We get lists of things... lists of names we can choose for the fortress and for the group. Lists of materials. Lists of critters, and so on, and so forth. Often the items appear to be randomly sorted. It would be wonderful if an alpha index were held on all lists in addition to the current index used for holding lists of objects. That way 'cows' would be grouped with 'cows' when I set details on a pasture, other than when I *ALREADY* have them set in the pasture. Bonus points of Cows, Bulls and Calves as a species are pre-grouped together on the selection list. Materials such as stone... EVERYBODY must get stoned! An alpha sort on material selection would be a godsend. Looking for specific names to get, "Pull my finger" as the name of my fortress. I finally worked out that I could get, "FingerPulled", and I worked out how to explicitly ask for those. Getting an alpha-sorted list of English words so I could *THEN* better grasp my options would be great. It is unfortunate the list is 'alpha sorted in chunks', so you have to look through the entire list to see what all is in it.
Those are specific examples pointing to the larger overall problem of item indices. Some items are naturally related by species (ram, ewe and lamb), most items are simply easier to locate in an alpha sort. I know, I already griped about memory limitations. Perhaps there are spots where the current, "First in/ first on the list" index currently being used (or so it seems) could be sorted appropriately the first time the list index is created, then maintained cheaply without causing memory overhead? Just as a generic list indexer process for things like making that pile of dacite only stones. Don't get told 'no' if I don't ask.
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Topic: Unified Sort/ Indexing Handler on all lists (Read 536 times)