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[Toboter]

I have a suggestion how Classic Mode could be done without waisting too much time on extensive menu redesigns.
The main problem seems to be the fact that a lot of menus use buttons with just a symbol on them, which would make them really difficult to understand when those symbols are just random ASCII glyphs.
But what's the actual main reason for Classic Version? Backward Compatibility with old tilesets and mods, so people can keep playing the game like they used to.
But there is really only one place in the game where you can mod in things with tiles: The main map (Creatures and Items).
Also, all old tilesets are really optimized to make either the main map or the world map pretty (this includes the colors.txt file).
So my suggestion is this:
For Classic Mode, just display the main and world maps like they used to be displayed, using the old tileset,
and let an artist design a monochrome, ASCII-like menu look (using the new tile system), that is then colored using the colors.txt colors, so it fits with the rest of the game color wise.

That way no additional work has to be done on the main- and world maps, maybe some slight work to get the menus to work with the colors.txt (I don't know how the code works exactly, obviously), and all the boxes are ticked in terms of having a pretty, backwards-compatible Classic version of Dwarf Fortress, that all the previous tileset users can enjoy, and is hopefully done with not too much programmer & artist time.

Edit: I just heard about TEXT mode. That would of course not work with this plan, but since you can't click buttons in that mode anyways, and it is quite niche, the original plan of replacing all the menu tiles with characters could be used, but only activated in text mode. Since in text mode you can't click buttons anyways, you it seems like a passable trade-off.

[Mr Crabman]

Fully agree with this. Also, clinodev noted on the Kitfox discord that this would make maintenance of wikis/guides easier for the community, as well as make it easier for the Classic community to be "integrated" with/help new Premium players, since every player would be working with the exact same menus (and any players who swap between the modes at any point will have an easier transition).

This would also be easier for future development time since Tarn won't have to worry about making a separate Classic layout for any of the menus, just getting new "ASCII-like" graphics from the artists once in a while when new menu icons are needed. I thought at first of this idea being just a temporary stopgap measure for before a "proper" Classic mode is done, but I now think there's a pretty strong case for this to be the permanent Classic mode arrangement.

[Mobbstar]

Edit: I just heard about TEXT mode.

I've checked the init.txt and tried using TEXT mode, but apparently it isn't supported on Windows.  Instead, it defaults to 2D.

Linux/OS X users may also use PRINT_MODE:TEXT for primitive ncurses output.

eniteris on the Kitfox Discord has pointed out that this is a useful mode on old and damaged machines.  Further, it is used in the inofficial mobile port, which goes to demonstrate its potency as a compatibility mode.

As such, I am torn between calling it obsolete or important.  The vast majority of players have no reason to ever use it, but a few may depend on it, and I can't think of a good method to measure how many do or would.

[Toboter]

I agree that TEXT Mode is a very niche, but sometimes important feature.
That's why I'm suggesting that it should still be made to work, but shouldn't take up much development time.
As for the mobile port, since the new menu overhaul is so extremely clickable, I feel like that will have to be redone for touch anyways.
But since there's a Wine implementation for Android, (and I recall reports that DF works well with wine), that might also not be that difficult.