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[Shades]

I don't disagree, but you asked for a quick list

[lucusLoC]

i'll add a few points to the list:


making hot keys consistent, such as scrolling on the various menus. do i use +-, /* or the arrow keys?

adding appropriate filters to *every* menu, such as enabled jobs to a job manager, or a sting search to the stockpile list

no more "arbitrary" limits to such things as wall building. if i need a 100 tile long wall there is no reason i should not be able to just designate it that way in one go.


edit:

just so you know, this is just to help people understand what is wrong with the interface. Toady has said that he does not want to work on the presentation arc till the last, and i fully understand and support him on this.
there are, however, a few things that could really use some attention now, that probably would not cause to much work in the future. . .

[mickel]

Well, not entirely. It would make the game more accessible for testing. I know I would play this game a whole lot more if not for the byzantine interface, and I know a whole lot of people who love the concept but are unable to play the game at all for the same reason.

Software tends to have lots of temporary fixes that are discarded later, and DF is no exception. Just look at the entire 2D system which was thrown out, but still lingers on in bizarre bugs here and there, such as the tendency for dwarves to always want to stand on the left of the surface they're workig on.

[Draco18s]

such as the tendency for dwarves to always want to stand on the left of the surface they're workig on.

That actually has no relevance to the 2D system, as the "tile to be mined" can't be stood upon, so in order to path to it (because of the way pathing works) you need to choose an end-point that's inside the connectivity map (which means not the tile-to-be-dug) which means you need to have a system that checks each tile around the target for pass-ability, which means you will prioritize one side over another.

A better example for a hold-over from the 2D version would be bridges.  Ever think about what those o's and O's are?  They're the bridge's supporting pillars, which in the 2D version never really took up any space (there wasn't a z-level below).  Or how raised bridges are only 1 z-level tall, regardless of how long they are.  Or how "flung" (via combat) creatures never fly up.

[mickel]

I thought the fact that they always prefered the left side (often going to great and awkward lengths at reaching it) was a leftover in the pathing system from the 2D version where digging was usually from left to right.

If it's not, then what is it that causes a dwarf to consistently walk 200 steps around the entire map, crossing an outdoors area and a brook to reach the left side of a tile in order to mine it, rather than take two steps from his current location and mine it from the right side?

Or is this something that only happens on my computers due to some strange quirk?

I always envisioned the decorations on the bridges as some sort of railings...

[Draco18s]

If it's not, then what is it that causes a dwarf to consistently walk 200 steps around the entire map, crossing an outdoors area and a brook to reach the left side of a tile in order to mine it, rather than take two steps from his current location and mine it from the right side?

I just told you.  In order to have a pathing destination inside the connectivity map, the end-point must be next to the tile to be dug and choosing which of those 8 tiles to be the end point must be chosen hierarchically as pathing has not yet run so it can't be used to determine which tile is actually the closest.

Or is this something that only happens on my computers due to some strange quirk?

.....No

I always envisioned the decorations on the bridges as some sort of railings...

When its being built, the o's and O's that show up before its completed.  Not the lines around the edge.

(Note: there are no railings on dwarven bridges, dwarves will happily fall off bridges at the slightest nudge).

[nenjin]

IIRC, mouse support in DF is going to go way up in the next update. That alone will make things much less painful.

There are several issues with DF's UI. There's so much information that needs to be displayed sometimes, and there's no text scaling. So you need multiple sub-menus, which all end up looking the same, and create a lot of eyestrain as you constantly scan menu items hour after hour.

This is most problematic with creatures and dwarves. Those lists just become overwhelming to scan through repeatedly once your fortress is big.

The in-game real estate also isn't optimized to provide information. The menu cheatsheet already take up a big honkin' chunk of it. And again, no text scaling is a big problem. If you could cut that menu in half, and replace the gap with a unit card that displayed VERY basic information, you could pretty much set the cursor default to "Look around." And that would be one less button the players has to hit to get information.

Lastly, most information not being shown on the game screen is presented as text, and that's again a limitation of the ASCII. Having things like easy to read icons to represent rooms, animals, jobs, items, ect...in lists would make all the visual scanning you need to do a lot less tedious.

For DF to get to even like, a Warcraft 1 level of display would take a good year or two, especially since the whole game has to make the jump from text/ASCII to real art assets. I'm sure there's no shortage of people who could help with that, but it will still take time to apply that to whole game and for Toady to settle on what visual style he prefers the most.

Not decades, but yeah, years. And it will be an iterative process too, like everything else, done in bits and pieces. As much as he'd like to satisfy DF fans visually, I'm sure he doesn't want to leave gameplay out in the cold for a solid year or two working on it.

