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[PolarBair]

Okay so here's the scenario, The Elven caravan has just showed up at my depot and I have some small cut gems near by the trade depot that I can trade to them without offending them but the problem is they're in a wooden bin.

When I press Q over the depot and then g to move goods to the depot the bin shows up and I can move that to the depot but obviously that would offend the elves since the bin is made of wood. If I instead hit v to view the bin I can then see all the gems inside but there's no key to move the individual gems to the depot while they're in a bin.

So far all I've been able to come up with is to set one tile dump zone with i near the depot and then look in the been and flag all the gems to be dumped and then wait for my dwarves to move all the gems out of the bin and place them on the one tile dump zone and then look at it with k and go through the list reclaiming them all with f and then hit q on the trade depot to finally be able to move the gems in without the bin but that's quite a lengthy process and I'm not sure I can get all that done before the caravan leaves.

Am I missing something? I looks like the implementation of the bins could use some improving.

[Schmaven]

That sounds like a hassle.  It might be easier to store the gems in metal bins and just trade them all in 1 go.  Just create a furniture stockpile next to your jeweler's workshop, set to take from the metalsmith forge and fill it with several zinc bins or whatever metal you have.  Keep the cut gem stockpile set to 0 bins, have a dwarf wander through to pull a lever or whatever, then lock them in the workshop area, enable 1 bin, and have that dwarf start to fill it.  You can let them out, and just that 1 bin will be used until it's full.  When gems spill out, repeat the process while increasing the bin count by 1.  You can also just have the gem cutter start the process and ignore the lever bit.

This doesn't help you now unfortunately, so you'd have to hoard gems until the next season

Perhaps loading the wooden bin into a minecart and crashing it at high speed would more efficiently empty its contents?

[Bumber]

Can't you just bring them in bins but only sell the gems? I use a macro that repeats Down -> Enter for this.

[Lemunde]

Can't you just bring them in bins but only sell the gems? I use a macro that repeats Down -> Enter for this.

I see I'm not the only one who does this.

I might recommend using the gems to encrust other objects. A gem encrusted increases its value many times over depending on how well it was done. More value means fewer items to trade, means fewer keystrokes in the trade menu. Same thing for metal crafting. For example, a stone scepter encrusted in clear garnet and studded in silver can be worth a couple thousand dwarfbucks. That's two or three cloth bins or several more valuable gems for a single object. Done correctly, you can trade for more and more valuable commodities without trading away any of your own site's resources.

[Thisfox]

I would just put large binless stockpiles for saleable gems in a room nearby to the trade depot in future. Right now, you can bring the bins to the depot but not sell the elves the bins, just the gems. I mean, they only get upset if you offer them the wooden stuff, they know you're a heathen who uses it, they just don't want to buy the wood.

I prefer to keep my gemstones, as they are nonrenewable resources and I like to use cut gems to decorate furniture.

[Schmaven]

Maybe the bin trading was fixed behind the scenes with DFHack?  I just tested it with a fort on version 0.47.05 using the DF Hack from the lazy newb pack, and I can select individual gems to trade out of bins.

Spoiler: Selection (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Trade Result (click to show/hide)

Are you running just straight vanilla DF?

[Thisfox]

I run with absolutely no hacks or extras, and can also select gems out of the bins. It's just some people like hitting "trade all" and thus trade the bins by mistake.

[Schmaven]

It's the wooden decorations that usually slip past me.  And it doesn't highlight the offending item(s) that were part of the trade.