is it? when i'd "k" over the staircase designations, nothing told me they weren't completed; it just said that it was a staircase... I had to "q" over them to know they weren't finished. Also, it seems a little buggy to offer unreachable stone for a project.
I know this is mostly an artifact of the "alpha" stage of the game; i just wish these guys would accept some help to solve some of the UI problems. To say that the game isn't very ergonomic is the understatement of the epoch.
Let me join the discussion and hopefuly make your problems a bit more clear than a vomit of a cave adopted dwarf when he sees the sun for the first time after 20 season:
I have not tested the save because I use not the Mayday Pack. But as far as I understand the game and your problem, your stone was not unreachable. Thinking about it, would it not be strange for the game to offer you for construction, for example, a stone you dumped in magma pipe but then removed the dump tag? While dwarfy it may be for a masons to actually try to get the stone, this will in fact not happen. Because stone is still in magma and thus unreachable, ergo, game will not offfer it to you. The same if in a carp infested river, chasm,...or in a unreachable minning shaft few z leyers down.
Your chosen material on the other hand, was reachable by exactly one dwarf - the miner. And so it WAS reachable
by a dwarf, not necessarily a mason. Probably even shown as the closest material. In my humble opinion, this be no bug, aye?
As for the "k" and "q" - "k" is for "look around" and displays different things, in fact it just shows all the things on the chosen square. The "q" is used to "Set Building Tasks/Prefs". So this are quite different comands that can be used for different things. I take it you are not playing DF for a long time so remember that "q" is a magical letter for all tasks/buildings!
And about UI - I absolutely love it. Once you get used to it, it's simply marvelous and would not change it for any different keyboard combination or even, gosh, a computer mouse. And stating it is not ergonomic is indeed a very harsh thing say.
But everyone has his own preferences.
I made a mess, have I not?