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[hactar1]

I don't know if anyone's brought it up before, but I'd love to have more view modes in the unit list.  I'm constantly having to scroll down, press c on each individual dwarf, just to find the dwarf I'm looking for.

Tab should switch between modes like in other menus.  One mode should be a concise list of units' skills, arranged like the military menu.  With each skill abbreviated to 3 letters, maybe 10 skills would fit at a time, and you could scroll left and right between skills.  Writing the skill names in different colors would designate the skill level for that dwarf.  This way, you could easily search for an extra, say, leatherworker, and be able to find that one guy who did some leatherworking a few years ago but was moved to something else you don't quite remember.

Another mode should list currently assigned jobs in the same fashion.  Perhaps you could even assign jobs the same way you can assign weapons in Military mode.  Since tab switches between modes, you could easily match up dwarves' assigned jobs with their skills.

Finally, a mode that lists their basic status would be useful.  It could use the same status icons that flash behind them in the game screen.  That way you could easily look through to see who's unhappy, who's injured, which dwarves are recent migrants, etc.

An easier alternative to this, while not quite so useful, is to add + and - to the view menu, to scroll around among all the dwarves in your fortress.  Rather than having to move the cursor around so it selects every dwarf and displays info about them, it would jump between units in the same order as in the unit menu.

[Squashua]

How about as you scroll (+/-) down each individual dwarf in the list, it auto-locates the screen to the dwarf's current position.

That would rock.

[hactar1]

Except the unit list is a full-screen list, and you can already jump from a unit in the list to it's location by pressing 'C'.  The problem is getting back to the same location in the unit list if you want to look at the next guy.

This gives me another idea though... how about a triple split-screen view with the fortress view on the left, the unit list in the middle, and the view menu on the right?  Scrolling down the list would jump to the unit in the fortress, and pull up its unit info on the right.  It doesn't have the nice table view of skills and jobs, but I would still be better than what we have now.

[Behrooz Wolf]

Good ideas, I've been thinking about this kind of thing recently also.

Selection And Lists:

1. If a unit (dwarf, item, animal, room) is currently selected via loo(k), (v)iew, etc, hitting (u)nits or (j)obs or (m)ilitary or (r)oomlist should default to opening with the selection already at that unit's position in that list.
   Affected screens:
   • Unit list.
   • Military List.
   • Job list.
   • The Room List.
   • +/- while viewing something above should focus up/down in the most relevant/recent list.

2. For any selectable list in the game -- stores, material selection, caging, etc, a string-based filter like in the manager job-creation screen should be implemented.    Typing "silt blo" and filtering the list to all available siltstone blocks to build with would be perfect.
   Specific Apps:
   • Building materials dialogs
   • The Room List
   • Trade Depot Item Selection.
   • Toggle to sort list alphabetically or by value.

3. Dwarf-related screens could have filtering options based on skill level ranges or name.
   New (f)ilter screen with a list of skills similar to party creation.
   • Allows user to filter various skill combinations, greater than or less than.
   • Range: -14 to +14:  (-2 less than novice, -1 less than dabbling, 0 null filter, 1 at least dabbling, 2 at least novice, etc)
   • Ideally listed alphabetically, letter keys jump to relevant parts of list, skills with no trained dwarves greyed out.
   • Indicates number of dwarves remaining in the list at selected level range.

4. Multi-mode dwarf summary view as outlined by Hactar1 above.
   • Current Dwarf Status: Happiness/Injury/Etc.
   • Current Job.
   • Abbreviated Skill List.

Stockpiles and Inventory Management:

1. Minimum/maximum item quality restrictions on stockpiles!  Ideally selectable globally or per-itemtype.  
   "That's the room the masterwork bags are stored in, so nobody will accidentally use one!"

2. Workshop skill level (P)references should  use the skill that actually determines creation speed/quality for the current job.  Not sure how this is currently implemented, but it appears to be based off of all workshop-related skills?  Needs investigation, will confirm later.
   

Other:

1. Any building currently under construction or with an active job should list which dwarf is working on it, and have a hotkey to focus on that dwarf.  

2. Viewing an employed dwarf should have a hotkey to focus on their current jobsite and targeted item if any. (see below)

3. In-use buildings and their employed dwarves should both have a hotkey to focus on the worker's current destination/item pickup. Ideally autoswitch to selected 'loo(k)' mode if destination is picking up an item.

[ May 18, 2007: Message edited by: Behrooz Wolf ]

[ May 18, 2007: Message edited by: Behrooz Wolf ]

[Core Xii]

I'd settle even for just / and * scrolling for the unit list, but going through the list dwarf by dwarf is just.... damn. I SO love disabling a certain task on all but one or two of my 50 dwarfs. -_-

[melon]

Have you tried using Page Up and Page Down on the unit list? The same goes for the manager job list, but you can search that. I think it's the same for the moving goods for trade list as well, or does that use + and - ?

Basically, if a list uses arrow keys, then PgUp and PgDown jump forward/back a page.