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[Yourself]

quote:First you hit "U" for "Units", then scroll down to the "Wild Animals" section, then find whatever species caused the interruption -- let's say a batman -- then go to the first batman and hit "c" for "zoom to Creature".

You could just zoom to the Dwarf that was interrupted and then scroll around a bit to find the creature.  It's still a time consuming process for a large fortress (searching a list of 180 names is a job for a computer, not my brain).

[axus]

Revamping the UI will be a big project.  I couldn't help laughing at Forumdwarf's description, it's spot on  

The right time for the revamp is when viewport size is changed.  At that point, Toady is going to have to overhaul a lot of things and fix a lot of assumptions.  

I think the place to start is comprehensive mouse support, with all the keyboard shortcuts in place as well.  Along with this, is adding separate windows for browsing different information.  So the 'z' screen is independent from the play area.  Use real tables for displaying information.  Separate window for overhead map, with draggable viewbox that selects what the play area displays.  As long as 'esc' can bring back the focus of the play window, keyboard can still be used.  Let the game be unpaused while reading through information.  Decide if "refresh button" or "autoupdate" is right for the data.  I'm imagining standard RTS interface for selecting, viewing, and issuing orders to units and buildings.

[Fenrir]

Ok, maybe it's not "fine" as I stated in the OP, but the sheer awesomeness of this game more than make up for the crazy UI. The UI could use a lot of work, but I hope DF always keeps it's crazy learning curve.

[Forumsdwarf]

"... scroll around a bit to find the creature."
A white-on-black letter in a sea of white-on-black letters ... and if it's on a different level than the dwarf it interrupted you'll have to search there, too.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that if an object is causing a problem the UI shouldn't be shy about taking you to that object.  Searching the map for the hidden white-on-black letter isn't a test of player skill, just a test of patience -- and maybe eyesight.

[TurnpikeLad]

A small gripe, but it would be nice to be able to jump from dwarf to dwarf in the v menu.  Perhaps pgup and pgdn?  And the same keys could scroll through other creatures as well: for example, if I select a visitor from another civ., I should be able to scroll through all entities from that civ; same for tame animals and wild animals/monsters.

Basically it would be nice to expand the "v:next" interface option for creatures and dwarves on top of each other to a wider ability to cycle bydirectionally through different kinds of units.

This might be inconsistent with the unification of the v/q/t/k menus.

[sorbius]

The in game help file should be replaced with:

for help go to www.dwarffortresswiki.net.

[Skanky]

There are also different ways of doing the same thing, depending on where you are at the time. Some lists you can scroll up and down using pgup and pgdn. Some you use / and *. There is no indication on the lists themselves which type of scrolling is needed.

[Tahin]

Generally full-screen lists use the numpad, while side-bar style lists use - and +. That really needs to be adhered to a bit more, as I seem to remember certain menus doing weird things. Was that fixed in the 3d version? Anyway, this needs to be more explicitly mentioned somewhere. I think a proper tutorial mode would work wonders.

[ShunterAlhena]

This thread and basically peterb's post sums it up greatly. My fundamental, largest gripe is the k/q/t/v/c nonsense, especially the c/v thing. My reiteration of what was already said is not useful, so I'll join the crowd praying for an unification of all the different query and view modes.
The UI problems seem to disperse when you have all the shortcuts in muscle memory and alleviated some of the worst hotkey issues with AutoHotkey or similar utilities, and Dwarf Foreman (coupled with aforementioned AutoHotkey to enable fast job title setting from the nits screen) really helps with dwarf employment, but this requires some serious learning time from the player.

(speaking in a tiny whispering noise I'm too young, but maybe someone of you remember the beginning of the Eternal September and the decay of Usenet? maybe having a learning curve like the Himalaya is the reason why apparently sensible and intelligent people fill this forum and the Wiki...)

[Dasqoot]

I remember when you used to use 'k' to check out a bed or a piece of furniture, the furniture showed its material type and quality in shorthand on the name. This was also true for when you were placing furniture. Not it just says "bed". It now takes me so long to figure out whether my peasants have the crappy beds and my nobles have the masterwork beds that I never even bother to micromanage quality anymore in any rooms.

I'd also like the construction menu to auto-select the last selected material, instead of selecting by proximity.

Besides that it wasn't too hard to get used to(and those problems had yet to even exist then), I had read Boatmurdered, saw what they were doing and did the same things with my first fort. Did pretty well, got all the way up to a baron before I got stumped on magma and making steel aquaducts and started reading the wiki everyday. There's no reason that a tutorial can't be an out of date, vulgar story about a horrible fail, is there?

[ January 20, 2008: Message edited by: Dasqoot ]

[Fieari]

Lets not forget that the method for navigating the build menus are pretty messed up, and that there aren't universal keys for the various objects.  To build the object, you need one key.  To place that same object, you need another key.  Tricky!

It can be done, of course, and it can be learned.  But none of this "it's easy!" stuff.

I'm not asking for it to be fixed now.  Just that Toady keep in mind when the best time to put it in would be.  I'm thinking the interface should be worked on after the armies and barnonies are in, since I -think- that'll be the last change for a while that will require major interface revamping afterwards...