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[Waparius]

Every single time someone cries for a better interface, it quickly evolves into a pro mouse - vs. mouse fight. It's just a strawman. Forget about the mouse. Even re-organizing the horrible gumbo of menus, commands and underlying systems (the mishmash of workshops, zones, rooms, designations) so that they'd have at least some sanity would help users immensely and wouldn't make further developments any slower.

Pretty much, though I don't know how easy it would be to implement some of the things that keep coming up. I mean, I don't know anything about programming, but for example one thing a lot of people (me included) want is to have the building system streamlined so that everything works like hospitals - you designate rooms or workshops or meeting halls like a zone or a stockpile, and place furniture in them for your dwarves to work/sleep on. It's all in one system. But it seems like it would change a whole lot of little things and make programming trickier, since it means workshops are now rooms, new furniture has to be put in, multiple dwarves have to be able to work in workshops, etc, etc.

But I have to admit it would help a lot if I could go straight from the [N]otes menu to the building options/[q] menu without moving the cursor, since I like to put levers in meeting halls.

[NW_Kohaku]

I am with G-flex here and seriously Therapist and Co. might be usefull but they arent needed at all to play the game.

Perhaps not necessary, but Therapist doesn't really add any sort of functionality to the game, it doesn't really "cheat" unless you make it, it just serves to help format your information to make it more readily accessable.  It's a major help in sorting information so that you can make informed decisions.  It gives you information in seconds that would take five, ten minutes of scanning the unit lists and writing down information about dwarves that you would have to do without it because that information requires digging through many pages of interface with no help from any sort of cursor memory or easy sorting in the units screen. 

No, maybe you don't need to really care about all the information, and you can just blithely ignore many things like personality traits when assigning jobs, and never looking back and never bothering to manage how many people were assigned to any one particular job.  (Of course, didn't we just have a dialogue in this thread about why ignoring personality traits when assigning jobs was a problem?)

It shouldn't even be controversial that Dwarf Therapist adds some information management utilities that the game really could use, since even Toady seems to implicitly agree and may be working on some of the interface soon, like the Units screen.

[Caldfir]

There does seem to be a group of people who think that not using tilesets or utilities makes them somehow better, and argue furiously that these things are pointless.  Really I don't understand the mindset.  It is pretty clear that dwarf therapist does a very good job of presenting otherwise obscured information.  Its fine to like using ASCII tiles or the default job interface, but trying to argue it is better is very strange. 

Anyway, the UI debate shouldn't be seen as "pro-UI" vs "anti-UI" because I think we can all agree that intuitive user interface is in general a good thing (even pro- and anti-mouse is silly because nobody is talking about removing keyboard functions).  It is just a question of priority.  Toady avoids UI changes because, if I remember correctly, he worries about moving everything to a system that needs to be totally overhauled because of some future functionality.  UI improvements mid-development can really turn into a time-waster when there is a chance you will just be throwing them away. 

The question here is if there is a system for these things that would universally work, be intuitive, and wouldn't need updating when new features are added.  The question of what to update is important as well.  Toady is, as is often pointed out, only one guy, so he can only work on one ting at a time, and in the end, all of our debates and questions are really about what is highest priority. 

[tps12]

Perhaps not necessary, but Therapist doesn't really add any sort of functionality to the game, it doesn't really "cheat" unless you make it, it just serves to help format your information to make it more readily accessable.  It's a major help in sorting information so that you can make informed decisions.  It gives you information in seconds that would take five, ten minutes of scanning the unit lists and writing down information about dwarves that you would have to do without it because that information requires digging through many pages of interface with no help from any sort of cursor memory or easy sorting in the units screen. 

Well there is the idea that the information available to the player represents what can reasonably be known by a fortress's leadership. So you can know how many socks you have, but only if you've assigned somebody to run around counting up all the socks, and so forth.

Having to wade through all those personality profiles and labor settings taking notes can be seen as a reasonably good representation of the difficulty of organizing a populous community.

