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[zwei]

Just a quick question, how do you remove a "remove ramp" designation?
By your interface using the "Destroy" feature will remove the ramp.

Ramps could be removed by "Diging" designation, it is same labor anyway.

[zwei]

Anyhow, here is my mockup and suggestions, mostly aimed at being not-that-hard to implement while providing high "bang for buck" ratio:



First think you will notice is minimap at bottom left, different menu panel.

Menu panel is transparent and resizable by dragging splitter. Semi-transparent menu allows to see-thorough to display more of map.

Minimap acts typically for game of this type - click to change location, drag to drag map. Main map display can also be dragged.

Main Maps can also reacts to mouse gestures: Same gesture that would send web-broswer back/forward is used for moving up/down layer. Aditional gestures to be determined by how often certain fucntionality is needed. Ideal is to use mouse for navigation and keyboard to issuing commands or fine control.

Menu. As you can see, we see menu for selected workshop: Worskhop being selected by made obvious by shape that links it to menu.

Most radical change is leaving curses behind and taking advantge of actually being able to draw instead of just printing text. This allows for best information density in menus, map and minimap, each of which has different needs.

Menu has several conventions:

1) Shortcuts are highlighted by red color, if shortcut is not simple (a letter that is part of command word), it is in brackets following text. Unless command is not avaiable: in that case it is grayed.
2) All commands (=line of text with highlighted shortcut) can also be clicked by mouse.

3) Use of dark green section separators is made.

4) Workshop in this example has "Status" text that spells out relevant info, blue items in this text are hyperlinks, when clicked they will select Creature/Item it refers to.

Player interested in looking where Urist, the sand bag thief, is would only have to click his name to select him.

In fact, anywhere game mentions creature or item in plain text, it works like hyperlink.

5) There is meta-menu on left of worshop diplay: it is used to change mode of selection and to cycle selectables.

It has nothing to do with object we are looking at, so it is set aside. Anytime game needs to have "sidebar" dedicated to navigation or metainformations, it will be rendered aside in this format.

6) Colors

I went for "flesh gold" text color as default as it is warm and inviting for newbies and more grand to look at for veterans. Dark green to separate sections and to render clutter text that needs to be there to help with dividing content. Guess shortcut red could be less intense. Blue to highlight selection in menus and to highligh hyperlink outside menus.

[RAM]

That wedge looks too intrusive, you will always want to clearly see the immediate surroundings of your target. Perhaps the hotkeys could have their own panel that can be toggled using the tab button or similar. If you really want the wedge try making it fade to completely transparent by the time it hits the workshop.

You seem to be using a fairly high resolution. It owuld be nice if people using a lower resolution would be able to collapse the menu to about alf the width and a third of the height and still find it useful without needing to scroll the whole thing.

I would keep the menu up permanently, having it come and go could be distracting, obstructive, and may even trigger seizures if many targets are scrolled over quickly. I basically want my field of view to be as consistent as possible.

I want to be able to select the job and zoom to all of the items/creatures/workshops/whatever that are involved in it. Having tasks stacked means individual tasks cannot be selected, but they could be expanded if people select the stack or something...

Adjustable transparency please. Opaque text makes parts of the background unidentifiable and similar symbols could confuse people who don't look closely. I would probably set the background to be completely obscured by the menu...

Aside from the status display I don't really see this as an improvement over the current system, but that is probably just me being sentimental...

[Endek]

1 tile per character is an INCREDIBLE waste when you consider that before the SDL port we were restricted to 80x25 tiles. Separating the type renderer from the tile renderer would improve matters no end, and allow more flexibility in what Toady can do with the interface for new features without having to worry about overflowing text or what tilesets people have installed.
 "Build enormous steel cor" indeed. I'm not sure how trivial it would be to change the interface to use SDL_TTF to handle rendering of actual type instead of using the tile engine, but it would definitely be a worthwhile change.

I like zwei's mockup a lot, mainly due to the clarity of the font (what font is that? i want it!), the extra useful information alluded to in the screenie, and the notion of hyperlinking between entities.

I must admit, I don't like the wedge concept as it stands in the mockup - maybe as a faint outline only to be used to highlight the active workshop/dorf etc it would be more useful and less distracting - the wedge should not contain interface elements as I feel that the non-contextual menu in the mockup belongs elsewhere. (top of the screen, or hidden/in the right hand menu as it is now).

[Draco18s]

Just a quick question, how do you remove a "remove ramp" designation?
By your interface using the "Destroy" feature will remove the ramp.

Ramps could be removed by "Diging" designation, it is same labor anyway.

Nonono.  Remove the "Remove Ramp Designation" action.  Removing a designation and designating a ramp for removal are the same command as currently listed.

[sproingie]

I like the idea behind the wedge concept, if not necessarily that specific rendering.  My ideal way of playing DF would be using the mouse to point, with a click for select/activate, but the keyboard to switch actions -- much the same as it is now, but more consistent, with edge scrolling, and with mouseover tooltips for the various view modes. 

One thing I like about the keyboard interface however is how at least for some of the modes, I don't have to precisely select the target.  Viewing building info on buildings and constructions will snap to the nearest building or construction.  I'd like something similar for a mouse interface -- I don't want to be forced to aim if I don't have to.

[zwei]

Take 2:



By popularrequest, vedge is redone to be just two transparent lines. "Target" menu is moved down to bottom left part of screen, which is to be used as message log if nothing is being targeted.

Also, added top infobar

QA:

You seem to be using a fairly high resolution. It owuld be nice if people using a lower resolution would be able to collapse the menu to about alf the width and a third of the height and still find it useful without needing to scroll the whole thing.

It certainly is resizale, border would act as spliter. Scrolling would be necesity, but as you see, information is odered by importance and as such, does not invite scrolling.

And i would not call 800x600 high resolution, it is much lower than wast majority of current desktops.

I would keep the menu up permanently, having it come and go could be distracting, obstructive, and may even trigger seizures if many targets are scrolled over quickly. I basically want my field of view to be as consistent as possible.

If you mean target menu, that one is going to stay when in targeting mode, it is not going to blink when moving around, it will stay there untill you stop targeting stuff. It is going to be consistent.

(what font is that? i want it!)

Fritz Quadrata

[Endek]

Good job. Looks ace now.

With the wedge being faded out, it's not so clear which building is selected. If I were to add anything to it, it would be a border around the selected building, but otherwise, this rocks.

[zwei]

How exactly is selection handles is up to discussion, for me, most important is to have line you can follow to quickly identify what you selected.

Anyhow, some mockups of different screens:



And:

[sproingie]

Ooooh.  Pretty.  I wonder if we can get some enterprising sketch artist to create some nice inspirational drawings for that "Strike the earth!" screen.  Then again actually depicting a dwarf might rankle some who have different conceptions of their appearance...

[Strangething]

This thread is full of good things. DF's interface has always been quirky and disorganized. There's a mode to examine a room, and a different mode to view the items in that room. There's no reason why these two should be separate modes.

Toady has put so much work into this project, and clearly the interface has slipped to the bottom of the priority list. Do you think he'd let someone else have a shot at the interface, like he did with the graphics overhaul?

Also, I still want to know what "hodiernal" means.

[Footkerchief]

Also, I still want to know what "hodiernal" means.

"Today."

[Draco18s]

Also, I still want to know what "hodiernal" means.

"Today."

Sortof.  "Hodie" is "today," hodiernal tense is used to refer to events that happened today, weather past or future.

[Footkerchief]

Ah, thanks.

[Lord Shonus]

zwei, why do you need the "wedge" at all. Wouldn't it be easier and less intrusive simply to highlight or outline whatever's being examined?