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[darius]

My main point isn't that people complaining about utility updates are bad, more that the situation itself is bad. An officially-maintained API would help, but I think the proper solution is for the game itself to have first-party systems that people generally don't feel frustrated with.

I've said it before, but a private API would itself help a lot.  As far as I can tell, he writes every single interface basically from scratch right now, resulting in each menu having its own bizarre and sometimes crashtastic (farms in 40d#, military menu in 31.01) quirks.

From personal experience i can tell that what could help is massive rewrite into OOP style. Well at least it helped me. Rationality of this is that when you have everything as objects (including all the buttons, labels, lists, displays etc...) you can rearrange them, scale them individually or all at once. You could make them appear or disappear, form windows and groups and all the code would be in one place, if it does not work it won't work anywhere, fix one place all places are fixed. That is what I image will happen in interface arc. Also then exposing api (my guess) would be very easy.

[Sabin Stargem]

I think that having a split-off project like Baughn did with the SDL overhaul would be a good compromise, if I understood that situation correctly.  People get to work on the interface, Toady gets a lighter workload and get some experience with the principles of building an good interface by watching what other people do.  I won't make an guarantee of it working, but the odds seem good to me.

Concerning the hybrid interface, it does seem that I can't agree with Deathworks on the viability of such a thing - we are different kinds of gamer, I suspect.  My background is based on games like System Shock, Thief, TIE Fighter, and Homeworld which all used a combination of mouse and keyboard, so I am very acclimated to mixed setups.  We both like Dwarf Fortress and want the best for it, which we have different experiences in how controls ought to be implemented.  Still, I think we can figure out a good harmony between the forces of Keyboard, Mouse, and GUI with enough trial and error.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Concerning the hybrid interface, it does seem that I can't agree with Deathworks on the viability of such a thing - we are different kinds of gamer, I suspect.  My background is based on games like System Shock, Thief, TIE Fighter, and Homeworld which all used a combination of mouse and keyboard, so I am very acclimated to mixed setups.  We both like Dwarf Fortress and want the best for it, which we have different experiences in how controls ought to be implemented.  Still, I think we can figure out a good harmony between the forces of Keyboard, Mouse, and GUI with enough trial and error.

I just wanted to say that I basically agree with everything you say there.
Of course, finding a good way to satisfy everyone is probably very difficult, but I agree that that is the direction the discussions about the interface should be heading - or rather I hope they could head that way.

So, yes, a complete thumbs up from me for your statements there.

Deathworks

[narc]

Hello, all,

I didn't mean for my first post on here to be in a relatively heated thread such as this one, but I'm thinking maybe I can help a little bit with some of the earlier discussion, namely the discussion on GUI.

The way I see it, everyone who mentions the term seems to think of something different when they say it. Some mean a full-3d interface that you can fly around in, perhaps similar to Sims 3 style. Some mean something more isometric, like Stronghold. And some here seem to think that DF doesn't already have a GUI, which I disagree with.

Here's how I see it: a Graphical User Interface simply refers to "showing" rather than "telling" the user what's happening. It doesn't automatically mean that there are widgets that work primarily/only with the mouse, or that these widgets should look like anything in particular. And DF currently has a GUI -- one that is composed of tiles which, by default, are shown as fixed-width characters, and can be replaced with drawn sprites of almost any size (as long as there are at least 80x25 of them being displayed at any given time).

Here's how I'd think a non-GUI version of DF would be like:

You are looking at z-level 138. There is an active magma forge here. There is an inactive magma kiln here. There is a food stockpile here (#9). There are three dwarves here. You can see a cassiterite vein in the wall to the north-west.

I wouldn't expect that to be very playable, but that's how I would define a non-GUI version. By comparison, what we have now is a GUI that's showing you all the things enumerated above (and more), in a much more immediately understandable way that mostly lets the interface get out of the way (as it should) and allows us to focus on what we want to do (kill elves, do megaprojects, run a fort, etc.).

So I would urge participants in the conversation to not just throw the term "GUI" around without clarifying what they mean, and likewise to not automatically disagree with a statement just because it uses that term.

[Sabin Stargem]

I agree with you that a GUI is an device for telling the player stuff.  Heck, that is usually the purpose of graphics and sound for just about any game.  The keyboard and mouse don't tell the player anything, but they do allow you to interact and permit 'showing' if you wish by manipulating the GUI.  As such, the GUI is the visual expression of the interface.  The better a game can tell a player what is going on, then the player would have more fun since it gives the player tools for interaction.  Action is the biggest aspect of games, so it is only natural that nearly anything that ties into permitting such would improve the game.

[kcwong]

The way I see it, everyone who mentions the term seems to think of something different when they say it. Some mean a full-3d interface that you can fly around in, perhaps similar to Sims 3 style. Some mean something more isometric, like Stronghold. And some here seem to think that DF doesn't already have a GUI, which I disagree with.

