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[Maximus]

I'm in the middle of writing a "DF for Newbies" document and I feel this problem is a pretty big one.  

There's two kinds of menus in DF: fullscreen and "sidebar" menus.  The fullscreen menus are for futzing with general settings, and use the arrow and pgup/pgdn keys for navigation like most programs do.

The sidebar menus are for interacting with objects on the world map, and have to keep the arrow/keypad/pgup/pgdn reserved for moving the cursor around on the world map, so they use + - * / to navigate through the menu items.  That's okay too; it doesn't take long to get used to.

The problem is the handful of menus which use yet other navigation systems.  Unfortunately, the worst example of this is the in-game help, which is there for the sake of newbies, but which uses a confusing navigation style.

Its use of - and + to navigate through links should be dropped and replaced by the arrow keys.  Pgup/pgdown should work as it currently does -- view next or prior screen.  I don't think anything is lost by getting rid of the ability to scroll through these pages one line at a time.

Another big menu inconsistency is the Adventure Mode inventory menus.  These are cumbersome, using * and / but not -+, nor the arrow keys, nor enter.  They ought to be switched to plain pgup/pgdn/arrows to highlight each choice and enter to select.

Relatively minor is the 'O'rders menu in Dwarf Mode: it doesn't involve interaction with the map, but is a sidebar-type menu.  It would be less inconsistent as a fullscreen menu, and would probably allow for future expansion better.

[Mayakashi]

I agree with this. Especially bad is the stockpile configuration screen, which uses +/- to move up and down, and the left/right arrow keys to move between columns. I am baffled as to why the up/down arrow keys aren't used.

You could, of course, allow the +/- keys to be used as well as the arrow keys in fullscreen menus. I often have my fingers on the +/- keys when I open up something fullscreen that uses the arrows, and I have to switch over. Might as well make it as easy to navigate as possible, right?

[Maximus]

Yeah, I forgot about the custom stockpile screen when I first posted.  It's pretty odd.  The Trade Agreement screens are also fullscreen but use + and -.

Thinking about it a little further, -+*/ could actually be dropped altogether.  On the sidebar menus where you've got to arrow around to select stuff on the map in the first place, you could arrow around, hit Enter (or some other key) when you've highlighted the building/entity you want, then interact with it via the arrows & page keys.  Space bar to back out of a selected entity and go back to scrolling around the map.

[Ookpik]

What bothers me the most is when pressing the wrong key does something you don't want it to do.  For example, in the Labour screen, if you hit up/down instead of +/-, the cursor moves to another dwarf entirely, and then you have to hunt around for the dwarf you were originally looking at.  Strangely, sometimes your cursor has moved far enough away from your original dwarf that you can't actually - back to it, and you have to leave the screen entirely and press to start over.

I don't especially mind the two sets of keys, but I don't think you should ever be punished for pushing the wrong one by mistake.  I believe that in every case, the "wrong" key should be set to something harmless.