[G-Flex]

IIRC, mouse support in DF is going to go way up in the next update. That alone will make things much less painful.

I could be wrong, but I think that's just for the new screens (mostly military-related?), but it's still a step in the right direction.

Of course, even a keyboard-based interface can be fine, but it needs to be well-designed and consistent. It's obvious from the current UI that Toady has experimented over time with various ways of controlling things in all the games screens and menus, and it needs to, at some point, be standardized. A consistent interface paradigm across at least most of the menu screens would make things much, much easier.

[Safe-Keeper]

How would you improve the UI then while maintaining all of the current functionality?

Don't see why you ask when this thread is full of suggestions already, but if you want an answer from me specifically, I'll echo many of the sentiments found throughout this thread:

 - Make hot keys consistent throughout the whole game. I don't mind that F9 or some other key handles the "back" function in some screens, such as the trading menu where you don't want to leave the screen by accident, but in most screens, you should leave by just hitting "Space".
 - Implement a "Select all" feature for lists (especially useful when designating items for trading)
 - Make lists and whatnot occupy the entire screen, not just half of it
 - Allow the player to select specific dwarves and give them move/attack/action orders, like in RTS games. For example, you could select a dwarf who's working on chopping down a tree and tell him to demolish a wall, after which he will go back to choosing chores to do based on enabled jobs and work in need of doing.
 - Age of Empires II-style tool tips that you can toggle on and off.
 - The ability to just equip stuff to your dwarves using an RPG-style drag-and-drop system. Doesn't need particularly good graphics, but would be nice to have.
 - Integrating the functionality of Dwarf Manager into DF itself.
 - Sort list items alphabetically, or at least give us the option to do so.
 - More easily understandable strings.

[G-Flex]

I think paperdoll drag-and-drop systems are a particularly bad idea, because they aren't extensible: You'd need a different one for every one of potentially infinite body plans, and it wouldn't be easy to integrate into the text-based system there is now.

[darkflagrance]

Perhaps each individual body part in the body file could be given a [wears clothing and/or armor tag].

Then, the game would generate a box with a series of slots corresponding the number of body parts the creature had with the appropriate tags, and further limit what could be dragged/typed there accordingly.

[G-Flex]

Except it wouldn't be in a graphical paper-doll format, meaning it loses most of the advantage of such an interface.

[Hyndis]

You'd also be getting away from the point of the game.

Unlike most other games, Dungeon Keeper/Evil Genius/Dwarf Fortress do not allow direct control. Any random RTS game lets you directly control things on the map.

This genre is about indirect control. Instead of ordering Urist to go chop down that tree, you tell him he's now a lumberjack and that he's okay. Then designate some trees to be chopped. He'll eventually get around to chopping the trees.

Same goes for putting on equipment. You're doing top down orders, not micromanaging everything.

The ruler of a huge fortress does not tell each individual dwarf how to dress. He just sets up what sort of gear the military guys should wear, orders some sets of armor to be made at the blacksmith, and then the dwarves tend to things as best they can.

[teloft]

I was asking for the same when I was new, it is in the came partly already.  for example, I cannot make the magma smelter until I find the magma.

I called for a knowledge tab, where it would be impossible for me to build the magma smelter unless I would gain the magma knowledge first. This is a common curving for games. Making some key knowledges that has to be activated before things can be produces / built. 

The Dwarfs could have a lot of knowledge when they embark, but it could be an option to embark without some knowledge, like to make a fort with no kenneling or animal handling knowledge.

...

[Grendus]

I think the UI is viable, actually, there just needs to be a few changes.

-Consistency. Navigating all menus should use the same keys, regardless of the menu. An exception can be made for menus that accept text, but all menus that take text should use the same key to back out as well. There are a few that do this.

-Job assignment. The in-game job assignment interface is HORRENDOUS! Anybody who has the patience to play DF without Dwarf Manager or Dwarf Therapist is either a masochist or has way too much time on their hands. An in-game dwarf management tool needs to be put in. There's no way it can be called 1.0 with such an awful interface.

Really, everything else falls under either better organization or a tutorial. Since new things are added constantly, an official tutorial would be pointless (think about if Toady had spent weeks designing a tutorial for the current military, then how much he would have to change it for the next version? Almost everything changed, the old tutorial and the weeks of work would be pointless). The same thing goes for organization, although some updates can be made (can we sort the animals menu by species instead of by date acquired? And can we get a search function for both types of stone and for the stocks menu) a lot is being added so a hard-coded or even raw based organization system wouldn't work.