

I would still keep a "rotate" mechanic in, to support mods and players that want more than 3 rows, but it would be a huge improvement for consistency if the defaults were changes to 1-0 and players were able to set explicit binds for the second row without cycling.

The shift chording is a huge ergonomics improvement and it allows such good ideas as putting belts in 2 and fast belts in shift-2. Leave it alone! Yes, you can rebind, but hardly anyone ever rebinds anything.

[TheJogMan]

Personally, I have no issues with the current UI, however I totally understand that this is because its just what I've gotten used to.

As for the changes to the quick bar, I may need a while to get used to it but I can see how it is an improvement and I think that forcing the player to make use of filters is a good decision as despite having played the game for over a year, I still don't always think to use them, and having a constant reminder of their existence may change that.

I really like your approach to development where you keep the community informed and involved, something that I really wish more developers did. Factorio is with out a doubt my favorite game to date.

[AndrewIRL]

I also never liked how the logistics section has to be there in the center of my screen whenever I need to craft something or grab something from my inventory.

Good point, logistics is a second class function and should be demoted behind a tab.

So when I first read this it sounded like a good idea, but thinking about it more, I'm not so convinced. At the moment, everything is conveniently located with one easy e-press. Adding a tab isolates things and adds more clicks without really having any benefit.

The benefit is it decreases UI clutter and improves focus. Instead of having everything at the top level it creates an information hierarchy which approximates the frequency of access of the various items, logistics less used => hidden behind a tab. The other benefit was covered in FFF - you know where your shift click is going.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I thought of this very change a few days ago and was going to suggest it. I guess I won't have to!! I am very excited for this change for how it will simplify inventory management!

Just an OCD point, but I'd prefer if clicking the item on the toolbar picked up the last stack rather than a full stack. The times I want a full stack in hand are only when ctrl-clicking stuff into things, like when I put stacks of coal into furnaces in the early game. But the vast majority of the time I want that last stack, like when I'm laying down transport belts or walls. For anyone who doesn't care, it shouldn't make much of a difference since the moment you deplete a stack it immediately goes to the next full stack.

[SHiRKiT]

IMO the overall look and feel from Factorio UI is just unpleasant. Besides that, CONSISTENCY is a must in game UI. You are proposing increasing the consistency of the game, so I LOVE your ideas Twinsen. But please do: F1- Crafting, F2-Logistics and F3- Character. 95% of the time is in the crafting menu, 4.5% is in logistics, and the other 0.5% is in Character, don't make it the first.

[Claudius1729]

I love almost all the changes proposed, I'm pleased to see ghost building extended (still not enough in my opinion).


One important lesson I think from 0.15 is about Blueprints. Blueprints are great in 0.15, except for one thing, they're cumbersome as physical items. Hence it'd be nice if:

- Blueprints just never go into your physical inventory.
- We can still use the quickbar for blueprints and deconstruction planner if we drop them from the blueprint menu, or a similar GUI feature that gives us quick access to a small number of blueprints.
Maybe we need for instance 5 to 10 slots in the GUI reserved for blueprints, just like we have logistic slots, we could have blueprint slots. Tie them to the shift-click functionality in Inventory maybe?
- We can add deconstruction planners to the blueprint collection.

I'm currently using Picker Extended and it has tons of useful quality of life UI features
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Nexela/PickerExtended

Like hotkey to create a blueprint, hotkey to cycle through blueprints/deconstruction planners in inventory, hotkey to select/swap green/red wire, and a lot of smart stuff that I hope to see in the core game one day.

[British_Petroleum]

Yes! Can't wait for these changes great work Twinsen

[Dysan27]

I like most of the proposed changes, except for removing the combat display from the corner. Is doesn't take up much space, and depending on the settings (ie deathworld) it can be really useful to know always be aware of your combat loadout.

The only suggestion I can think of for the menus is on the options menu move the "Back" button from the bottom to the top, that way it's aligned the the resume button on the game menu instead of the "quit" button. The number of time I click quit by accident after changing an option is annoying.

[AndrewIRL]

But the vast majority of the time I want that last stack, like when I'm laying down transport belts or walls. For anyone who doesn't care, it shouldn't make much of a difference since the moment you deplete a stack it immediately goes to the next full stack.

