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Graphical User Interface

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Stefan Morrell edited this page Mar 26, 2026 · 4 revisions

Contents

What The GUI Is

The new GUI is a graphical front-end for the same Trade Dangerous engine used by the CLI.

In other words:

  • tradegui is the GUI front-end
  • trade is the command-line front-end
  • both use the same Trade Dangerous database and import pipeline
  • both are working with the same current TD command set, not the old deprecated one

This page is about how the GUI behaves and how to use it sensibly.

For installation and first-time setup, see the Setup Guide.

For the full command-line reference behind the GUI, see Command Line Options.

Starting The GUI

If you installed Trade Dangerous normally with pip, start the GUI with:

tradegui

That starts the supported native GUI.

Before You Start Clicking

The GUI is not a separate database, and it does not magically come with useful trading data already loaded.

If you have not yet imported data, go and read the Setup Guide first, then come back.

The short version is:

  1. install TD
  2. start tradegui
  3. use the Import workspace to bring in data
  4. then start using Run, Buy, Sell, Trade, and so on

How The GUI Is Laid Out

The GUI has three main areas.

Top Bar

At the top you will find:

  • a Command selector
  • a simple Status display
  • a toggle between Input, Results, and Diagnostics

Left Pane

The left pane holds your persistent baseline context:

  • Commander name
  • Credits
  • Max data age
  • Ship profile
  • Ship name
  • Capacity
  • Reserved capacity
  • Jump range full
  • Jump range empty

Think of this as your saved baseline rather than the details of one specific command.

Right Pane

The right pane holds the currently selected workspace.

For most commands, the right pane can show:

  • Input
  • Results
  • Diagnostics

The exceptions are:

  • Import, which uses the whole pane for import options, progress, and logging
  • Settings, which is GUI-only and does not execute a TD command

Commander Baseline And Ship Profiles

The left pane is where you tell the GUI about you and your current ship.

Commander Baseline

The commander baseline contains:

  • Commander name
  • Credits
  • Max data age (days)

These values are saved and reused between sessions.

They are also inherited by various command workspaces unless that workspace explicitly does something different.

Ship Profiles

Ship profiles let you keep more than one saved ship setup.

A ship profile contains:

  • Ship name
  • Capacity
  • Reserved capacity
  • Jump range full
  • Jump range empty

The GUI also shows Effective Capacity, which is simply the usable cargo space after reserved capacity has been taken off.

New, Save, Revert

The ship profile buttons work like this:

  • New creates a new ship profile based on the currently loaded one
  • Save permanently saves the current ship profile edits
  • Revert throws away unsaved profile edits and reloads the saved version

A small but important detail:

  • commander/global values save as you change them
  • ship profile edits affect the current session immediately, but are not permanently saved until you click Save

Workspaces

The command selector switches between the current supported GUI workspaces.

The GUI is intentionally built around current TD workflows, not around old deprecated commands.

Run

This is the main trade run optimizer workspace.

CLI equivalent: trade run

This workspace makes the heaviest use of the left pane.

In particular:

  • blank override fields inherit from the left pane
  • Copy from profile stamps the current left-pane values into run-local overrides
  • usable cargo is based on effective capacity, not just raw capacity

The main Run pane focuses on the common route-shaping inputs. Less common options live under Extended Options.

The full meaning of the underlying run options is documented in Command Line Options.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the left pane baseline is part of the execution context
  • command-local override fields win over the left pane
  • Copy from profile is a GUI convenience and has no direct CLI equivalent
  • the GUI uses the current saved/effective ship profile instead of making you type cargo and jump data every time

Buy

This workspace searches for places to buy items or ships.

CLI equivalent: trade buy

The GUI keeps the main pane focused on the common inputs:

  • item/category search
  • near
  • distance
  • supply
  • common station filters

Less common constraints and sorting options live under Extended Options.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • multiple search terms can be entered as comma-separated values
  • the left-pane Max data age is passed through as the CLI --age filter
  • the GUI field labelled Distance maps to CLI --ly
  • GUI Sort by units is the CLI --units-sort

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Sell

This workspace searches for places to sell an item.

CLI equivalent: trade sell

It is deliberately similar to Buy, but simpler.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the GUI only uses the first search term for Sell
  • the left-pane Max data age is passed through as CLI --age
  • the GUI field labelled Distance maps to CLI --ly-per, not --ly

That last point is worth knowing because Buy and Sell are not symmetrical in CLI naming even though the GUI tries to keep them feeling similar.

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Trade

This workspace compares two stations and shows profitable trades between them.

CLI equivalent: trade trade <origin> <dest>

Use it when you already know the two stations you care about.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the GUI always forces detail mode so it can render the richer trade table
  • GUI Cargo mode maps to the CLI cargo helpers:
    • Fill to capacity -> --fill
    • Load free space only -> --load
    • Full load from scratch -> --full-load
  • Reverse route is CLI --reverse

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Local

This workspace searches nearby systems and matching stations.

CLI equivalent: trade local

Typical uses include:

  • finding nearby trading systems
  • finding services such as shipyard, outfitting, repair, rearm, refuel
  • checking station traits and filters around a location

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the left-pane Max data age is inherited and passed to CLI --age
  • the GUI always forces detailed output so station/service results can be shown properly
  • the service checkboxes are GUI wrappers around the normal CLI service filters

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Market

This workspace shows the market at a station.

