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I consider it an essential part of Dwaf Fortress, and can't play without it.

119 (18.4%)

I use it for pretty screenshots, but otherwise don't use it during play.

211 (32.7%)

I only try it occasionally.

174 (27%)

I have no idea why I'm even in this thread, I don't use it.

141 (21.9%)

Total Members Voted: 642

[NW_Kohaku]

Also, there's about 226 different listed jobs in "job-types.xml"...

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to cram information into these icons without resorting to some kind of abstract color-coding system with a key or something.  (Especially if I'm already making my icons too small, apparently.)

[Rose]

Well, your limit on size is 16x16, if you want it to fit with the other icons.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yes, I know...

There are things like "Install colony in hive" and "collect hive products" both for bees, for example, and then there is a difference between building a workshop for an item and hauling an item, etc. 

If I want to make different icons using that bee image I have already, all I can think of is reversing the arrow and making it some other color so that "install" or "construct" is, say, a yellow arrow, and "collect" is a green arrow or something. 

There's also some things like "construct crutch" which basically means there's one of these for every friggin' workshop job.  Plus things like "construct hatch cover" or "construct grate" are things I'm not even sure deserve significant differentiation.

[Rose]

I'd say only keep a general look. If half a dozen jobs are practically the same, then have half a dozen of the same sprite.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, I'm worried about modding, however.

If modded-in reactions are added, and the game is actually assigning new jobs in memory to these reactions, then it can potentially muddle up the attached icons. 

EDIT:
Oh, wait, line 1160

Code: [Select]

        <enum-item name='CustomReaction'>
            <item-attr name='caption' value='Custom Reaction'/>
        </enum-item>
Guess this is part of why Toady doesn't just make everything part of the raws, he doesn't hasn't made the capacity to make this code extensible.

[Rose]

I'd say just start with an icon per job class, then worry about extending it, but it's up to you.

[Graebeard]

I agree with Japa.  There's a point at which information can become so detailed as to become less useful.  I would group jobs by profession, workshop type, or some other unifying characteristic.  There's no way that Stonesense can display all the information tracked by DF anyway (toenails, anyone?).  If people need that kind of detail, they can always access it in text format through DF.

[Deon]

Agreed, I just want to see profession types as icons, everything else I can check in Therapist .

[MarcAFK]

I can't get the massive screenshots working, i remember on older versions the program would print an error at the top of the screen or something telling me at least that it tried to take the screen shot,  has it been disabled again with the current version? Or is there maybe a way of viewing more of the map at a time?

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, there are more jobs than just relate to the professions.  In fact, I'd rather just have a generic "I'm going to a workshop to work" icon, and I don't think many people care about the specifics more than that. 

However, there are some things like "I'm going to participate in a fist fight" or "Causing Trouble" or "Drink Blood drink... um... on break?" (It actually is listed as "Drink Blood" with "on break" as the caption if you are looking.) "Reporting Crime", "Executing Criminal", "Care for Prisoner", "Chain Animal", "Pull The Lever", "Cast Spell"  , "Clean Trap", etc. etc. etc.

[khearn]

Well, there are more jobs than just relate to the professions.  In fact, I'd rather just have a generic "I'm going to a workshop to work" icon, and I don't think many people care about the specifics more than that. 

IMHO, just "Working (or going to work) in a mason's shop" is good enough. I probably don't care whether he's making a hatch cover or a door when I'm looking in stonesense. If I really care,i can check the shop to see what's at the top of the queue.

I also have trouble seeing the details in the sprites you're posting here. Part of it may just be that I need new contacts, and part may be the resolution of my screen. Can we get some actual screenshots of them in stonesense? I seem to be able to see the profession sprites better that way. I realize that you're just doing the sprites and may not have a version of stonesense that will display them, so I guess this will mean you handing off a preliminary version of the sprites to whomever is doing the code to display them. But it would help those of us who have trouble seeing them.

BTW, thanks for all the work you're putting in on these.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, there are more jobs than just relate to the professions.  In fact, I'd rather just have a generic "I'm going to a workshop to work" icon, and I don't think many people care about the specifics more than that. 

IMHO, just "Working (or going to work) in a mason's shop" is good enough. I probably don't care whether he's making a hatch cover or a door when I'm looking in stonesense. If I really care,i can check the shop to see what's at the top of the queue.