Why would you want the last stack to lay transport belts? If I have enough in inventory I always want a full stack in my hand. If my available stacks are:
10,15,35,50
then I want clicking the toolbar button to put 50 in my hand like so:

hand = 50 (what were the 10 and 15 stacks are now in my hand along with 25 from the 35 stack)
remnant stacks = 10,50

Specifically, put items from the smallest stack into my hand, then the next smallest and so on until a full stack (50 in this case) is in my hand.

[gricey]

I love these ideas

[JoeWhizer]

I love that changes, please go ahead and change it. It would make so much more sense. I always felt that this inventory/logistics/crafting/everything-window is too much of a clutter. Especially when you playing with a lot of mods and it almost takes the whole screen.

If possible, you might could add an option for the people who don't like it, to enable the old-style UI.

[ray4ever]

Nice read!

If you integrate the quickbar into the normal inventory, why do you not also integrate the logistic request screen in the Inventory?

Reasoning: If you request items you need the required inventory space for them anyway --> Benefit: You know beforehand how much of your inventory is dedicated to your logistic request.

The logistic request itself could than just be setting the "filter" for an item indicating that you want this item to always be stocked.

[Killcreek2]

The quickbar & inventory changes sound excellent to me overall. Some brilliant ideas & improvements, looking forward to it!

Though why not just use the same toggles for inventory panels as the gui on inserters uses [for circuit / robo networks] instead of separate tabs? Have it "remember last setting", then players can have all pages visible, only inventory, or a mix as they prefer.
Easy solution that should please everyone, imo.

I vehemently disagree with hiding the equipped weapons, ammo counts & battery level: I vastly prefer to have that information visible at ALL times, especially just before & during combat. Out of combat I know what ammo to craft / request or if it is time to head home from a safari at a single glance.
Please do not hide this vital info nor add extra key-presses to find it: I think it would be a step backwards in functionality. Going to quote a few people who say it better than I can:

I never understood why all my weapons and ammo need to be shown on my screen all the time, when 95% of my time is spent building factories.

This comment makes you look like you are looking for a solution to a problem that does not exist. The armour, pickaxe, & weapon toolbar takes up a tiny part of the players screen. That toolbar goes unnoticed most of the time, except during combat, where it becomes critical to know which weapons you have equipped and how much ammo you have. Why make a GUI change that makes it harder to the player see important information? If screen real estate is important, how about small minimize buttons on the toolbelt, weapon toolbar, and minimap. That will allow the player to get more screen space without removing functionality. And the ability to minimize toolbars has already been established in the game with the addition of the ability to expand or minimize the rocket statistics window.

I think it is not only beneficial to know how much ammo your weapons have but also your armour hit points and battery amount.
1. Late game armour hit points is not that useful to know but early game with death world like settings it is. I have had early game armour get destroyed in battle before and it is nice to see if that is about to happen.
2. Battery amount is also nice to know because you might quickly run out. If that is the case, you might want to get out of battle just before it happens so you have enough energy to fully power your exoskeleton modules to run faster.
3. Knowing the amount of ammo your other weapons have is also beneficial, because, if you are like me, you might switch weapons multiple times and you might not switch again to a previous weapon if you know it is low on ammo.
4. I personally like the character info in the bottom right hand corner like it is, except for one thing: It would be nice to know the total amount of ammo on hand, not just what is loaded in the weapon.

I do have one idea to add: combine the toolbar and weapon bar into ONE single quickbar, so players can use as many or as few weapons as they want. Eg;
- Player "Twinsen" is going on safari, so he has 4 slots prepared with combat drones & grenades, and 10 slots filled with 5 different weapons & 5 with corresponding ammo.
- Player "Katherine" is building assembly lines, so she has 6 slots filled with belts etc, 4 with various crafting machines, some pipes, a selection of power poles, and the final 2 slots reserved for her personal side-arm & favourite ammo [just in case].

No separate toolbars needed, and ammo counts are always visible in combat. Would fit nicely with the "toolbar presets" I saw mentioned previously.

[xng]

I approve all changes that are an attempt to make it better, and we really need more intuitive design, and I say that with thousands of hours played. We all trust the mighty Factorio devs to try to make the right decisions.

[Chibiabos]

A suggestion: If the quickbar is no longer going to be a separate inventory, why not let the quickbar be bigger? It would seem kinda dumb to make it being bigger as a tech requirement (but maybe that tech could be replaced with making your inventory bigger instead)? Meanwhile why not let the quickbar be as big as the screen allows (or player prefers ... some players may want a smaller, more compact one -- but I'd kinda like to have a lot of different items accessible without having to open up my inventory).