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[Atanamis]

The only modification I would make to the original suggestion is to put it on the Status Menu next to Health, so: Z -> Labours, since that's a more logical place for 'overview' interfaces like this.

Linking into it from multiple places wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea either. It would be good if there was always a way "back" where you came from though if it had multiple linkages.

Added this thread to the Eternal Voting item.

This suggestion is now 15th highest in votes. I moved one of my votes over to it based on the mockup, which has sold me on the idea of merging this into the game.

[Draco18s]

Added this thread to the Eternal Voting item.

This suggestion is now 15th highest in votes. I moved one of my votes over to it based on the mockup, which has sold me on the idea of merging this into the game.

Added one of mine as well.  Standing production orders--while something I wish to see completed--has enough votes to keep it in the spotlight.

[Sutremaine]

This is good stuff, and quite intuitive as well. Would it be possible to have a marker for Legendary +5? It doesn't matter for a lot of professions, but unless item quality has had an overhaul then L+5 is one of the thresholds at which a certain quality of goods is guaranteed.

[Safe-Keeper]

Highly confusing with the professions just saying "Mi" and whatnot, should be an option to expand the table so that it takes more space (and can be scrolled, of course).

I kinda like the idea of having 0-9 and then A-E and L for skills, but this will make things even more difficult to newcomers. Why not just expanding the table and using two digits?

[Valdemar]

Highly confusing with the professions just saying "Mi" and whatnot, should be an option to expand the table so that it takes more space (and can be scrolled, of course).

I kinda like the idea of having 0-9 and then A-E and L for skills, but this will make things even more difficult to newcomers. Why not just expanding the table and using two digits?

You can expand the labels vertically with Tab. Expanding horizontally would cause far less information to be displayed, defeating the purpose of the condensed view. New players probably aren't going to run into skills that high for a while anyway (though the new migrants can be very skilled), and the blue description allows one to see the full expansion of both the profession name and skill level, so the first time they see it they can just move the cursor over it and the full name will show up. Condensing the 15 skill levels into 9 digits by doubling up some of the mappings could solve this problem, at the loss of some precision.

This is good stuff, and quite intuitive as well. Would it be possible to have a marker for Legendary +5? It doesn't matter for a lot of professions, but unless item quality has had an overhaul then L+5 is one of the thresholds at which a certain quality of goods is guaranteed.

I'm not certain Toady would like that, since he seems to have already made the decision not to differentiate the skill levels above Legendary in the existing interface. But if he is, it would be a useful feature to have.

[AshyRaccoon]

A dwarf foreman feature implemented like this would be incredibly useful to me. Seeing what jobs are enabled at a glance or two, and easily changing them? Great stuff.
As it is, I'm a forgetful, scatterbrained one, tending to forget what jobs I've set on what dwarves, inefficiently enabling bad job combinations on the same dwarf, not realizing what dwarves I don't have jobs set on, re-checking the same ones and skipping over others, etc. That is, this would be much easier, and more intuitive.

I can't think of much to add, other than possibly a shift+ctrl+enter, and being able to click and 'paint' on it with the mouse. I just really like what I'm seeing here.

Personally, I think this should be core functionality, not dependent on another program.

[Trouserman]

What about turning the grid on its side to make the labor labels easier to read?  They seem more important to recognize quickly than the dwarves' names and occupations, most of the time.

[NotABotanist]

I've always been a bit of a purist, so as to avoid becoming dependent on a third-party utility.  I've heard good things about Dwarf Foreman, though, and I can see how this functionality would be most helpful for managing large numbers of dwarves.  I wholeheartedly approve of this and it has one of my votes.

I'd prefer if it counted 0-9 A-E L since that's closer to the way hexadecimal works, but whatever.

[Quietust]

That interface is so nice that I decided to use it in a tool I've just written: an improved "Dwarf Manager" for Dwarf Fortress v0.23.130.23a (since the only other available tool, Dwarf Foreman, could only assign labors based on custom professions and not actual dwarf names).

[Narmio]

I like this, and I'm sure this point has already been mentioned in this thread, but I'll say it again just incase:

Why are we still designing interfaces to fit the old 80x25 grid?  We're no longer bound to it, it should probably not be the default window size, and eventually Toady will rewrite all the 80x25 screensto scale, at least vertically, to custom window sizes.  So following the old rules on new screens is just making more work for Toady when he eventually re-writes the interface. 

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

[Quietust]

It's a fair guess that the prototype simply used an 80x25 display because it was convenient. When I implemented the same interface in my above-mentioned tool (now available here), I coded it to automatically stretch to fill the entire window and to scroll the labor/skill list horizontally if it didn't all fit (coincidentally, the prototype is actually missing a bunch of columns - Health Care, the 5 Ranger skills, and possibly a few others), so it's probably not too big of a leap to assume that Toady would do the same thing if he were to implement such an interface.

[zwei]

... eventually Toady will rewrite all the 80x25 screensto scale, at least vertically, to custom window sizes. ...

Hence design for 80x25. You simply have to design for minimum window size. As long as design is stretchable, it is going to be just fine.

It's not as if making windows use extra screen if stretched is going to be huge problem because mostly it is just about longer lists, wider columns and apropriatelly displaced footer text.

[Aquillion]

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.

[orbcontrolled]

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.

[Fourdots]

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

Hi. My screen's maximum resolution is 1024x600.

Assuming a minimum resolution of 1024x768 would also create difficulties with screens of that size, and make it only playable in full-screen mode, due to interference from the title bar and (possibly) taskbar.

It would be far better to assume that the minimum size for the game is what it is currently (a 80x25 character grid, which shouldn't make the game unplayable on any laptop, desktop, or netbook, as well as allowing people to read web-pages, such as the wiki, behind the game screen), but allow screens within it to be scaled up or centered as the grid is increased by the player, allowing more information to be shown on the screen at any single time. Default resolution could be (is?) an init option, of course, for those who couldn't stand the agony of resizing their window every time they open DF.