[WIP Plugin] PartCatalog - Dynamic part filtering to unclutter that mess on your left

[BlackNecro]

Hello everyone,

I've been working on a little plugin trying to fix the (for me atleast) most cumbersome aspect of building ships with some mods enabled - that horribly cluttered editor part list.

The PartCatalog allows you to tag parts in order to categorize / group them and filter the editor part list based on those tags.

You start by opening the menu (top left in the toolbar next to the categories tab) create some tags and assign parts to them.

Here I set up two groups one contains all B9 parts, the other contains all my unmanned probes(ignore the third for now):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ucx7hpygvvpu1i/Menu.png

Per tag a new button appears on the toolbar with a tooltip showing the tag name.

Afterwards you can just click on the button in the toolbar in order to select that tag and your part list is filtered to those parts:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r3c7hl2plbazikt/FilterB9.png

Incase some categories contain no parts those are hidden from view:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wws0loqv38vaskt/FilterProbes.png

You can also rightclick on tags in order to have multiple ones active at the same time, allowing you to display only the intersection between those two tags:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mvw0qyqpo8f8nz6/FilterB9_Probes.png

Another example for this would be to have different part sizes as well as different mod packages in seperate tags and by intersecting those you could take like all 1.25m engines from KW-Rocketry.

To get back to that third group: you can also setup tags to include other tags:

This allows for easy and dynamic grouping of parts from several mods into single tags.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1wnohtgjy0vfvtd/Menu2.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7s1nbtysnm2zmfl/FilterB9%2BProbes.png

There are a few features to make managing your tags more feasible:

Autotagging allows to automatically create tags based on the part manufacturer. While this works somewhat I'm still looking for a proper way to get the filepath of parts as the AvaiblePart fields regarding those information are empty.

You can rename and reorder tags to your likings, this happens both inside the tag editor as well as on the toolbar.

The visibility of tags on the toolbar can be switched between full visibility, only in SPH, only in VAB and hidden.

The partlists inside the tag editor is filtered to your current editor category, can be ordered by part cfg name, part title and part manifacturer and omits already included parts.

Currently in development is a searchbox / quick filter in order to filter both the editor partlist aswell as the tag editor partlist by part name and manufacturer.

Further planned are key shortcuts to the tags on your toolbar.

This isn't finished by far, I still got a few ideas for it, but if you got some ideas how to improve it or got some other feedback please post it.

[Scoundrel]

I really like this idea. I was about to ask about autotagging, but I see you already are trying to implement that. This sounds like a daunting task. That aside, you get +1 from me for it. I'm working on developing a dynamic part builder and I'm concerned about part spamming as it will write the finished part to file rather than be an in-game part with variable parameters... your filter gives me hope that I'm not creating a monster. Anyhow, best of luck! I shall be watching. From the shadows... [cue dramatic outro]

[Weatherman159]

It seems pretty good already. Will definitely be keeping an eye out for this one.

[Fyrem]

Great idea. Should help me, and others, a lot.

[Fel]

I cannot read without bullet points, so bear with me.

I BELIEVE you're just adding in a filtering mechanism... but what about actual organization?

Can we specify categories of pods (Cockpit, Manned, Probe)

Specify sub categories i.e. (Manned >> (Single Kerbal, Multi-Kerbal, Lander, Other)

Specify Sub Sub Categories (Multi-Kerbal >> (SQUAD, B9, KSPX))

(Which I currently do MANUALLY with the new folder system [a large pain, but it makes organization awesome])

Without having the bar fill up with a million "tab buttons" ? I don't want to separate mods out, I want to INTEGRATE them...

*Random Rant*

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/34529-What-I-think-KSP-could-use-for-the-next-update-feel-free-to-discuss?p=435559&viewfull=1#post435559

Edited June 7, 2013 by Fel

[Sᴄɪɴᴛɪʟʟᴀᴛᴏʀ]

Looks useful, I'll be keeping an eye on this. If you get auto-tagging sorted it will be on my download list.

[BlackNecro]

I got the whole thing smoothed out pretty much now and with some help of Mr Shifty managed to get autotagging to work for most mods.

Here's something to get an idea of the new interface with enabled manufacturer sorting:

I'd like to run some small scale beta tests to get it working for most people first, so if you'd like to try it and give me some direct feedback drop me a message.

Will be back in soonâ„¢ - Need some sleep

[BlackNecro]

We've got a release