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[soulsukkur]

I'll start off by saying I'm new to both this forum and Dwarf Fortress itself. I've found fortress mode to be daunting and otherwise scary, so I've been sticking to Adventure Mode. As a new user myself, my goal with this suggestion is to make the game more accessible to other new users. I've read though the dev_single.html on the website and saw mentions of inventory interface improvement (most notably core 52, as well as bloats 52 and 118), but I found them vague enough to justify putting in my two cents. I also noticed user Uzu Bash mentioning something along these lines over a year and a half ago, among other ideas.

As it appears to stand now, (w)ear, (e)at, (r)emove, (t)hrow, (i)nventory, (p)ut in container, (d)rop, and (I)nteract are all bound to separate keys, even though they all take you to varied forms of the inventory screen. My suggestion would be to have a single key - (i)nventory - for all of these options. It would work as follows:

• You open up your inventory with i
• select the item you want to wear, drop, etc.,
• the item's menu would have all of the actions associated with the item for you to choose from
• select the action to do the thing.

I understand that many people that are much better at this game than I am might not like such a change, as it would take an extra keystroke to perform any action, but I feel it'd be a good trade off for the increased accessibility. If demand is high enough, Toady could leave in the action-specific inventories for those who are experienced.

Some other nice things would be better item descriptions (such as "food," "container," or "head armor,"), item categories you can toggle between, and items ordered by item priority in the inventory, but those sound a bit more complicated to implement, and aren't personally my primary concern.

[FantasticDorf]

The 'problem' is that the game is incredibly complex to hotkey, because again the learning curve for you (and lots of other people across the years) is steep. There are seperate hotkeys to jump, smell, read your quest log, throw a item and fire a item as well as bring up different menus to interact with a array of objects (two different keys between using mechanical objects like levers and using your enviroment to pick up snow for instance). Shoving a lot of functions like that into one key detracts from the game given as the current format, slogging through UI menus less than nessecary is a good thing.

Its meant to be large and complex because every key has a practical meaning, giving unparalleled control to the player. Practically everything a NPC can do functionally in the game, you can do too and direct those skills where they are needed (hanging/climbing up a surface for example).

You can change hotkeys yourself from the key bindings menu on the main menu (and options) via the escape key

My personal advice would be to use the help (?) key frequently, and become accustomed to it as everything is put in such a way for a purpose, all the keys are laid out to be functional and independent and reduce menu spam as much as possible unlike other "'RPG's", infact there are 3 different keys to manage the passing of time, there's enter, and (,) and (.) keys for respective long and short pauses so that you can play adventure mode frame by frame if you so wished.

I do also highly recommend trying the fortress mode. The learning curve is notorious but that's what keeps DF players hooked besides the crazy and inane circumstances that can happen on and off play (worldgen and in-game events and coincidences). Some people find fortress mode easier, and the difficulty can be modified by settling in safe regions while you get a grip of how to play (also the ? key and the wiki is extremely useful)

[soulsukkur]

I don't quite understand what you mean. I know complaining about the number of buttons is likely heresy in the dwarf fortress community, but some of these don't feel necessary. I get the need for things like jump, smell, climb, announcements, and read on their own dedicated keys, because they're all distinct and relatively unrelated. But the hotkeys I mentioned all take you to the list of items in your inventory, which is why I feel they become a bit redundant.

Besides, unless you want to know the weight of your fish, the (i)nventory key doesn't serve much of a function right now anyway. As barren as the item menu screen is, I don't think key prompts for throwing or wearing a selected item would be much more "menu spam" to "slog" through. It wouldn't reduce the "unparalleled control" you're talking about, because no functionality would be taken away. And honestly, a "get used to it" mentality kinda defeats the purpose of a suggestion forum in the first place.

Also, I found reading through fortress mode's (?)help overwhelming in itself, enough that I had to take a break every few pages. I can already tell it isn't my thing, and won't be anytime soon.

[Bumber]

The various screens are too crowded as it is. Every time my adventurer needs to [e]at, I have to wade through several inedible items regardless. Same for reading books with [I]nteract. I ended up making a macro that reads a book (in a certain inventory position,) opens the drop menu, scrolls down several pages, drops the book, re-opens the interact menu, and then scrolls back down to the page with the next book. I have to recreate this macro whenever my inventory layout changes.

We need some kind of better organization of item types, sort of like fort mode's depot screen.

[NemoNihil]

Sorry for necroing this, but I had an idea regarding this subject that I would like to share with this community.

Picking up on what was suggested before, most item actions (use, eat, wear, drop, put inside container...) should be directy accessible through the (i)nventory screen; that would be great. But I believe that it would also be great for there to be (perhaps somewhere on the left side of the screen) a list of the "body slots" (head, torso, legs and so on) where you can wear items, along with the indication of how much "space" (size and permit, if I am not mistaken) already occupied on that "slot"; additionally, on each piece of wereable armour/clothing/equipment, there should also be an indication of how much "space" do they take. With these two things, it might be much easier to outfit one's adventurer to the max, without changing back and forth from the wiki and DF trying to calculate what equipment combination enables you to be better protected.

Of course, there could also be a further combination of the inventory, stats and crafting menus, but I suspect that might be pushing it too far out of DF's original spirit...

[therahedwig]

I am necroing this because I too am desiring this everytime I play adventure mode, as I keep mixing up the difference between (r)emove and (p)ut, or worse, (i)nverntory and (I)nteract.

Dwarf mode at the very least has a hotkey legend, which is not there in adventure mode, so reducing the amount of hotkeys to learn by making the inventory just as useful as the quest log or the like would be really great.

(Personally, if I had to code something like it, I'd implement a 'switch inventory places' thingy for an item so you can just switch an item into your hands, or order the inventory to your liking and then get rid of the two seperate actions, but I am not programing df, so)

[voliol]

I'm pretty sure the (r)emove-(p)ut-system with lots and lots of hotkeys is the way it is due to it mimicking traditional rogue-likes.

Common hotkeys such as the inventory ones being split all over the place is quite irritating though, especially as you use them in conjunction most of the time. Having them be linked to one or two hotkeys, or at least getting a rework such as the one the quest log got, would certainly be nice, even if it's a slight step away from the traditional trickiness of games such as Nethack.