PC Simple things make for great user experience

So an improvement that takes 5 minutes to code should be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage?
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Have you noticed that your "5 minutes to code" practically asks the same question as "Why does A17 take so long?" just with a different time frame?

When I got my first computer a long time ago I wanted to show some relatives what you can do with computers. So I programmed a 10 line programm to print out 6 random numbers between 1 and 49 for a lottery. With my relatives waiting behind me I had the program written in 2 minutes but then spent more than 5 agonizing minutes removing a surprisingly large number of bugs I crammed into those 10 (!!!) lines of code.

 
Have you noticed that your "5 minutes to code" practically asks the same question as "Why does A17 take so long?" just with a different time frame?
When I got my first computer a long time ago I wanted to show some relatives what you can do with computers. So I programmed a 10 line programm to print out 6 random numbers between 1 and 49 for a lottery. With my relatives waiting behind me I had the program written in 2 minutes but then spent more than 5 agonizing minutes removing a surprisingly large number of bugs I crammed into those 10 (!!!) lines of code.
Click to expand...

LOL. An amazing number of bugs can pack themselves into a line of code!

When I first heard this I thought it was a joke, but the longer I'm in development, the more true it is: "Take whatever estimate a developer gives you, double the number and go to the next higher unit of time." A 5 minute fix will take 10 hours; a one week project will take two months, etc.

 
...talking about simple things that make life easier:

I thought how to make fast and easy block rotation that would work well with current system and also consoles.

So here's my pitch:

You don't need to move while doing advanced rotations so, similarly when you hold "R" to select rotation method you could hold down "left click" to use WASD to access additional rotation directions.

7d2d rotate drawing.jpg

 
As an experienced programmer I'd estimate this as taking about 30 minutes, depending on how FUBAR their back-end is organized. It could even be ported to consoles pretty easily.

Basically hook into OnMouseDown, and OnMouseMove. For consoles or alt keybinds, you just detect that bound key event.

"Clicking and dragging" is just a steady MouseDown event coupled with MouseMove events. Any time mouse down fires and there is a move without a mouseUP event, that's a click-and-drag. Hold onto an array of UI Cell's that the mouse has pointed to, Now detect a new 'cell' in the storage is entered and iterate through all cells to redistribute the items held.

I've coded mod's for FortressCraft Evolved that were more complex and it uses the same engine!

 
Alternate way.

If you want to keep movement keys for moving you could do:

ALT modifier - when you hold down ALT the top is rotated to:

Left click - rotate left

Right click - rotate right

Scroll fwd - rotate forward

Scroll bwd - rotate backward

As an experienced programmer I'd estimate this as taking about 30 minutes, depending on how FUBAR their back-end is organized. It could even be ported to consoles pretty easily.
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Even so, they probably won't just update this one thing.

There are many things related to building they might wanna change. Like they wanted to have "shapes menu" for blocks. You would craft wood frame and by pressing "R" you get a window where you select what shape frame you want. It makes sense to do these changes together.

And for all i know, they might already have plans exactly how to improve the rotation keys without any input from me needed :)

 
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