I think the medical system shows where the developers tend to want to go with this kind of thing, which is why we will be more likely to see an actual dwarf who is a therapist in the game than the DT functionality reproduced inside DF.

[Chthonic]

Pretty much, though I don't know how easy it would be to implement some of the things that keep coming up. I mean, I don't know anything about programming, but for example one thing a lot of people (me included) want is to have the building system streamlined so that everything works like hospitals - you designate rooms or workshops or meeting halls like a zone or a stockpile, and place furniture in them for your dwarves to work/sleep on. It's all in one system. But it seems like it would change a whole lot of little things and make programming trickier, since it means workshops are now rooms, new furniture has to be put in, multiple dwarves have to be able to work in workshops, etc, etc.

This is my ideal world.  Designate a long hall as some type of workshop.  Designate a stockpile in that hall to receive raw materials from a master stockpile.  Without stockpiles, dwarves might use coffers or built bins, or leave the large stuff lying on the floor.  For meticulous things, a dwarf squat on the floor, or in better workshops sit on a chair at a table.  Another stockpile might be used as a receiver for new items.  Pieces of big equipment like the loom or anvil become bits of furniture like tables/chairs . . . quality of items produced is partially dependent on the workshop's equipment and quality thereof . . .

[NW_Kohaku]

Well there is the idea that the information available to the player represents what can reasonably be known by a fortress's leadership. So you can know how many socks you have, but only if you've assigned somebody to run around counting up all the socks, and so forth.

Having to wade through all those personality profiles and labor settings taking notes can be seen as a reasonably good representation of the difficulty of organizing a populous community.

I think the medical system shows where the developers tend to want to go with this kind of thing, which is why we will be more likely to see an actual dwarf who is a therapist in the game than the DT functionality reproduced inside DF.

And in a real world, you don't have the absolute command you have over dwarves that you do in DF.  I've argued in the past to make dwarves more autonomous, to let them choose their own jobs, and to only give out incentives or set wages for jobs to entice dwarves whose personalities are more suited to one job or another choose for themselves.

This is met by criticism from many of the same people who make that sort of argument that it takes away control over the dwarves, and that they need their ability to micromanage, which in turn, makes the player need far more information so as to effectively do that micromanagement.

[Untelligent]

Yeah, I don't want dwarves to be significantly more autonomous than they are no because I don't want to lose my ability to instantly make all 120 of my adult dwarves masons and tell them to go build something. I see no practical reason to not be able to do that.

Also since DT lets me do that even more instantly it would be nice if its job-management thing were in the vanilla game someday.

[NW_Kohaku]

OK, since I'm in multiple threads talking about this at the same time, I think I might as well throw this one out there, as well.

I did some searching Toady posts and "UI" and "GUI" and "interface", but everything is either from two or more years ago, or very short and specifically about the stocks and units screen (and even then, vague).

Toady, since so many of us are discussing possible UI changes, could you give us some sort of idea of what sort of changes are "on the table" for you?  There is talk about how much the mouse will dominate the interface, whether the interface ideas like Jiri Petru's are feasable, and whether we can have a sweep-up of controls in vanilla keybindings, so that there is more consistancy in the interface's control philosophy, and if you are set on one control philosophy (like first letter in a word is its keybinding versus localizing keybindings, such as with "u" being upstair and "j" being downstair to be be near one another).  Likewise, it's worth those of us in the debate knowing how much possibility is there of either minor or major changes to the UI like the changes to the long and short term (short being "a couple years") of DF's development.

I realize it makes some people upset when I ask detailed questions, but to a certain extent, it feels like the forums are arguing over what is feasable or not with scraps of information.  A clear idea of what is or isn't feasable, and in what vague timeframe these things might happen would go a long way in helping shape the debate.

[G-Flex]

There does seem to be a group of people who think that not using tilesets or utilities makes them somehow better, and argue furiously that these things are pointless.  Really I don't understand the mindset.  It is pretty clear that dwarf therapist does a very good job of presenting otherwise obscured information.  Its fine to like using ASCII tiles or the default job interface, but trying to argue it is better is very strange.