I also have trouble seeing the details in the sprites you're posting here. Part of it may just be that I need new contacts, and part may be the resolution of my screen. Can we get some actual screenshots of them in stonesense? I seem to be able to see the profession sprites better that way. I realize that you're just doing the sprites and may not have a version of stonesense that will display them, so I guess this will mean you handing off a preliminary version of the sprites to whomever is doing the code to display them. But it would help those of us who have trouble seeing them.

BTW, thanks for all the work you're putting in on these.

Actually, the "constructing a hatch cover" does not mean going to a mason workshop, it means actually installing one.

Anyway, Caldfir posted a screenshot:

Testing out Kohaku's profession icons:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had to shrink the backplates because they were touching the name text and it looked weird.  The jobs seem to all be lining up with what they are ingame, so I didn't screw that up

This is basically why I was originally trying to go for entirely basing this on color blobs, which you'd just have to learn from a key to understand. 

I could still try making an alternate set of nothing but color blob profession markers. 

Anyway, the point is not that you can recognize things, it's that you can distinguish one thing from another.  So long as "red in the top right means hauling" is clear, it shouldn't matter if you can't tell the difference between an arrow and a plus sign. 

That's, again, why I went for status gems in the bottom left.  It's just a square, but as long as the same color of square indicates the same general types of activities, that's all that matters, because I'm obviously not going to satisfy both the desire for a detailed and pretty icon and having a perfectly clear and unambiguous image for every single type of job.

[khearn]

Yeah, there are so many things dwarves can do, and so few pixels in a 16x16 sprite, I can't see how you can possibly make clear an obvious task markers for everything. I think you've got the right idea with what you just described: red <something> upper right is hauling, green <something> in lower right means, um, I'm not sure what it means, but if there's a key someplace I can get to easily I can find out. Sounds like a good plan.

[Kaos]

Maybe this already got mentioned but...

with the profession icons we're trying to do what in regular graphic packs they accomplished by having a profession uniform, right? to show what profession the dwarf has... why not do the same? have some sort of overlay on the dwarf clothes that turn their clothes into an uniform of sorts?

For example the carpenter has a yellow uniform and a saw in the phoebus pack, if we grab a dwarf, let the engine render the actual clothes he's wearing (that's awesome, I have no intention on changing that) and add an overlay to the clothes that make them yellowish... similar to the colour multiplying you guys did for the clothes material and the dye...

maybe also add the saw somewhere on his body, like hanging from his belt, as to not interfere with the weapons they might be carrying...

another idea is to add a tabard on top of the clothes like in world of warcraf, with the profession icon, maybe bigger..
or like sew an emblem on the clothes they are wearing or a band on their arm or something..

just my 2 cents.

[Caldfir]

Maybe this already got mentioned but...

with the profession icons we're trying to do what in regular graphic packs they accomplished by having a profession uniform, right? to show what profession the dwarf has... why not do the same? have some sort of overlay on the dwarf clothes that turn their clothes into an uniform of sorts?

For example the carpenter has a yellow uniform and a saw in the phoebus pack, if we grab a dwarf, let the engine render the actual clothes he's wearing (that's awesome, I have no intention on changing that) and add an overlay to the clothes that make them yellowish... similar to the colour multiplying you guys did for the clothes material and the dye...

maybe also add the saw somewhere on his body, like hanging from his belt, as to not interfere with the weapons they might be carrying...

another idea is to add a tabard on top of the clothes like in world of warcraf, with the profession icon, maybe bigger..
or like sew an emblem on the clothes they are wearing or a band on their arm or something..

just my 2 cents.

Yeah, Japa suggested something similar to me a while back.  It is a very doable option, but I'm probably going to take a break from dwarf spriting for a little while to get a few more domestic animals finished and probably get some floor items sprited. 

It would also be possible to just have floating coloured text in place of an icon, or even several options you can cycle through.  Icons are just the simplest solution I could think of to solve the problem of not being able to see the dwarf's job from their sprite.  There are a host of things that could be done at this point, like having different facial expressions on the dwarves depending on their mood, and hair styles are likely just around the corner, so there's a lot of cool stuff that can be done, it's just a mater of finding the time to do it all