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[agatharchides]

I don't know if you've noticed there's a thread before your post, but stone and opaque gem windows have been used by many non-Western cultures a lot.

. In most places a 'window' has been (and in some still is) a simple hole in the wall with a shutter and some of them are elaborate and beautiful. Yet they aren't something you make at a workshop and carry around, nor do they keep out a lake if it is put on top of them. I think it is fair to say in DF a window means an opaque sheet put over the hole, not the hole itself, and for that obviously marble is not going to work. 

[Hotaru]

Gem windows aren't carried around in DF, they're built on the spot. I guess you have a point about holding out water, but then and again, that's what shutters are for. The images posted here before would be examples of what aren't simple "holes in the wall".

[agatharchides]

Hm, it's obviously been awhile since I made gem windows. Shutters would work, but then you can't see through the window. Either way, the feature obviously needs a little more tweaking to work right. I don't object to taking out the stone windows or putting in some sort of shutter or letting water through non-opaque windows but something needs to be tweaked for it to work quite right. A granite window that you can use to keep out water and still see through isn't right.

[Crandal]

I personally think the idea of golden windows is awesome.  But that's just me.

[Blizzlord]

You know this means we'll get Nobles wanting Slade Windows, right?

We need ASCit!
*turns on Ascit-signal*

restricted mandates so they'll be more reasonable

Mandates are no longer restricted to material. As long as you don't get a bed mandate in a world devoid of trees/underground fungi, your'e fine.

[Nyxalinth]

Something like this?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

that is what i was thinking!  I was going to say something like "It's like those windows/screens they have of latticework in Moroccan buildings."

[ThatAussieGuy]

restricted mandates so they'll be more reasonable

Mandates are no longer restricted to material. As long as you don't get a bed mandate in a world devoid of trees/underground fungi, your'e fine.

Why would you take our amusement away?  Now we have to come up with legitimate excuses to murder our nobledwarves

[Aspgren]

Microline windows are pretty.

I like Microline windows.

[Karnewarrior]

Hm, it's obviously been awhile since I made gem windows. Shutters would work, but then you can't see through the window. Either way, the feature obviously needs a little more tweaking to work right. I don't object to taking out the stone windows or putting in some sort of shutter or letting water through non-opaque windows but something needs to be tweaked for it to work quite right. A granite window that you can use to keep out water and still see through isn't right.

It's plugged with bits of glass, but you don't get the glass from a workshop the same way you don't need to forge nails from a blacksmith to make a bed.

[Exlo]

 I say we stop worrying about windows. Windows are designed to fail, and making them out of rock would be no better than waiting for them to break. At the end of the day, the window makers just want you to buy another. Just ask Bill Gates.

[Gerottomo]

Actually I realized that when stone is ground down to a small size and polished (things that gem cutting dwarves should be capable of), many become translucent

Such as:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So in reality these windows would be slightly see through, like stained glass

[dirty foot]

Actually I realized that when stone is ground down to a small size and polished (things that gem cutting dwarves should be capable of), many become translucent

Such as:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So in reality these windows would be slightly see through, like stained glass

That is awesome.

[Eric Blank]

Wait is that gneiss?

I can attest to that argument, though: Silica (quartz) is the most common mineral in the earth's crust, and is present in just about every sort of igneous rock and most sedimentary or metamorphic rocks, forming the lighter particulates in a given rock. It very often forms translucent or transparent crystals. Chert, quartzite, quartz-rich sandstone, gneiss, slate, obsidian, and even schist quite possibly, could be translucent if cut thinly. muscovite/biotite (mica) are also present with silica in many of these same rocks, and despite being darker in color can form very thin sheets that historically have been used in windows. Marble, and thus limestone and it's counterparts (flux stones in DF) can also prove translucent.

Dwarves are very sofisticated in terms of working inorganic materials like stone or metal, and I'm completely confident that they could figure out how to make a 'granite' window or gem by disposing of all the non-translucent minerals and favoring quartz and muscovite pressed into a sheet, especially if it's particularly pegmatic/large-crystalled granite.

[twilightdusk]

It's plugged with bits of glass, but you don't get the glass from a workshop the same way you don't need to forge nails from a blacksmith to make a bed.

What are these nails you speak of? Dwarven beds are solid wood carved out from a single tree! Nails are for picky humans!

[AWdeV]

You know this means we'll get Nobles wanting Slade Windows, right?

Nope, I'm fairly sure they don't mandate/demand/request materials anymore. Windows, yes. Slade, only if you can manage it.

Also, I'm not sure why we're suddenly supposed to be able to see through a stone-gem window. It's not as if you can actually look through a window of gems. The things are usually either too opaque too look through or too multi-faceted to do anything other than screwing up your eyes if you try to look through them.

I always envisioned them as a standing grate-rack-gridiron sort of thing with gems stuck to it.