I don't think these are very comparable things. I mean, I agree with you except that I think ASCII vs. tiles is even more up to personal preference, as tiles have their drawback to and (aside from creatures) you're still limited to the same number of tiles. There are certainly valid reasons to prefer text, whereas the impact of something like Dwarf Therapist is almost strictly positive.

[NW_Kohaku]

I mean, I agree with you except that I think ASCII vs. tiles is even more up to personal preference, as tiles have their drawback to and (aside from creatures) you're still limited to the same number of tiles.

Theoretically, isn't this what the "Full Graphical Support" ESV winner was about doing?  The "make everything potentially graphics-pack-able"? 

... Of course, now that I look, it isn't actually on the Devpage... was it always off the devpage, or was it taken off?

[G-Flex]

Theoretically, isn't this what the "Full Graphical Support" ESV winner was about doing?  The "make everything potentially graphics-pack-able"?

Even if tile count were totally arbitrary, there's still something to be said for how subjective the argument between the two styles is. Even if you could use a different tile for everything, it would still be interesting to see how that looks using textual glyphs.

[Cruxador]

OK, since I'm in multiple threads talking about this at the same time, I think I might as well throw this one out there, as well.

I did some searching Toady posts and "UI" and "GUI" and "interface", but everything is either from two or more years ago, or very short and specifically about the stocks and units screen (and even then, vague).

Toady, since so many of us are discussing possible UI changes, could you give us some sort of idea of what sort of changes are "on the table" for you?  There is talk about how much the mouse will dominate the interface, whether the interface ideas like Jiri Petru's are feasable, and whether we can have a sweep-up of controls in vanilla keybindings, so that there is more consistancy in the interface's control philosophy, and if you are set on one control philosophy (like first letter in a word is its keybinding versus localizing keybindings, such as with "u" being upstair and "j" being downstair to be be near one another).  Likewise, it's worth those of us in the debate knowing how much possibility is there of either minor or major changes to the UI like the changes to the long and short term (short being "a couple years") of DF's development.

I realize it makes some people upset when I ask detailed questions, but to a certain extent, it feels like the forums are arguing over what is feasable or not with scraps of information.  A clear idea of what is or isn't feasable, and in what vague timeframe these things might happen would go a long way in helping shape the debate.

This probably would be a better DF Talk question than a question for here. Though I doubt Toady has much to tell us about it anyway.

[NW_Kohaku]

DF Talk is just not very viable as an option because apparently, the last session was just recently taped, and it's just waiting to be distributed, so who knows how long we'll have to wait (4-6 months?) before the next one comes along to answer this question...  I don't know about you, but I don't think many people are willing to suspend a discussion for a good chunk of a year waiting on the next DF Talk to come out.

Besides, I just don't listen to DF Talk, and its hard to read the transcripts because it's so rambling and often either vague or only tangentially addresses topics.  This thread provides much more direct and useful answers to questions.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

This probably would be a better DF Talk question than a question for here. Though I doubt Toady has much to tell us about it anyway.

eh, that seems to be a trend with nw_kohaku... it's a pity, though, he seems to really think things through, has really good sugestions and his questions are both pertinent and well elaborated, but for toady to answer them properly he'd probably have to waste as much time on his questions as he'd waste answering all the others...

i'd vote for toady to dedicate a df talk or another interview just to his questions and suggestions, not only to reward his dedication, but because his thoughts are actually interesting and pertinent... he does have a tendency to plug his own suggestion threads, but i usually don't mind it because i think they deserve some attention

[NW_Kohaku]

he does have a tendency to plug his own suggestion threads, but i usually don't mind it because i think they deserve some attention

Actually, I'm not sure how much that annoys people... I try to plug other people's too, when it's relevant, but I'm not as good at remembering the threads I didn't at least have some serious conversation in.  But I tend to scare people off with tl;dr, so "advertising" occasionally brings people into the conversation when I throw it in.  I have no real idea how much it annoys people when I do it, though...

I guess PM me about it if it annoys you and you want to say so, though, as this topic really doesn't belong in the FotF thread.