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[jfs]

One of the major headaches with managing dwarves with the in-game UI is finding that one dwarf again on the long lists.

I suggest adding some way to quickly and easily flag a dwarf for later attention, so he would be easy to find again.

As a usage example, when an immigration wave arrives, I might want to have some of the dwarves do civilian labour, and some join the militia. But as it is now, I have to re-enter the military screen for every dwarf that arrives, I want to enter into it.
If I could instead just push a key to flag dwarves as they arrive and then "process" them afterwards, I could save a lot of work, and the UI would be much more bearable to work with.

Of course, this would need two additional things: First, a way to filter all "pick a dwarf" lists on the flag, and second, a way to clear the flag from everyone.
It might also be handy to have a way to cycle between all flagged dwarves from the main screen, without having to constantly re-enter the (u)nits list.


As an extension, there could instead be groups of dwarves. Not necessarily groups that have any bearing on the simulation, simply groups for UI-convenience.
The game could then also create new groups for special occasions, such as "Spring 1052 immigration", or "1057 births". Of course, the player could remove those groups at will, e.g. when done handling them.


Update:
Apparently some people have a hard time seeing why this is not covered by Dwarf Therapist or setting a custom nickname or profession for dwarves.

• First, part of the main point of this suggestion is that third party software should not be required to enjoy the game. Every time you rely on an external program to do something in the game, it highlights a flaw of the game. (And furthermore, Dwarf Therapist doesn't allow you to set up militia, burrows, assign rooms, customise workshops, etc.)
  
• Second, the existing nickname/custom profession title option does not cover this because it does not affect the sorting order of the lists in the game and you cannot filter the lists on those. Also, it takes a relatively large amount of work to set up per dwarf. (Select dwarf, enter details screen, enter nickname/profession screen, select option, type in something, back out again, versus select dwarf, press single key, done.)

[MonkeyHead]

2 words: Dwarf Therapist. How come you havent run into it yet?

[frodo0800]

3 words DwarfTheRapist,toady should do something really.

[RAKninja]

2 words: Dwarf Therapist. How come you havent run into it yet?

not everyone wants to use a third party program.

[JohnieRWilkins]

Select dwarf in question, view creature, change profession name/give nickname. Problem solved.

[jfs]

2 words: Dwarf Therapist. How come you havent run into it yet?

The point is that third party programs should not be necessary.
I know Toady himself doesn't want his game to end up in a state where many people won't play a new release before a bunch of external tools outside his control are updated.
Hence, a suggestion for how to avoid that.

Select dwarf in question, view creature, change profession name/give nickname. Problem solved.

You consider that "quick and easy"? Also, I can't really filter on custom professions or nicknames in the lists, I still have to manually look through them to find the right dwarf.

[Bohandas]

I completely agree with the OP

[jfs]

To give an example of somewhere I've used this kind of workflow successfully:

A photo viewer I use occasionally lets me "flag" pictures. I can then choose to view just all flagged pictures and work with just those as a kind of temporary album.
This allows me to go through one or more existing collections, flag the pictures that look interesting from them, and have that "selection" be persistent, rather than the transience of a regular selection in a list. After that, I can go through the flagged pictures and maybe remove the flag from a few that aren't good enough anyway.
Eventually I have the collection of pictures I want, and I can then e.g. have them uploaded to a website as an album there or maybe apply a mass-edit of some other kind. When I'm done with that, I just tell the program to clear all flags and I'm instantly back to a fresh slate.

[zwei]

2 words: Dwarf Therapist. How come you havent run into it yet?

This does not help with everything:

1) I want to assign dwarf to room.
2) Or squad.
3) Or workshop profile.
4) Or as noble.

I each case, finding dwarf in list is a pain. Ability to "Flag" dwarf so that he would be on top of all lists would be great.

[Putnam]

(v)iew-->(z)Status-->(y)customize-->Customize (n)ickname/Customize (p)rofession name.

There you go.

[jfs]

(v)iew-->(z)Status-->(y)customize-->Customize (n)ickname/Customize (p)rofession name.

There you go.

Try reading the thread before repeating bad workarounds.

Setting a nickname/custom profession does not count because:
1. Dwarf lists are still sorted on the original profession name
2. You cannot filter lists on professions or names
3. It takes too much effort