Here's how I see it: a Graphical User Interface simply refers to "showing" rather than "telling" the user what's happening. It doesn't automatically mean that there are widgets that work primarily/only with the mouse, or that these widgets should look like anything in particular. And DF currently has a GUI -- one that is composed of tiles which, by default, are shown as fixed-width characters, and can be replaced with drawn sprites of almost any size (as long as there are at least 80x25 of them being displayed at any given time).

GUI is a term in programming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface

A graphical user interface (GUI) (sometimes pronounced gooey[1]) is a type of user interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.[2]

The important word is "interface", which includes both output (telling user what's going on) and input (allow user to manipulate things). Also, don't confuse the ASCII text you seen from DF as non-graphical - they are simply tiles that look like ASCII characters.

So DF does have a GUI, just not a very good one for a game of this complexity.

Here's how I'd think a non-GUI version of DF would be like:

You are looking at z-level 138. There is an active magma forge here. There is an inactive magma kiln here. There is a food stockpile here (#9). There are three dwarves here. You can see a cassiterite vein in the wall to the north-west.

Add a command line interface where you can enter commands to play the game and you have non-Graphic version of DF's UI. For example, typing
jobmanager -add -item wooden_barrel -count 30
to add an order of 30 wooden barrels to the job manager list.

[narc]

[...]GUI is a term in programming.[...]
The important word is "interface", which includes both output (telling user what's going on) and input (allow user to manipulate things). Also, don't confuse the ASCII text you seen from DF as non-graphical - they are simply tiles that look like ASCII characters.

I'm going to assume you were reinforcing my point rather than correcting, but yes, that's pretty much exactly it. I did leave out the input part, but that's what I was thinking of.

So DF does have a GUI, just not a very good one for a game of this complexity.

Well, it could certainly be better (more consistency between the various keys would be a good start), but it's functional and works well enough for most uses.

Here's how I'd think a non-GUI version of DF would be like:

You are looking at z-level 138. There is an active magma forge here. There is an inactive magma kiln here. There is a food stockpile here (#9). There are three dwarves here. You can see a cassiterite vein in the wall to the north-west.

Add a command line interface where you can enter commands to play the game and you have non-Graphic version of DF's UI. For example, typing
jobmanager -add -item wooden_barrel -count 30
to add an order of 30 wooden barrels to the job manager list.

The job manager is easy, but when you get into digging, or room-designating... well, you either start having trouble or else you start having a different game. In any case, my intent had been to imply the existence of a command-line interface for input analogous to the textual output, but I forgot to type that into my previous post.

Purely for fun, SQL-like job entry: 'insert into job_list (count, material, type) values (30, "wooden", "barrel")'

A C-like version might be fun, too, but I'm too lazy to think it up.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

actually, a command line interface sounds perfect! anybody wants to make a thread on the request forum?

[MrWiggles]

actually, a command line interface sounds perfect! anybody wants to make a thread on the request forum?

If it was supported. I totally use one. Command lines have always been faster then guis.

[Jiri Petru]

actually, a command line interface sounds perfect! anybody wants to make a thread on the request forum?

If it was supported. I totally use one. Command lines have always been faster then guis.

Especially for complex strategy games. That's why they're so popular.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

it wouldn't work for for designating stuff, etc., but could do everything the job manager does, setting squads statuses, starting scripted events, macros, etc.

[MrWiggles]

it wouldn't work for for designating stuff, etc., but could do everything the job manager does, setting squads statuses, starting scripted events, macros, etc.

Exactly, it could rock so hard core, and even be more intimating to the general public.

[Siquo]

And why not?

Designating a 4x4 room on z-level 4: designate -dig z:4 x1:35 y1:45 x2:39 y2:49

.... I am now no longer in favour of no API. A command-line API would rock so many z-layers.

[MrWiggles]

High five?

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Sigh, now people try to confuse terms.

If you want to make GUI refer to any visual display, the term somehow gets meaningless. For instance, the BASIC interpreter of the C64 would then also be a GUI by your interpretation, which it is not. And that wikipedia quote actually points out that fact:

GUI is a term in programming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface

A graphical user interface (GUI) (sometimes pronounced gooey[1]) is a type of user interface item that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing such as computers; hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices; household appliances and office equipment with images rather than text commands. A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.[2]

It clearly states that input must be possible beyond just typing "that allows people to interact with programs in more ways than typing". "Typing" refers to the user using the keyboard to enter information - not to the computer displaying text information, which would use either the general "display" or the more specific "print".

And if you want to complain about the ASCII display actually being graphics pretending to be characters, I have great news for you: ALL text displays on computers are based on pixel graphics. The only difference is where the ASCII code gets converted into a bitmap which is then sent to the screen. The only ASCII display without graphics would theoretically if you the characters as lead blocks in your screen and the appropriate character was pushed forward - I admit, that would indeed be true ASCII without graphics.

Deathworks