Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Simple interface fixes  (Read 4881 times)

ArPharazon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Simple interface fixes
« on: January 25, 2012, 01:51:50 pm »

The Dwarf Fortress interface has always been the kind that... Uh... Chooses to reward tenacity rather than be straightforward, shall we say. Back when the production chains were young and lean, I guess it had a sort of brilliance to its chaotic, ad-hoc clutter. As new materials and industries have been added, it feels like it's collapsing under its own weight.

This is meant to be a list of simple, (apparently) easy to implement fixes for the interface, which would make the game much less frustrating to play. In other words, low-hanging fruit. I won't try to go into any big changes, since those have been discussed at length. I'll also avoid certain obvious things, such as complaining about the labor interface: Yeah, it sucks. But now that we have Dwarf Therapis (thank Armok), who cares?

Fix the stockpiles:
Spoiler: The problem (click to show/hide)
  • Fix the presets:
    Spoiler (click to show/hide)
  • String filter for specifying stockpile settings:
    Spoiler (click to show/hide)
  • Better containers:
    Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Trade:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stocks:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Workshops:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jobs:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Announcements:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Autopause:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Building:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you think there is anything that should be added, or removed, please let me know. Also, I'm not always the best at explaining things, so if you'd like to suggest rewriting any sections, feel free to say so.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2012, 01:26:59 am by ArPharazon »
Logged

Babylon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Yet another interface complaint - but at least it's specific
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2012, 02:20:28 pm »

To add to the jobs thing,  stockpiling and storing owned items SHOULD be suspended in the way that constructions currently are.  That would take care of store owned item and stockpile item inacccessable spam.  it would be better if we could see what item they are trying to store, but suspension would be better than the current situation.
Logged

ArPharazon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Yet another interface complaint - but at least it's specific
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2012, 02:25:03 pm »

That reminds me: There are certain common announcements, especially job cancels, which should be zoomable to but aren't. Examples are:
- Urist has created a masterpiece.
- Urist has become a recruit.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2012, 03:02:09 pm by ArPharazon »
Logged

Silverionmox

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Yet another interface complaint - but at least it's specific
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2012, 05:13:23 pm »

That reminds me: There are certain common announcements, especially job cancels, which should be zoomable to but aren't. Examples are:
- Urist has created a masterpiece.
- Urist has become a recruit.
In addition, the various stages of caravan presence aren't all available to pause the game upon. Especially the one where "the caravan from ... is leaving soon" would be very useful if you let DF run in the background.
Logged
Dwarf Fortress cured my savescumming.

bombzero

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Yet another interface complaint - but at least it's specific
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2012, 05:24:54 pm »

Nice to see someone complain about the interface, then provide multiple realistically implementable fixes.
Logged

ArPharazon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Yet another interface complaint - but at least it's specific
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2012, 01:21:10 am »

I organized things a bit and added a few minor things, as well as Silverionmox's suggestion.

To add to the jobs thing,  stockpiling and storing owned items SHOULD be suspended in the way that constructions currently are.  That would take care of store owned item and stockpile item inacccessable spam.  it would be better if we could see what item they are trying to store, but suspension would be better than the current situation.
I somewhat agree with this, but I'm not sure how to phrase the actual suggestion. Firstly, there's already a way to do this- forbid items. Yes, it is a very impractical way. For being able to see, I guess that job cancel should have a zoom-to option if it doesn't already, and it should zoom to the item not the dwarf.

In general, if we could just suppress inaccessible item announcements, would this still be a problem?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2012, 01:26:21 am by ArPharazon »
Logged

Babylon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Yet another interface complaint - but at least it's specific
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2012, 02:50:45 pm »

I organized things a bit and added a few minor things, as well as Silverionmox's suggestion.

To add to the jobs thing,  stockpiling and storing owned items SHOULD be suspended in the way that constructions currently are.  That would take care of store owned item and stockpile item inacccessable spam.  it would be better if we could see what item they are trying to store, but suspension would be better than the current situation.
I somewhat agree with this, but I'm not sure how to phrase the actual suggestion. Firstly, there's already a way to do this- forbid items. Yes, it is a very impractical way. For being able to see, I guess that job cancel should have a zoom-to option if it doesn't already, and it should zoom to the item not the dwarf.

