UI Issues and Enhancement Ideas

0ptera commented 5 years ago

Things I noticed that are either unclear or could be improved about the UI. I'll keep adding and striking out things as the mod progresses.

Depots:

[x] clicking on a stop name opens the stop ui everywhere else, but in this tab expands the right panel could be better by having an arrow pointing right to expand and open stop ui by clicking the name
[x] right panel has no scroll bar
[ ] ~right panel saves scroll position when switching between depots~ jumping back to top on depot change is more in line with programs i've used so far tried it, but not fixable with reasonable effort; see https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=28837
[x] depots don't show status color and network id
[x] overview should be rearranged to accommodate long depot names potentially depot name as header and stats below

Stations:

[x] need a way to sanitize stations providing/requesting a lot of different items (mall)
[ ] station name is centered vertically instead of being at the first row like all other columns this makes finding the stop name and status hard for mall stops
[x] remember Network ID when closing and opening the window
[x] (sort list by station name or state by clicking on the header. Add small arrow to indicate these columns can be sorted) i would really like that, but the way ui tables are currently implemented it would be a major undertaking; won't do it for release, maybe later if the mod is actually successful
[x] Network ID should be valid for any signed 32bit integer to have access to all possible bitmasks

Inventory:

[x] item detail window should list stations as header to better use up space
[x] remember Network ID when closing and opening the window fixed, just forgot a line of debug code
[x] Item Details ignores Network ID filter
[x] Network ID should be valid for any signed 32bit integer to have access to all possible bitmasks

Delivery History:

[x] to me the column order feels wrong. I always think of round trips Depot > From > To and not the displayed From >To > Depot
[x] the frame doesn't use up all available window space
[x] add clear history button
[x] mod setting for history auto clearing after x minutes or x entries

Alerts:

[x] general train issues like No-Path, out of fuel, gridlock detection should be a separate mod not dependent on LTN removed generic error tracking; leftover cargo and delivery timeouts remain

eduran84 commented 5 years ago

Depots:

[x] I agree with the layout suggestions. Names need more space. Using two lines should also make space for the extra button.
[x] Depot status and ID: not sure how to do that. A depot can have a lot of stops with different IDs and different status. That would be another list.
[x] I have no idea what happened to the scroll-pane. It was there initially and is still usable, but somehow invisible. Will investigate.

Stations

[x] Never seen a stop with that many items provided :) . I will probably limit the number of rows and add a scrollbar if needed. item tables are limited to 4 rows, scrollbar if needed

Inventory:

[x] good idea, will work on that station names are now above item table and item table is limited to 2 rows

Delivery History:

[x] I will switch the order, depot first makes more sense
[x] Setting and / or clear button added both

Alerts

[x] I thought about that, that tab is still very much in flux.

eduran84 commented 5 years ago

First bunch of changes is available on the ui-improvements branch. Not really tested, use at your own peril.

0ptera commented 5 years ago

Depot: It's possible to have different network IDs on one stop name but not useful, as trains would keep changing networks depending on what stop they pick to return to.

ways i can think of pulling depots off: 1) add a signal bar like with stations as 3rd row to depot overview, consisting of color signals with summed up count numbers and one network id signal with number per separate id (see above) 2) expand depots to be a complete list with one entry per unique stop with its signals similar to stations tab 3) instead of a detail view to the side a arrow pointing down at the start of each header row could unfold the per stop detail view explained in 2) (is something like that even possible in factorio gui?)

Stations limiting the rows certainly looks better vertically centering the stop name doesn't look as off now too

Inventory long names stretch the window witdh beyond what seems to be intended 2019-02-04-19-07-59-2594095 maybe make that a feature?

I didn't know github had such nice checkboxes. Updated first post to use them as well.

eduran84 commented 5 years ago

Details in inventory tab are now fixed width. Station names are allowed to stretch over multiple lines.
Left side of the depot tab now looks like this: The entire area is clickable and changes color on mouse over. The ID field lists only one ID at the moment. It is supposed to change to "mixed" (or something to that effect) when a depot hast stops in different networks, but that feature is not implemented yet.
scroll pane on the right side of the tab is back, no other changes for the train list
about scroll pane retaining position on depot change: thats a built in feature with no way to turn it off, from what I can tell. I might have to destoy the pane and rebuild it when a depot is clicked.

eduran84 / LTN_Tracker