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[LASD]

I like the other suggestions here, but there's a thing about the 'Main-menu' that bothers me. (not anymore, see bolded text below.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In my opinion the whole interface would need a complete overhaul for the main-menu to work. If it was added to the current system, it would seem to new players that the game is played with the mouse and/or the main-menu and not with the buttons. (I still think this way, but a note to the player should fix that) (which would start to feel like hotkeys, not like the actual gameplay buttons) There's nothing wrong with that of course, except that it would be much much slower to play the game. (learning to play is always slow) All players would need to learn the 'hotkeys' with the main menu (or stop playing) because although the game the learningwould will still be just a bit tedious and that would make the main-menu unnecessary.

I think the menu on that form would still greatly reduce the demanded effort when learning to play the game, because it would be something like a resting place, rocket booster  but and some people would stay in that place thinking "Why bother with the hotkeys, I can already play the game" and wonder why they don't get anything done when compared to other players. be overjoyed because they can finally learn to play the game. Without the main-menu everyone has to learn all the keys and there's no false feelings of success. it takes a long long time.

Spoilered because I don't think this way anymore and it is almost unnecessary. (see below) and left here because it contains one minor reasonable (but fixable) point and it's very much fun to criticize my own past thoughts. Red text added afterwards.

When playing resource control games I think of hotkeys as extra and usually don't bother with them. Except when I learn the hotkeys from constantly using the same menus that have the hotkeys listed after them.

Okay, now I got it. The Main-menu would make learning the keys a lot easier in that way. Especially with some informative notes about the hotkeys and things.

Soooooo, nothing to see here, move along.

P.S Cookies to anyone who manages to understand this post completely. To others, I humbly apologize for not being able to kill delete the bugger.

[Davion]

The idea about placing furniture before it's available might be too much of an abstraction in comparison to the current system were you pick the specific item to be placed. True, often you might not actually care about which darn Gabbro floodgate is placed, but it's one of the details that makes the charm of DF I guess.

It might be an abstraction, but I think most people that go to the Site a Building menu want to build/place something, and it kinda sucks when you think you have something in stock but then you are greeted with something like "Needs thrones."

When only a handful of options allow you to build something without first having it in stock I think it would be faster to allow the menu to at least automate it a bit more so you don't waste your time. Even if you couldn't designate placement beforehand it'd be nice if it at least took you to that specific Workshop so you wouldn't have to backtrack so much.


"Site a Building" Mock-up
You find out you don't have an armor stand:

You hit b, it gives you a menu of built Workshops that can construct it:

You select the shop and takes you to the Workshops tasks/preferences and highlights what you wanted:


Even if there wasn't a way to designate the future item, it'd still be handy, just because you wouldn't have to leave the Site a Building menu and navigate to the Workshop, etc. You'd still have to go back into the Site a Building menu in this case, but it'd take out three or four steps that might lead to frustration.

This is a nice segue to the organization of Workshops in general...


Workshops

I think having stuff like "Construct wooden...", or "Construct rock..." when you're already in a Carpenter's/Mason's Workshop is redundant, and just takes up space. Something like this might be better, with again, categories:

Page 1 of Carpenter's Workshop

Page 2 of Carpenter's Workshop


I also think separating "*/" would be a good idea for the menus that utilize it, for awhile I didn't even know I could cycle through pages.


Other Workshops could be organized in the same way. the Mason's Workshop could look something like this:

Furniture - Armor Stand, Throne, Door, Cabinet, Table, Statue, Weapon Rack, Coffer

Agriculture - Quern, Millstone

Maintenance - Floodgate, Hatch Cover, Grate, Blocks, Coffin

I guess the big thing to take away in this thread is that organizing things into categories, and staying consistent with them through various menus, would go a long way, haha.

[Granite26]

the work manager already automates this functionality.  Why not add button that adds one to the queue?

[Davion]

That's what I am suggesting, a way to add things to the queue of a Workshop from the Site a Building screen. Unless I am mistaking what you are saying.

[Symmetry]

He means it should add the job to build the item to the list of "managed" jobs available from [j]->[m] when you have a manager set in the [n]oble screen.

[Davion]

Ahhh. Yeah, that would be good.

[Davion]

It could just bring up the Manager menu in whole or still do it in the Site a Building menu, type in the quantity and add it to the queue. My whole suggestion on keeping the menu item names brief in Workshops might not work too well since that is tied with the Manager search function. Forgot about that.

[Granite26]

Meh, if the system got smart enough, no reason you couldn't just click (A)dd one to the queue and then keep clicking if you wanted more.  You've already selected what you want as atomic as it is in the manager, why pull it up?

Or use the existing /-+* system to add 1 or 5 or something.

[korora]

I don't really like the idea of going to a workshop screen from the build screen (although this is mostly because when DF currently takes you to one screen from another screen, 'u'-'c' for example, you usually can't get back very easily).  I much prefer building things before you have them. The 'place this particular bed in this particular spot' design seems a little too micro for the DF philosophy to me. I envision this more as 'zoning' a tile to take a particular furniture type than actually placing a specific piece. 

To satisfy nobles, maybe you could set the min/max value for a particular tile's furniture through 'q'.  If you wanted more control, you could limit the furniture in the tile by material/quality, but I'm not sure how to do this in a UI that would be convenient.  Maybe something like the stockpile customization screen, but condensed a bit so it fits in the side tab. 'q'-'Q' for setting quality or 'q'-'m' to set materials? That way you could squeeze the options into that side tab.

The problem with this (which is also the problem I see with Granite's manager solution) is that I think more and more workshops will be set up more like the forges, where you have increased control over material selection.  The more choice you have, the harder it will be to let the user select in a fast/convenient way.

[Davion]

That's true, you can't go back very easy in most menus, maybe down the line that can be something that is addressed so it's not as frustrating.

It might just be better to have items highlighted in the list that are built and ready to be placed, and leave it at that.

[Granite26]

different color would be my A+ solution too, but I would rate 1-click adding of items to the manager queue as a solid B-

[Davion]

Bumping because with the expanded window there will be a lot more room to work with.