Show Cube Grids with DisplayName instead of EntityID

[Gelunox]

It's kind of difficult to find the correct cube grid if you can only see a large list of numbers.

It might be a nice idea to list cube grids with their DisplayName instead of EntityID in the Entities tab

[DraygoKorvan]

The dev branch currently does this. We do not have an official release for it but you can dl and compile it. Keep in mind the dev branch may be unstable. I think the idea is to use the display name, but the chat commands use the entity id right now and displayname isn't unique.

[chessmaster42]

If you're seeing the entity id as the name in the list that means that either there are no beacons/antennae on the ship or that these blocks have no name set. Most servers have a rule about this and will clean out any ship/station that doesn't have at least 1 beacon or antenna.

The reason that we show the calculated beacon/antenna name is that this is what users still expect the name to show. This will be changed in the future to use the DisplayName instead of Name in the main entity list but not until there is more adoption of the field. Switching over to use the new DisplayName right now would mean confusion as most people have not yet used the new field in the Info tab in-game. The implications of changing this with maintenance/cleanup functions and expected output on the GUI are still being considered so I don't yet know when we'll switch things over.

However, we can change it for the next build so that if the ship would just be showing the entity id for the name then it can fall over to showing the DisplayName instead, if defined.

[Gelunox]

Switching over to use the new DisplayName right now would mean confusion as most people have not yet used the new field in the Info tab in-game.

I can understand where your opinion is coming from, however, I think you're not completely right.

Since the update where they introduced remote control of ships within antenna & antenna relay range the DisplayName of cube grids has been much more actively present (as it is showed in the list of ships).

On a side note, that antenna/beacon thing only works for beacons, renamed antenna's don't show up instead of EntityID. (And personally I stopped using beacons altogether ever since the remote control update).

and on another side note I just remembered: I thought it also might be a nice Idea to show cube grids that are just a single block with their block name instead of or appended to the Entity ID. Although I'm not quite sure if this is viable and it's not up to me to decide.

However, we can change it for the next build so that if the ship would just be showing the entity id for the name then it can fall over to showing the DisplayName instead, if defined.

This sounds like a good idea to me

[mikeloeven]

What we really need is a sorter function that lets you click on ANY field and display by that field for example if you click the column label for distance from center it will toggle between ascending and descending order.

for example the functionality of the columns in the windows task manager comes to mind where you can sort anything.

[NeoSword]

+1

[fvgoulet]

@mikeloeven This is not currently performance wise. The GUI is currently hooked on data and there is no good way to sort thoses fields with a standard control (that I know of). If someone want to code it or know a control that hook on data, can modify it and sort the "viewable" data without moving pointers in the containers on which the control is hooked, are more than welcome to give us a hint! This would improve everything, I concur.

[fvgoulet]

There could be a way to name a ship, like adding "Name=[shipname]" onto an antenna, beacon or remote control block. This would standardise the way ships are named, then clearing the "Cubegrid naming" issue.

This is a workaround, though.