1
DF Suggestions / Item Selection and management
« on: December 23, 2009, 01:52:54 pm »
One key item i see is the inconsistency with item management.
I can count at least 3 separate systems for dealing with items in a fortress:
-Status -> Stocks
-Trade Depot -> Move items to Depot
-Unit List -> Manager
While those systems all have different end purposes, they share enough in common that there should be a way to unify some of the sub systems (item search and selection?) to help bring some semblance of cohesiveness to the overall experience.
To take this to a more specific place, it would be great if, when searching through your items, you could enter in a search phrase like you can when selecting something to build in the manager, or in the "move to depot" section, and then once you have your list, hit one key to mark everything in that list with an order (i.e., Melt, Move to Depot, Forbid, etc).
There has been a number of times where i've gone to the Stocks screen and wanted to search for a specific set of items, but as the fortress grows, finding something becomes more and more of a needle in the haystack type search. This is especially true after a few goblin invasion waves where most of them are wearing leather items from just about every conceivable creature in the world, and i want to mark all their narrow Iron items for melting.
I think this would go a long way toward helping make item management a more consistent experience between the different sets of functionality that can be done on any given set of items.
I can count at least 3 separate systems for dealing with items in a fortress:
-Status -> Stocks
-Trade Depot -> Move items to Depot
-Unit List -> Manager
While those systems all have different end purposes, they share enough in common that there should be a way to unify some of the sub systems (item search and selection?) to help bring some semblance of cohesiveness to the overall experience.
To take this to a more specific place, it would be great if, when searching through your items, you could enter in a search phrase like you can when selecting something to build in the manager, or in the "move to depot" section, and then once you have your list, hit one key to mark everything in that list with an order (i.e., Melt, Move to Depot, Forbid, etc).
There has been a number of times where i've gone to the Stocks screen and wanted to search for a specific set of items, but as the fortress grows, finding something becomes more and more of a needle in the haystack type search. This is especially true after a few goblin invasion waves where most of them are wearing leather items from just about every conceivable creature in the world, and i want to mark all their narrow Iron items for melting.
I think this would go a long way toward helping make item management a more consistent experience between the different sets of functionality that can be done on any given set of items.