CLI equivalent: trade market

You supply a station, and the GUI renders the market in a full-detail table view.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the GUI always forces higher detail so averages, ages, and related fields are available
  • GUI Buying only and Selling only map to the CLI --buying and --selling switches
  • this workspace is intended for inspection rather than route planning

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Nav

This workspace calculates routes between places without worrying about trading profit.

CLI equivalent: trade nav

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the GUI always adds --stations and higher detail so stop-by-stop station results can be shown
  • Via and Avoid may be entered as comma-separated values or one-per-line
  • the GUI expands those into repeated CLI --via and --avoid options

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Old Data

This workspace helps you find stale market data that needs refreshing.

CLI equivalent: trade olddata

This is useful if you want to revisit old stations rather than just searching for best trades.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • unlike many other workspaces, this does not use the left-pane Max data age
  • Sort to shortest path is CLI --route
  • Limit and LS max are tucked away in Extended Options
  • Near is required if you want to use distance filtering or route sorting

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Rares

This workspace searches for rare goods.

CLI equivalent: trade rares

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the GUI always forces higher detail so the richer rare-goods table can be shown
  • Legal only / Illegal only map to CLI --legal / --illegal
  • Away distance and Away from systems must be supplied together
  • Away from systems may be comma-separated or one-per-line, and becomes repeated CLI --from options

For the underlying option meanings, see Command Line Options.

Import

This workspace handles the normal TD import/update workflow.

CLI equivalent: trade import -P eddblink ...

This is intentionally not a generic “all plugins” front-end. It is aimed at the supported, ordinary user workflow.

GUI-specific behaviour to note:

  • the GUI import workspace is hard-wired to eddblink
  • it exposes the common eddblink options directly
  • import progress is shown live in the GUI
  • stopping an import is cooperative, not an instant hard kill

The most important practical point is this:

  • for most users, All + Skip Vendors is the sensible fuller refresh
  • vendor tables take a very long time and are not needed by most people

So in GUI terms:

  • normal update: use the Import workspace with simple/default options
  • fuller refresh: use All and usually also Skip Vendors

For the underlying option meanings, see Plugin Options.

Settings

This is a GUI-only workspace.

It does not execute a TD command.

At time of writing it currently provides:

  • theme selection

That is intentionally small.

There is an Advanced Settings button, but advanced GUI/network settings are not wired yet.

Results And Diagnostics

Most workspaces can show three views:

  • Input
  • Results
  • Diagnostics

Results

Where possible, the GUI renders structured results rather than plain text.

For example:

  • Run shows routes, hops, and per-hop commodity tables
  • Trade, Buy, Sell, Local, Nav, Market, Old Data, and Rares are rendered as richer tables where possible

If a suitable structured renderer is not available, the GUI falls back to the normal TD text output.

Diagnostics

The Diagnostics view is where parser messages, warnings, and error output go.

If something fails, start there.

It is the GUI equivalent of asking “what did TD actually say?”

Persistent Drafts

The GUI is designed to remember what you were doing.

In general, values entered into the GUI are persisted across sessions, including:

  • commander baseline values
  • ship profiles
  • per-command drafts
  • most command-specific options and filters

The idea is simple: once you have entered the way you normally search, route, filter, and inspect data, you should not have to keep typing the same things over and over again every time you restart the GUI.

The main exception is the Import workspace.

Two import options are intentionally treated as one-shot actions and are cleared after use:

  • Clean
  • Optimize

This is deliberate.

Those options are useful in the right circumstances, but they are not the sort of thing most users should run repeatedly by accident. Clearing them after use helps avoid unnecessary rebuilds and other time-wasting import runs when all the user actually wanted was a normal refresh of current data.

What The GUI Does Not Do

The GUI is intentionally built around the current supported TD workflows.

It does not try to be a museum exhibit for every old command TD ever had.

In particular:

  • it does not expose the deprecated update command
  • it does not expose the deprecated station command
  • it does not expose the deprecated shipvendor command
  • it does not currently provide a general browser-mode workflow for users
  • it does not currently expose every possible historical import path through the GUI

That is deliberate.

A Sensible First Session

If you are opening the GUI for the first time, a sensible order is:

  1. start tradegui
  2. fill in your commander baseline
  3. fill in your ship details
  4. save the ship profile
  5. go to Import
  6. import data
  7. return to Run, Buy, Sell, Trade, or whatever you actually want to use
  8. use Results and Diagnostics to inspect what happened

If your main interest is the trade run optimizer, start with Run.

If you want to inspect or compare specific stations, Market and Trade are often quicker.

Troubleshooting

“The GUI opens but tells me there is no data”

You have not imported enough market data yet.

Use the Import workspace, or follow the import instructions in the Setup Guide.

“I changed ship values and they disappeared”

You edited the working ship profile but did not click Save.

Commander/global values save as you change them. Ship profiles do not.

“I stopped an import and now I don’t trust the results”

Good. Run the import again and let it finish.

A stopped import may leave the local data incomplete.

“The GUI remembers junk values”

Close TD and remove tradegui_state.json.

The GUI will recreate a fresh default state next time it starts.

“The CLI and GUI seem to be using different data”

They are probably being run from different folders, or with different data-directory settings.

Remember that TD stores its data relative to where it is run unless you centralise it with TD_DATA.

“Where should I look when something fails?”

Start with Diagnostics.

Home

Setup Guide

User Guide

Graphical User Interface

Command Line Options

Plugin Options

Cookbook

Temporary

Developers

Python Quick Peek

Prices (deprecated)

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