Topic

'Give' dialogue needs re-thinking

the 'give' function needs a bit of work.

I like to give stuff.  Especially with the new blockmaking requirements for projects, 'giving' is the new black.
Unfortunately, it's a pain the royal kevbob.
Please to give it some love?

1. When my inventory is full (and I have all slots filled with bags and other storage containers) the big pop-up window containing all my items is too big for the screen.  The bottom row (or rows?) is lost and unusable.

2. the order of the items seems random and chaotic.  If I have a bag full of 16 stacks of 24x earth or whatever, those stacks are scattered all over my 'give' dialogue window and I have to find them between gems and messy fry-ups. Sounds like a small problem but when you carry a lot of stuff, finding the one firefly jar which is full amongst the other 10 empty jars scattered in the 'give' inventory, it's almost impossible.

Suggestion: 
either (a) show each item as ONE giant stack, with a number showing the total (so 16 stacks of earth at 24 each would show 'EARTH x384' )
or (b) show the stacks in the same(ish) order they are in my inventory.  it won't help with the size of the dialogue box, but it would be a lot easier to find stuff.
or (c) some other order, like alphabetical or in sections like the Encyclopedia Tools/Food/Drink etc
or (d) something else even moar better that I haven't thought of yet but someone surely will.

Posted 19 months ago by Wrendolin Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Good ideas Wrendolin.
    Posted 19 months ago by Holly Waterfall Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Great thread - hope something can be done about it.  This last test I used the 'give something' menu and thought omg what am I supposed to do with this?!  Ended up just getting out of that and dragging the item to the person which opened its own menu of 'how many'...so, it worked out for me...but...would like to have a different scenario for the 'give something'. 
    Posted 19 months ago by Firestone1960 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I know people hate it when anything Faunasphere is mentioned but I loved their drop down inventory menus. Each item alphabetically organized in easy to see columns with the items' quantity numbered below. The dev's even created the utility to auto select according to favorite status per fauna. This alone made friendly trading/giving items an easy joy.

    This penchant for dissarrayed clutter in the Glitch give menu certainly does qualify as "part of the gaming challenge" but it can make trading/giving a painfull lengthy drawn out affair. One that I often choose not to indulge in because I got too much stuff to quickly sort through. Plus I am by nature a neatnik and a page full of jumbletumble makes me a little crazy. I see all that and I WANT to re-organize that page AT ONCE. It throws me a little off, I tell ya. I forget my good intentions and re-organize every bag on the spot. By the time I"m done the person I want to help has either run off or is stomping the Grapes of Hell.

    I'm well aware that I have the option to drop anything anywhere anytime but sometimes that can appear a little too impersonal.

    You wunnerful devs can maybe fix this up a little down the road some? Something akin to the make an auction page inventory with all our bags on display to select and open would be a nice start?
    Posted 19 months ago by Poney Tails Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In my experience, the donation menu IS in the order of things in my bag. 

    (Though I have not been donating as much recently, so maybe that's changed?)
    Posted 19 months ago by clare Subscriber! | Permalink
  • it's definitely NOT in the order of things in the bags.  That would be okay.  Not ideal, but okay.

    And weirdly, the order of the items changes each time you try to give something.
    I think.
    Posted 19 months ago by Wrendolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's not the order of the bags for me, and every time I give or donate something, the order of the items changes. This happens when I'm trying to feed batterflies and piggies, too. Sometimes spinach will be listed first and then on the very next click, onions will be first, and then on the next click, it's pork chops. So, I'm constantly having to sort through a continuously changing inventory screen. I did notice that on donating to shrines, it was easier to open the bag, select the item and drag it to the shrine and then it would pop up the "How many of these would you like to donate?" dialog box. That kept me a little saner. 
    Posted 19 months ago by Essie Kitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • oh, I just re-read your comment clare- I misunderstood.

    I think the donate menu could well be in the order of the bags, though I'm not sure.  I've never noticed it as a problem when donating (to a shrine).  Though that could also be because I usually drag the items to the shrine directly from my bags.

    When giving something to another player it's often near a project where someone is making blocks and needs materials or needs food, or whatever.  With lots of avatars around, I use the 'give' option, which is often a huge pain.

    And yes! sc803- the changing order of items when feeding batterflies drives me batty, too.
    I think those items may be ordered in 'number of' order. I tend to have a lot of cabbage, so that's often (usually?) the first item at the top left of the list, until I run low and then the cabbage skips down the list. At least I think that's what happens.
    Posted 19 months ago by Wrendolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 to fixing the "give" interface. I went nuts with this during last test, too. And it is messy both ways, not just when you go via the receiver's options (clicking on the receiver and choosing give) but also when you click on the item you want to give away and selecting "give" because then if you are near a crowd, you have to cycle through all 18 players to find the one you want, via teeny-tiny avatars. I'd think really just using a name list for "give" and "play for" (for music blocks) would be simpler than the name w/ avatar. Because for example, let's say I have 10 carrots I want to give to Wrendolin because I saw her asking for them in local chat, by her name. But I don't have her avatar's look memorized or know it at all.... I click on the carrots and select "give"; then the game pulls up a small picture with very small pictures of all 20 people standing there; now I'm lost and in click hell because I can't remember what her avi looks like. The names do appear but are very small. If instead of the avatars with names, just a list of names came up (preferably in alpha order, too), I could just quickly click on Wrendolin. 

    The other "give" problem I noticed was in regards to firefly jars. After making bricks I often needed to return jars, and I would have, say,  5 empty and 2 with one fly each. So I open the bag with my empties and choose "give." Then it asks to give how many, but it doesn't distinguish between empty jars or jars with flies in them so there's no way to predict which of the 7 jars gets passed on.

    (And um, just want to plug an idea I posted elsewhere re: organization: would still love to be able to organize my inventory while game is down ;)
    Posted 19 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Great ideas Wren and Rascalmom.

    +1 for give menu, +1 for listing names and +1 for reorganization while offline.
    Posted 19 months ago by gia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • PLEASE Lets us have offline inventory management.  I'm so anal retentive that the inventory system in this game drives me crazy!  It does seem like I spend a lot of time going home and reorganizing all of my stuff to be in order.  

    It would be nice if the give and donate menus were organized like our bags or alphabetically, but at the very least they should be consistent.  I think names instead of avatars on the give menu could be a good idea.
    Posted 19 months ago by IxÆoN Subscriber! | Permalink
  • oooh, yes- names for players while giving directly from items, please. 

    I usually give from the local chat window (thanks for those hypothetical carrots, by the way) as the 'give' option from the items inventory just gives me eleventy hundred avatars by the projects, and I have no idea who is who.

    Others clearly also have this problem as I've been given all sorts of stuff that wasn't intended for me.  Newer players especially seem to have problems working out how to donate to projects and use the 'give' menu instead/ by accident.
    Posted 19 months ago by Wrendolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes, I was hoping to give similar feedback.
    Here is what I was thinking...

    Feedback: Display numbers in Give Something menu

    I'd like to see the number of each item I have in the Give Something menu when I try to give something to another player. For random acts of kindness, sometimes I just want to give away something I have a lot of or don't need. But someone else might need, so just pass it along.

    Knowing the numbers would help me do this more frequently.
    Posted 15 months ago by YamoskraP Subscriber! | Permalink