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[marcusbjol]

Abstracting the UI is fairly simple as really it is abaonding the UI to other people.

A very simple method would use a network port off the localhost and make DF a "server" type of application.  Yes, the communication method would have to be documented... once.  Be it now or later, this will be done in the future anyways (when/if Toady gets to the UI).  One of the major conserns is having the UI be out of sync of DF versions; Proper documentation is the only real solution.

There is free labor out there.  To the point we have "hack" utility for other required programs to play (no I would not play without Dwarf Therapist).  There have been no less than 3 visualizers out there.  Use the labor.

Getting to a larger audience:  DF's biggest killer is its own UI.  Talked with one of my friends before raiding in WoW, everyone else was interested to play, until I told them the best way to learn the game was to download the tutorial and play that for 4 or 5 hours.  And the UI was ASCII based (non techies did not understand what that ment).  I see DF as the linux of gaming (from a learning curve perspective).  Yes it is nifty and powerful, but Microsoft focused on making the UI accessible (not great, but better than CLI by a long shot for the average end user).

Obsolesence:  Its coming.  Fast.  All it would take would be 5 guys a year to catch up to where DF is now, and if there was money behind it, there would be lots more.  By patently refusing to work on this (which Toady has done) with end users, the end users are being encouraged to compete and make a different product.

Saying that everything else must be finished first, given that the rate completion, means we will have a GUI sometime in 2030.  In software terms, it is not even vaporware.  By that time Stronghold X will be out and have everything DF ever could.

[T-manSim]

You know, the defense of "It's still a alpha!!!" is pretty weak. People are already donating for this alpha, and many of the main features are in place. It's hardly a alpha if you get $1000+ a month. Next, the idea that the UI will slow development is just, well, confusing. I know lots of people that would love to play DF if they could understand it. The way I see it is that better UI = More players = $$$ = Happy Toady. Let me explain Better UI -> $$$. First, the idea that the UI is understandable or sufficient is just plain wrong. Currently to build a wall is b - (SHIFT+c) - w - k - k -k -k -k - enter - Esc - Esc - Esc. That's from memory. If you do have that memorized, good for you! But most people don't want to memorize all that to build a wall. They want to click "make wall" and click on where it goes. If they can  do that, they're much more likley to understand and have FUN playing this game.

[Kanddak]

Getting to a larger audience:  DF's biggest killer is its own UI.  Talked with one of my friends before raiding in WoW, everyone else was interested to play, until I told them the best way to learn the game was to download the tutorial and play that for 4 or 5 hours.  And the UI was ASCII based (non techies did not understand what that ment).  I see DF as the linux of gaming (from a learning curve perspective).  Yes it is nifty and powerful, but Microsoft focused on making the UI accessible (not great, but better than CLI by a long shot for the average end user).

Well, maybe DF just isn't meant for the "average end user". DF is a niche game with a very limited appeal to most WoW players, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't like the elements in games that appeal to WoW players, which is why I play DF and not WoW.

[MrWiggles]

There is no best when it comes to design and implementation. All design methodologies have pros and cons.

The UI is improving incrementally. Just as it always have. This release cycle we got more verbose dorf health read outs and UI, more verbose military UI. We got dorf labors in sub menus. We got combat readouts. We got zoom to events from the announcements.

Some of these are small rewrites to UI form an end user stand point. We have no idea how complicated it is under the hood. Others were not, as they accompanied and entirely new system. When the bugs get hammered out of them, and they are getting hammered out the UI functionality will easier to see with the Military.

We only have about a third of the features in DF right now. We dont have to many of the main features. The UI is large, and complicated. The game itself is large and complicated. Those elements tend to be congruent.

The UI has various issues as it seems to lack a design protocol. This has lead to inconstancies with menu navigation and item placement. Things are group where they are liken to how they are coded instead how they function. A supposed and speculated rearrangement of the UI with a more constant navigation keys would be awesome.

The UI is however sufficient. This can't be argued with various wonderful forts in term of look'in pretty and complexity. The UI isn't efficient though. 3rd Parties apps isn't the mark of a bad UI. Its mark of community wants out performing 1st parties utilities through intense focusing. They tend to focus on elements of games that are tedious. How many supplement apps are there for any popular MMO, or Dialoblo? Fishing apps for WoW, and mule management for D2. Some have been become so deponent on a play style that requires them, that it seen as a necessity and should a part of 1st party support.

[marcusbjol]

That attitude just marginalizes the game and is shortsighted on your part.  Eliteism for elitism's sake. 

If Toady gets a bigger audience, more revenue, possiblility able to quit the day job and focus full time on DF.

If Toady does not get a larger audience, and someone else will make ElvenTreeHouse(TM) that is about elves living in trees, which happen to be on the ground and the forests are assaulted by all sorts of forces.. goblins, humans, dwarves.. put some nifty physics and allow you to play any race you want... allow everything to user modifiable.. That is when everyone will stop playing DF and play the other game.  Then Toady is left with his pet project and the few people still playing it, and not generating revenue.

Honestly, if the UI is not improved to a GUI, this game will surpassed by another.  It might not be this year, but in 5 years or 10 years.  The development cycle is just too long (from an end user point of view, extremely quick from a man hour point).

[Rowanas]

Toady will get cash
Because some people prefer
The way it is now.

There are enough games
With flashy screens and artwork
DF is not one.

[MrWiggles]

How is it elitist when I remark that it has flaws, and demonstrated on how its improving. 0o
Larger audience doesn't mean larger revenue for Toady. Potentially though but not a guaranteed. And reworking the UI is one of several notable obstacles DF for garnering new playership. It could make those other obstacles easier, but it wouldn't make them disappear.

