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[Deathworks]

Hi!

Basically, what it says on the can: I am wondering and asking whether there are other people who actually like the user interface the way it is right now (with maybe only slight improvements like Escape vs. Space vs. F9).

You see, whenever I see the user interface mentioned, it seems that people are stating how horrible it is.

This strikes me as kind of odd as I find the interface very efficient and very clean and helpful most of the time. Personally, I prefer the key driven interface over any mouse-based interface as it has many advantages in my eyes:
1. No clicking on the wrong pixel: There is no danger of being just one pixel off when clicking with the mouse. You can easily mark what you want to mark.
2. Fast commands: You can quickly access the commands/command menus you want as a single keypress gets you there.
3. Easy overview: The command info you have (the middle section of the screen in the default situation) gives you a reminder of all the keys you need to know.

Personally, I am very happy with the current interface and would miss it dearly if it got removed.

So, are there others who feel the same, or how do you see this? EDIT: Please discuss your feelings openly, regardless of whether you feel the same or differently. Just try to respect that some people like this way and some that way, thank you.

EDIT: There is also suggestion thread dealing with the user interface, and if you want to thwart Jiri Petru's evil schemes to sacrifice the keyboard purity of the game to the mouse abomination, or if you simply have some concrete ideas you want to share in a more focused environment, you may wish to have a look at that:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.0

Thanks go to Jiri Petru for pointing out that thread. (And of course, the summary above is not meant to insult)

Deathworks

[se5a]

I duno, It seems pretty inconsistent in places.

[Deon]

It's inconsistent but mostly I like the design of the interface. And because I am used to it, it will be hard to go back so I do not want it to be changed, at least for now .

[Qiu]

I like it too (at least the 40d one, didn't try 2010 yet...). You should've made a poll. 

[Vester]

The interface is bad, but I like it. Same reason I like the ASCII style graphics.

[Duke 2.0]

 I argue that it is better than any other roguelike out there. Granted this doesn't say much, but if you enjoy roguelikes then you should be able to understand the DF interface. Except the Military screen. That screen has it's own person ring of hell for being obtuse.

[Deon]

I like it too (at least the 40d one, didn't try 2010 yet...). You should've made a poll. 

Ah, I forgot about that part. Yeah 0.31.* interface is terrible, at least the military one. The added complexity is not nice.
In 40d and before you could make almost any action by 3-5 keypresses while in the new version the military inferface requires TONS of tweaking. That's good that we have such level of control, but there should be a "lighter" interface for most cases when we do not want to personalize too much stuff.

[Dave Mongoose]

I do like the current interface (although DF2010 seems to be missing a couple of the key commands from the 'menu' - 'u' for units is not listed, but still works).

I certainly would not like a mouse-based interface - it's much faster to use key commands and means that you can play with the menu minimised once you're accustomed to the commands.

Having played more traditional roguelikes (e.g. Stone Soup) and struggled to remember all the commands at first, I think the way that DF lists the keys is very newbie-friendly.

[Oglokoog]

The military screen is the devil, but otherwise yeah, I like it very much.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Thank you for the interesting responses.

I have to admit that I have also played a bit of Angband variants before discovering Dwarf Fortress, so I too have known rogue-likes and also the value of a printed manual with them (^_^;;

Qiu: I did not want to rally support for or against something. I was merely interested in the feelings of people, and to get that, posts are much more fit than polls. After all, no matter how you phrase them, your poll options will always fail for some people leaving them between two or more options and only uneasily selecting one.

If you look over the replies so far, there has not much unconditional support or disapproval. Instead, there are things that don't work out for people who like the system or people who dislike it but grew used to it (yes, I am simplifying so as to get a usable English sentence). I think the question is so complex that a poll wouldn't really work.

But thank you for that suggestion and your comments on the UI.

Deathworks

[axus]

I thought Incursion had a pretty good interface for a roguelike.  That is a good point, though.  I guess I could say that I don't like "roguelike" interfaces.  The gameplay in Dwarf mode more is more "Warcraft" than "Nethack", so it doesn't need the rogue-like interface.

I argue that it is better than any other roguelike out there. Granted this doesn't say much, but if you enjoy roguelikes then you should be able to understand the DF interface. Except the Military screen. That screen has it's own person ring of hell for being obtuse.

[Sabin Stargem]

I would like to have more graphics and a better interface.  Graphics tie into the interface, in the sense that they facilitate understanding the game.  Essentially, graphics are the Output of understanding, while Controls are Input of what you observe.  Therefore, excellent graphics tied to natural controls will make for something better.  One such example of graphics helping controls would be an indicator of time in the game.  The military setup screen uses measurements of time for scheduling that are named after various stones.  Having a visual indicator to show the current time and for the various stones to have graphical representations would help in understanding time in the game.  I would suggest using colored stones, with one of them hi-lighted to indicate the current time, at the top of the screen.

By using graphics to improve understanding of what is going on, the game feels more natural.  That is why I use a tileset, since it removes ambiguous indicators from the game and makes the game prettier.  Say, is that 'd' a dog, dragon, dragoon, Dagon, or dynamite?  By having things represented in a way to is familiar, the game is improved for me.  My first and most favorite Roguelike is Castle of the Winds, which was a basic but graphical roguelike - and had a nice interface to boot!  Paperdoll inventory and shops, a spell quickbar, right-click enemies and objects to examine them, and so on.  From 1989.

[Soadreqm]

I think it's okay. Not great, but okay. Extending mouse support from the designation menu to the rest of the interface would certainly be welcome. Navigating the menus themselves is easy with keyboard, but scrolling across the map is not. Being able to loo'k' at tiles, select units for 'v'iewing and, uh... 'q'uery 'b'uilding i't'ems by clicking on them would be just grand.

I think the current ASCII representation for creatures is decent enough, but only for now. You can learn it, but it's not inherently intuitive or very consistent. And as we get more and more creatures, the problems will start standing out. Once we get to arbitrary randomized creatures in about twelve years, we'll rapidly start running out of characters.

[DalGren]

The interface is horrible, but it kind of works.
The main problem it has is being terribly inconsistent (at times requiring up/down to pick options, other times +/-, etc), not adapting to screen size (very frustrating when assigning beds and stuff, or during trading, long names are truncated and makes some things hard to tell apart at a glance), and strange display of in-game objects and properties.
Once you get used to it it's only mildly annoying at times, but it does the work, it's clearly placeholder-ish, more like a debug menu than an user menu.

[Oglokoog]

Sabin, I must respectfully disagree. For me, the absence of any sort of actual graphic representation of the in-game items is actually a huge part of the game's appeal. I used this comparison a few times already, but I think it needs to be said again: Dwarf Fortress is to Crysis what Neil Gaiman's books are to Avatar (the movie). Unlike games with graphics, Dwarf Fortress promotes and strengtens not only creativity, hand-eye coordination, strategic thinking and other similar human attributes, but also imagination. Because you can't really see what's going on, you have to imagine it from the descriptions and such. The graphic representation is more than enough to facilitate gameplay and its minimalism actually enhances the experience.