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[Silverionmox]

Toady is reluctant, I think, to make the DF interface too spreadsheet-y...  the health screen is a bit like a spreadsheet, but it's not something you need to use very often.

Assigning jobs is begging for a grid if you want to have some form of oversight.

[Footkerchief]

Toady is reluctant, I think, to make the DF interface too spreadsheet-y...  the health screen is a bit like a spreadsheet, but it's not something you need to use very often.

He's going to have to get over it at some point. I don't think a game this complicated can reasonably be handled by one-dimensional interface elements.

Yup.  Considering how much information DF throws at you, and how many objects you exert individual control over, avoiding spreadsheets is just denial.

[Sfon]

Two complaints:

1) Two letter abbreviations are horribly small. Four letters would be a huge improvement at the cost of only a couple rows, adding far more convenience than sacrificed imo. Three letters at least.

2) That dark blue is murder on my eyes. Such dark colors on the black background should be avoided. Are they truly needed anyway? I think the purpose could better be served with alternating white and gray or such. I get why it is done, but DF's limited color display calls for too high a sacrifice in readability to go all-out with it. Having four letters would also reduce importance of having so many colors to tell everything apart.

Otherwise it seems about perfect. Something that, while not luxurious, makes a large fortress playable without a separate utility. More complexity can remain in the realm of third party tools, at least for now, but a basic skill and job spreadsheet is too important to leave completely out.

Why are we still designing interfaces to fit the old 80x25 grid?

We can safely assume an absolute minimum resolution of 1024x768, which I think comes out to a 128x64 DF window.

Not everyone uses the default tiles and fullscreen. A minimum width of 1280 is needed simply for 16x16 tiles. So while the default is small, that quickly changes if you want it to be pretty. The "absolute minimum" you think can be assumed is 2048 pixels wide with 16x16 tiles. Not even most brand new monitors can do that, and most people are probably using ones four years old or more.

[konzill]

What's wrong with it being in a separate window?  I mean, it would be nice if it was bundled with the game, possibly even if it started with the game, but there's no reason it has to be *in* the same window as DF.  In fact, it probably loses functionality doing that.

It would be pretty simple to write a script that started DF and Dwarf Therapist/Foreman/whatever with a single doubleclick.  At which point there's no real need to merge the code.

Other ASCII games (eg, Angband) have multiple windows to display useful information so you can track information while using the main game.  That those extra windows are controlled directly by the parent program isn't especially relevant - the fact that foreman is essentially separate is an advantage in the modern multi-core world, because it can run on a different core than DF. 

Basically, what advantages are there to combining this program into the DF codebase that don't exist when running it separately?

The problem for me at least is that DF has no well defined external API. Every time a new version of DF arrives the external utilites break. After substantial messing arround I got Dwarf Therapist running on 0.31.12 but I couldn't get it running with 0.31.13 or 0.31.14 yet to try with .16

If its part of the core game then it will Just work on every new version without any messing arround or memory remapping.

[Virex]

No it won't just magically work, it will mean more work for Toady every time he changes something. While I think this is convenient to have, I firmly believe that it's in our best interest to not have Toady waste his time on implementing and maintaining stuff like this that can be done by others with memory hacks.

[andy_t_roo]

After trying to play the new DF without Therapist, i've changed my votes on the eternal suggestion thread, as i've realized how much i depend on an external 3rd party utility to be able to organize my dwarves. - I believe an integrated foreman / therapist would aid playing DF without needing any 3rd party utilities, much more than fixing farming (which is currently above it on the list, and is easily mod-able).

Alternatively, is there any way to see if that dwarf who just died was my only butcher, without a)this suggestion being implemented. b) working DT, c) hitting u,selecting a dwarf, hitting c , scrolling to farming/related and checking in that sub-menu?

[NW_Kohaku]

I believe an integrated foreman / therapist would aid playing DF without needing any 3rd party utilities, much more than fixing farming (which is currently above it on the list, and is easily mod-able).

If you think the farming suggestions are easily moddable, you haven't read the thread. 

Anyway, even as someone who is probably the single greatest proponent of the farming overhaul, I do agree that interface issues are probably more pressing as a concern right now.  There's only so much Toady can ignore on the interface or bug-squishing front before the userbase just plain starts to revolt, and there have been times when it wasn't just the game getting ugly.  (And, I will point out, I went out of my way to talk about how to handle the interface for the farming suggestion just to try to head off some problems.)

[Babylon]

It would be more intuitive if the letter order were reversed so that A were Grand Master ________ and if E were Accomplished ________ because an B on a test is good, but a D is bad, if that makes any sense.

An awesome example nonetheless.

