My next fortress will be the same, but with more attention paid to the outdoor entrance. Right now it's too inefficient to walk outside, since it's connected to the central stair area by a longish hallway.
The outdoor entrance is a problem for me, too. I don't want the hallway to be too long, but it's important to keep my dwarves far away from the front doors during attacks (they keep walking outside, several paces out from the fortress, before remembering that they were supposed to stay INSIDE).
The solution, I suppose, is to build a long constructed hallway, with a built ceiling, which might keep the dwarves back a ways from the entrance. That's not too efficient, perhaps, but it seems to be critically necessary. But I'd have to design for that from the start.
Note that I have a separate, wide entrance right next to the trade depot, but this can be closed off completely with a bridge. Of course, it means that my dwarves can't load the depot while restricted to indoors. But then, it also means that caravans can still access my trade depot, even when my fortress is locked up tight. (And I have separate bridges - in fact, several different perimeters - which can separate the depot from everything else, if necessary. But usually, these are used to keep goblins from escaping, not to keep them out.)
Well, this is only my second fortress, so I'm still feeling my way. I know my main entrance needs work, but I'm not sure exactly what would work best. [Note, too, that I want my main entrance to be showy. This is, after all, the entrance to my mighty fortress. Efficiency should be less important than first impressions (and defense, of course). For role-playing purposes, the main entrance should make
sense, don't you think?]
Bill