Secondly, gaining a larger audience means more exposure that will surely cause DFclones then staying of a niche popularity. That argument is flawed, and is using fear tactics to falsely bolster it. Lame. Staying small, and unknown prevents other from going 'Hey I like it!'. Thirdly, Toady will continue to work on it as long as he sees fit/likes and he worked on these various games when not receiving enough donations to make it into a full time job.

Thirdly, GUI is not better then a text based UI. Pro and Cons. Mouse based UI seems better due to constant use of it. It also allows for more intuitive control. Though Dwarf Fortress is of RL vane and that does have some design limitation for its design elements, such as limited mouse control. Before I find myself going back and forth between mouse and keyboard differences; I'm going to stop, as like all design and implementation it has pros and cons. One is not better then the other.

[numerobis]

If Toady gets a bigger audience, more revenue, possiblility able to quit the day job and focus full time on DF.

DF *is* his day job.

That said, the UI sucks hard in various ways that have been detailed in these forums repeatedly: (1) there's little consistency (is this particular area designation done by u/k, by room radius, or by painting a square?), (2) screens are incomplete (to see what's going on at a location, I need to switch between 'v', 't', 'q', and 'k').  Just because someone *can* learn the UI doesn't mean it's good.  Lots of people manage to use SAP for example.

Saying that the development should ignore UI issues until some mythical later time when all the features are in basically means the UI is going to continue to be terrible.  New features need new UI; ideally it would be good UI.  I'm not holding my breath.

I'm pleasantly surprised most people here are actually staying on-topic; usually the UI discussion derails to a discussion about graphics.

[Mfbrew]

We can argue back and forth about changing the UI all day, but the fact remains:
-Toady doesn't think a UI overhaul is necessary
-He considers it a boring and annoying task compared to the cooler things he can do with his time
-A large number of fans agree it's fine the way it is for now and have confidence in the developer, and that it'll be addressed when the time is right

Doomsayers think that somebody is going to come along and make supar open source clone with better UI and everyone is going to abandon DF, but that's highly unlikely.  It takes a certain bizarre, rare personality to design and implement a game like this.  Even if somebody does eventually make a game that steals some of the audience, Toady just needs a small generous core of loyal supporters to continue doing what he's doing.

If people want a UI overhaul in DF, then:
-You have to convince Toady it's necessary
-You have to make it worth his time

That's why I suggested the UI fund - it accomplishes the latter.

For accomplishing the former, I have some thoughts that are more substantial than "zomg if we make it easier, WoW nerds can play too, and while we're at it let's slow down skill growth so they can have fun grinding":

- If DF has a better UI, there'll be a bigger pool of testers, and more testing can be done in less time
- Many third party programs will be rendered obsolete, so more people will adopt newer versions faster and there's less chance of any third party program ever becoming necessary enough that Toady feels obligated to pander to it
- Clever people who dream up cool megaprojects will be able to implement them more quickly, showing off the technical capabilities and limitations of the engine
- For people smart enough to use the keyboard effectively, keyboard commands will be even faster and more intuitive

[MrWiggles]

Toady hasn't outright said his feeling on the subject of UI overhaul on any of the points you said.

We get incremental UI improvements at various times.

[Kilo24]

-1 to this.

Because stifling UI is the most efficient way to seeing DF 1.0 completed during our lifetime. If Toady put a focus on UI, it'd be like Slaves to Armok again.

UI does not equate to graphics.  3D graphics were the chief problem with Armok, not a competent UI.

We can argue back and forth about changing the UI all day, but the fact remains:
-Toady doesn't think a UI overhaul is necessary
-He considers it a boring and annoying task compared to the cooler things he can do with his time
-A large number of fans agree it's fine the way it is for now and have confidence in the developer, and that it'll be addressed when the time is right
...
[Pros:]
- If DF has a better UI, there'll be a bigger pool of testers, and more testing can be done in less time
- Many third party programs will be rendered obsolete, so more people will adopt newer versions faster and there's less chance of any third party program ever becoming necessary enough that Toady feels obligated to pander to it
- Clever people who dream up cool megaprojects will be able to implement them more quickly, showing off the technical capabilities and limitations of the engine
- For people smart enough to use the keyboard effectively, keyboard commands will be even faster and more intuitive

I pretty much agree with the above parts of the post, and I do very much wish to add that letting people test the UI as it is being developed is a large gain for Toady, rather than just shoehorning it into version 0.99 and being forced to rewrite every screen in the game to conform to that standard.  Especially with all the bugs in the basic game interface that would cause...

The UI rework does not need to create the ideal UI for DF - that would not be possible until Toady implements all the stuff he's got planned.  But it is true that there are many useful low-hanging fruits in the UI that have been neglected, as well as a inconsistent standard between different screens; setting up a standardized private API can only be a good thing, even if it does need eventual partial reworking.  If he does do a standardized interface, then many incremental upgrades will apply to all screens, not just the latest ones.

[Virex]

But if Toady would open-source the UI, he would stop working on it and his quircks would disapear in favour of what's called "propper UI desing". I don't want no context-sensetive menus, mouse selection or consistent keymappings in DF, they detract from the elitism of it...

[Hammurabi]

The question is, how long can 'the elites' continue to fund Toady's development?  Can it cover the next 20 years?  If Toady can continue his hobby, ignoring the UI that he finds boring, and be funded for the rest of his life, then that is wonderful.

IMO, Toady will need to increase the userbase to keep a steady flow of donations.

[h3lblad3]

If Toady bows to the will of the whiners, can we at least still agree to have an init option to keep something similar to the present UI?

I really like the UI as it is. :/
Although the military stuff could use some work.

[MrWiggles]

Where has Toady stated his feeling towards the UI?