Cooking, Faster Scroll

[UTC-10]

Circumstances: I was cooking meat and having to use the cooking surface (no pots). I have cans but they are not large enough to cook meat and I had a couple herbal teas and coffees in inventory.  I was not doing the drop meat on ground then place it on cooking surface.

Click on the cooking surface, select the cook icon, then you are at a horizontal scrolling menu starting ALWAYS at the first can, then you have to scroll past the cans, then the teas, to get to the meat you want to cook. I got irritated so I would just click click click until the menu gets to the end which is where the last meat that I could cook would be. It occurred to me that if there was a >> button to shift the menu all the way to the right it would help me keep from boiling over.  Similarly, a << button could shift the menu all the way to the extreme left, though I don't know if anyone would really find that useful, but maybe for consistency. 

Alternately, rearrange the menu so cooking utensils (pots and cans), heated items (teas), and raw/cold items (meats and soups and peaches) could each have its own segment, so the player can go to the desired segment and get on with cooking rather than having to always scrolls all the way (in this case) to get to the meat to be cooked.

The existing menu works, but this would help improve it, I hope.

[BareSkin]

At maximum, you have 2 cans you can't use for cooking meat. Happened to me: I just dropped/placed the 2 cans next to the fire. Done.

[NardoLoopa]

54 minutes ago, UTC-10 said:

Alternately, rearrange the menu so cooking utensils (pots and cans), heated items (teas), and raw/cold items (meats and soups and peaches) could each have its own segment, so the player can go to the desired segment and get on with cooking rather than having to always scrolls all the way (in this case) to get to the meat to be cooked.

The current menu is clearly made for a controller, rather than keyboard/mouse.  And even so, linear navigation is slow.  In math terms, it is Big-O(n).  (worst case you have to click through every item to get to the one you want).  But there are plenty of UI options here:

1. Start navigation in the middle of the list, so the user can go in either direction: O(n/2)
2. Provide a grid, so the user can go horizontally and vertically. O(sqrt n -- approximately).

Allowing mouse navigation of the grid gives you something like O(1).  

In any case, I too think there are more efficient ways of presenting this navigation.  I try to avoid that menu as much as possible.

[UpUpAway95]

The menu works better if you carry a cooking pot instead of cans.  If you select cook and choose the pot, you get a vertical listing of the items you can cook.  I think they should open with a simple 3-choice set:  Pot, Can or Nothing and then flip to the vertical listing that includes the items you can do with that utensil, including melting snow and boiling water if pot or can is selected.  When you finish cooking something in a pot or can, the game should automatically ask if you want to pick it up or cook something more.

[U47]

I really wish  the mouse wheel would work on this horizontal menu. This menu is the bane of the new system so I have become accustomed to just not using it.