Using letters from A to E (actually to F) is the convention for people using hexadecimal, which many DF players do.  It's a common convention for HTML coders and graphic artists to denote colors and is also used in some cases in more serious coding.  It is probably easier to have the game display the value in hex, as it is stored in binary, than it is to switch the values.

[Babylon]

After trying to play the new DF without Therapist, i've changed my votes on the eternal suggestion thread, as i've realized how much i depend on an external 3rd party utility to be able to organize my dwarves. - I believe an integrated foreman / therapist would aid playing DF without needing any 3rd party utilities, much more than fixing farming (which is currently above it on the list, and is easily mod-able).

Alternatively, is there any way to see if that dwarf who just died was my only butcher, without a)this suggestion being implemented. b) working DT, c) hitting u,selecting a dwarf, hitting c , scrolling to farming/related and checking in that sub-menu?

I'd personally prefer an API, that way all of the external utilities could be updated much more easily without Toady having to do the work to update them individually.  I love Dwarf Therapist,  I also love DFHack, Other people love Soundsense and Stonesense. an API would allow all of these to update more easily, quickly, and reliably, without Toady having to spend time updating each feature, he'd just have to make sure the API was still functional in the new version.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd personally prefer an API, that way all of the external utilities could be updated much more easily without Toady having to do the work to update them individually.  I love Dwarf Therapist,  I also love DFHack, Other people love Soundsense and Stonesense. an API would allow all of these to update more easily, quickly, and reliably, without Toady having to spend time updating each feature, he'd just have to make sure the API was still functional in the new version.

Unfortunately, that's been discussed ad nauseam, and Toady simply doesn't want to make an API because he doesn't want to make sure it was still functional. 

Or at least, that's the way it was a year ago when I last saw him talk about it.

[Babylon]

I'd personally prefer an API, that way all of the external utilities could be updated much more easily without Toady having to do the work to update them individually.  I love Dwarf Therapist,  I also love DFHack, Other people love Soundsense and Stonesense. an API would allow all of these to update more easily, quickly, and reliably, without Toady having to spend time updating each feature, he'd just have to make sure the API was still functional in the new version.

Unfortunately, that's been discussed ad nauseam, and Toady simply doesn't want to make an API because he doesn't want to make sure it was still functional. 

Or at least, that's the way it was a year ago when I last saw him talk about it.

Certainly.  My point is that maintaining an API is less work than maintaining an integrated labor management tool.  Now if Toady enjoys creating a labor management tool that would be different, but considering he hasn't done so yet I doubt he enjoys it.

[Quietust]

Minor necro-bump, but I think it's worth it: using some exciting new functionality within DFHack, I have successfully implemented a working version of this labor editor within Dwarf Fortress itself. Build the latest DFHack sources (from my fork on github), then enter the (u)nits list and press the (l)abors key.

[hermes]

Hmm.  I haven't and shan't try this out, but I wonder what the purpose of this is, Quietust.  I've been a long time supporter of some labour management within the game, but I have doubts as to how positive this proof of concept really can be.

• I don't like the way DF Foreman (or this Javascript) works in the first place, the layout is cluttered and gives too much information - it's design seriously needs a more intelligent and intuitive overhaul regarding the way job allocation works in real life.
• If and when Toady does get round to it at the very least this is going to confuse some players.
• What are you hoping to achieve by this?  Pressuring Toady into including it in the game?  Forking DF in a just-legal manner again?
• If you just wanted to do an in-game proof of concept, why not just show it to Toady?
• I honestly don't know how others feel about this, but this kind of "internal" DF-UI modification is seriously dubious IMO and could threaten the legitimacy of DF hack if it continues/went much further.

Hey, I could be overreacting, but I'd like to know a bit more about your motivations & hopes for this.

[GreatWyrmGold]

He's letting us know for those of us who want the functionality of DT in the interface but either don't like DT on principle or want it all in one window. I don't care, because I don't use DT (or DFhack, for that matter), but some do care.

[Pyro627]

It would be more intuitive if the letter order were reversed so that A were Grand Master ________ and if E were Accomplished ________ because an B on a test is good, but a D is bad, if that makes any sense.

An awesome example nonetheless.

Ah yes, that makes much more sense. The letters now go E-A, with Legendary remaining L.

It would be rad if you could expand the profession names at the expense of the # of dwarves in the list.  Like the tab button changes the view from 15 dwarves and 2 letter skill names to 5 dwarves and 12 letter skill names.

You can now press Tab to expand the profession abbreviations to 4 letters. It just cuts off the first two dwarves in the prototype; I wrote the display code really quickly and it would be a real hassle to shift them down. I'm not certain that it's much better this way, since it looks like a big jumble of letters until you concentrate on reading down, but it's certainly a good option to have.

Actually, why not make legendary the icon thing for masterwork products?