In general, if we could just suppress inaccessible item announcements, would this still be a problem?

It would if the dwarves are spending all their time starting and then suspending hauling jobs.  Being able to zoom to the item would fix it, that is something that is not currently possible.
Logged

Snaake

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Simple interface fixes
« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2012, 09:14:02 am »

Bump because I agree, this is relatively fresh and still relevant (workshops taking from stockpiles has been added at least), and I have a couple of additions. There's some even older threads of course...

To reiterate:

- Stocks screen needs to be searchable, similarly to manager orders/as detailed above
- Some larger categories for stocks screen would be useful (so eg. show number of socks, not all by type; goblinite clothing clutters up the stocks screen to no extent).

New stuff which I don't think was mentioned, regarding managing animals
- Being able to view caged/pastured status in the status-animals screen, not just in units-pets/livestock (and adding pastured status there could be useful as well)
- Adding animal gender indicator to units list, why not also the v- and k-looking commands, not just animals screen. At the very least, the unit lists' zooming (c) and (v)iew animal commands to the animals screen. Would make sorting various animals by gender and eg. description (breeding for gigantic, very fat and very muscular animals?) much easier.
- frankly, combining the better parts of the unit list for pets/livestock and the animals screen, and using the same interface could work.

New stuff *specifically related to the new enlarged menus (in some screens) for larger resolutions (I play with 1920x1080 :P):
- The new screens are annoying to scroll through, since one pageful can have literally dozens of entries, so pgup/pgdown or */ scroll too much. Add a new "scroll down 10 places" option, or something similar. Preferably shift+arrow (or +-), for similarity to the shift+arrow cursor movement with designations etc.
- Better mouse control could also help here.
- military schedules screen's modification to support larger resolutions should also include horizontal resolution, so you can see more than 3 squads' schedules at once with large enough resolution & appropriate zoom.

About the last section, I recall some people stating in the facepalm thread in dwarf mode discussion, that they could use the mouse in some screens (stocks iirc), where it doesn't work for me. Any settings that help, or has it changed in versions since?

Also, the "scroll 10 places" might in theory be doable as a macro or even keybind, but I haven't delved into either of those at all yet. Any advice on a workaround? I think one big issue is that it should preferably work with a variety of screens (stocks, unit lists, jobs, manager... and everything else that gets support for larger resolutions, eventually).
Logged

GreatWyrmGold

  • Bay Watcher
  • Sane, by the local standards.
    • View Profile
Re: Simple interface fixes
« Reply #8 on: June 08, 2012, 11:40:37 am »

Most of the suggested stuff would be useful. I don't think all of it is needed, but meh. I'll focus my energy on the one I don't agree with.

"Dwarves should never suspend constructions."
How do you say "Hell, no!" in Dwarvish?
See, if a dwarf suspends a construction, there's ALWAYS a reason. It might be a stupid reason (Oh, no! A groundhog!), it might be a good reason (Oh, no! A goblin! ; Oh, no! Water!), it might be an annoying-but-needed reason (Oh, stupid cat!), but there is ALWAYS a reason. If dwarves didn't suspend buildings they couldn't work on, they'd keep trying to build it and failing, until you realised there was a problem and fixed it. That sounds like more work than...what, exactly? Having to occasionally go q-s when you're trying to wall off part of an aquifer? That's sort of a gamey aquifer-piercng method anyways. Having to unsuspend when there's a cat on the wall? Better than having the dwarf spam you with "I can't build the wall, there's a cat there!" announcements. And so forth.
And how do you tell which 17 coffins are suspended? Let the dwarvs haul the other hunderd in, then see which ones aren't there yet!
Logged
Sig
Are you a GM with players who haven't posted? TheDelinquent Players Help will have Bay12 give you an action!
[GreatWyrmGold] gets a little crown. May it forever be his mark of Cain; let no one argue pointless subjects with him lest they receive the same.