Hey - 98% newbie to DF here, and having a great time (despite my computer being way too slow for it). I've purposefully taken out some of the steepness of the learning curve by embarking my first fort on an island with no access to goblins (only my dwarf civ and elves, actually).
And from a newbie perspective, here's what I sometimes wished I could get from the interface. And just for disclaimer purposes, there's always the possibility that there exist some interface things that I haven't discovered yet to make my life easier - ha!
For starters, I wish there was an additional
optional info pane at the bottom of the screen, spanning its entire width and taking up perhaps two lines. Rather than eat into the default 80x25, I'd rather that the game's basic size was increased to 80x27. You would be able to remove this bottom pane with the press of a button, just as you can remove the right menu pane with [tab]. If you did, it would merely free up more space to view the world. How it would be used, exactly, I'll list below.
And now a section by section list of interface / info display changes I'd like to see. Put into spoiler boxes to save space:
1.
(b)uildThe game lets you scroll down the list of build items instead of using the hotkeys if you like. This is a good place to use the bottom pane - as you scroll down the list, the bottom pane would display a few sentences, describing the item. For instance, when you highlight "Quern," you get the following in the info pane:
Grinds some crops into dye and flour. Must be crafted at Mason's workshop. [new hotkey] for additional information.
What I mean by [new hotkey] is a some sort of hotkey that takes you immediately to the game's Help library, to a page for the object being described in the info pane. This page would discuss all the important minutiae of the building, i.e. exactly what products can be made with it, and any unusual oddities that currently can only be discovered through the Dwarf Fortress wiki.
2.
(d)esignateThe designations menu doesn't seem to let you scroll down its list using the /*-+ keys. It should, IMO.
The optional info pane would once again display a short summary of what it does, with a hotkey link to a far more detailed page.
3.
(j)obsI'd like to see many changes here.
a) Change the default colors for things. From what I gather some of the game's colors can be customized, but I haven't messed with that yet. But the defaults are dreadful. The dark blue color used for a dwarf who's performing a job could be a lighter blue, for instance. As it is, it's that much harder to find out what a certain dwarf is doing.
b) Allow the user to choose between multiple sorting orders for the job list. It currently sorts by jobs to be done, with "no job" dwarves at the end. There are times when I'd like to re-sort it by dwarf job titles. In other words, it would be sorted like the (u)nit list, but with just the dwarves instead of every creature at your embark site.
You might even add a third sorting method: alphabetical by the dwarves' names. If this were added, I'd prefer a first name sort over a last name sort, because the first names are easier to store mentally.
4.
(p)stockpilesAdd the ability to copy and paste custom stockpile settings. Right now, the custom stockpile interface seems to store the settings for the last custom stockpile you make. It would be more useful if you could (q) over an established stockpile and press a key to copy its settings to a 'clipboard'. Then when it's time to make a new stockpile, you could hit a key to paste these settings and then make your new stockpile from them.
5.
(i)ZonesTime for an entirely new interface strategy here, IMO. Right now you can get a list of all your zones in the (R)View rooms screen: buried, of course, in the great barely-organized pile that is the Rooms list.
Instead, I'd like it if you could press (i) to see the zones interface in the right text pane, and then press another key to see a list of your existing zones in that pane. You'd scroll through the list with the usual /*-+ menu keys. Upon highlighting a zone in the list, the zone would start flashing on the map. In addition, you'd be able to do the following:
a) Rename the zone.
b) Zoom to zone.
c) Press a key to edit the zone settings, using the existing zone settings interface.
6.
z-Stocks screenI was wondering whether the page should have an inline search system like the "Move Items To/From Depot" screen does, but I need to think about it more. It may be less useful in this context.
Also, here's another place where I'd like to see the bottom pane used - unlike in the rest of the game, where it would be optional, I'd like to see it as mandatory here, mainly to avoid muddling the stocks page up with yet another hotkey to disable it.
It would be used to display basic info about the stock object that you've highlighted. For most items, this would be the item's weight and value - the same thing you normally can only get by (v)iewing the item. Containers would get a bit more, looking something like this, for a random weapons bin:
+Weapons Bin+: 10Γ, 30☼
Contains 10 items totaling: 54Γ, 3102☼
You would still be able to (v)iew the item in the classic way, particularly to see exactly what's inside of it. Optionally you might also have a listed hotkey for specific detailed help pages for some items (as described above in the "(b)uild" suggestions).
7.
A new screen for mass manipulation of dwarf laborYup, this one has already been suggested so often that it's on the Eternal Suggestions list - see here.
And Valdemar's prototype from that forum page is a thing of beauty. I do have an alternate idea for organizing it, though - perhaps the game could have both styles and let you switch between them.
Instead of a list of dwarves in the first column, you could have a list of all labors in that column. As you use the arrow keys (or page up/dn) to move down the list, a second column would list all dwarves with Novice-or-better skills in that area, sorted by their level of expertise (with optional hotkey to list no-skill dwarves below the skilled dwarves, just in case you want to make a new Dabbler). You would then use the left/right arrows to move from one column to another. From the dwarf list column, you would press Enter to enable or disable the dwarf for that labor. 8.
Bottom pane use for (k) viewingFor those who have the bottom pane activated, it could be used in conjuction with (k)Look Around / (q)Set Building Tasks commands.
For Looking Around, let's say you've highlighted a tile with 1. a bin 2. a stone 3. a sock, not inside the bin. As you use +/- to scroll up and down the list in the right pane, the info in the bottom pane would change accordingly. For example:
1.
+Weapons Bin+: 10Γ, 30☼
Contains 10 items totaling: 54Γ, 3102☼
2.
bituminous coal: 200Γ, 3☼
Smelt to make coke, [new hotkey] for additional info
3.
*rope reed sock*: 1Γ, 72☼
Owner: Urist McMisplacer
The following is more 'personal' in that I'm probably in the extreme minority of people who dislike it:
9.
Trading liaison goods priority screenMaybe I just need more practice with it, but I'm always messing up this interface. The way it has different keys to scroll down the category list and the subcategory list, complete with different page up/down keys for those things? Yucky. I'd prefer it if you used the up/down/left/right arrows (and page up/dn) to move between the two columns and scroll up and down them. And then, use the - and + keys to change the priority for that trade good.
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Topic: Am I the only one who likes the user interface (Read 28121 times)