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[aldantefax]

This is an idea stolen from Angband but I figured that a game of this scale (particularly in Fortress mode) would benefit from the same concept.

Instead of having everything crammed into submenu/status windows or take up parts of the game screen, offer the option to relegate certain things to child windows: that is, a separate window dedicated to displaying only a certain type of information. For example, instead of having the Menu Reference / Designations bar in the main window, it could be transferred to a child window to allow for more space to view the game world.

This can be taken a step further, and have the child windows be resizeable as needed to fit a variety of desktop environments. The main mission of having child windows is to eliminate clutter from the game screen.

[Egg]

Child windows are a step back from the current system. As theoretically convenient as it is to assign custom info to UI windows, it's an additional and unnecessary complication, and the game is already prohibitively complex without asking people to simultaneously micromanage a Fortress and GUI.

Also, displaying relevant information in a timely and useful fashion is the job of the developer, not the user. This is not an accepted maxim in the world of Roguelikes, but then accessibility and intuitiveness aren't exactly a strong point of the genre are they.

[ctrlfrk]

I disagree, a custom UI is a very useful tool for players, just look at the WOW gui addons. And any "complication" they might add would be inconsequential to the player, as in theory they would have designed the UI and would know everything there is to know about it.

As for accessibility and intuitiveness, the learning curve for DF is pretty steep, but now that ive played it for a while, i find the controls very intuitive. Not quite up to the standard of nethack, but close.

[Pheoni]

While most of the addons are useful, what's the percentage of the wow population that actually use such mods? They are very common in the raiding community (hardcore, devoted players) they add an unneeded complexity to the game for a casual player.

While a configurable UI would be nice for us addicts, I would rather see the default interface improve so I can share the games with my friends. If there are things you want to change, there's a good chance that one of those changes would be good for everyone. The DF UI should be good enough that most people shouldn't want to change it.