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[ArPharazon]

The Dwarf Fortress interface has always been the kind that... Uh... Chooses to reward tenacity rather than be straightforward, shall we say. Back when the production chains were young and lean, I guess it had a sort of brilliance to its chaotic, ad-hoc clutter. As new materials and industries have been added, it feels like it's collapsing under its own weight.

This is meant to be a list of simple, (apparently) easy to implement fixes for the interface, which would make the game much less frustrating to play. In other words, low-hanging fruit. I won't try to go into any big changes, since those have been discussed at length. I'll also avoid certain obvious things, such as complaining about the labor interface: Yeah, it sucks. But now that we have Dwarf Therapis (thank Armok), who cares?

Fix the stockpiles:

Spoiler: The problem (click to show/hide)

The stockpiles just cannot handle things efficiently. Firstly, the presets are already becoming meaningless: Why would seeds, dimple cups, meat and alcohol go in the same place, ever? They have practically nothing to do with each other. You could argue some crazy stuff about centralized food clusters but guess what, seeds and fertilizer have far more in common than meat and seeds no matter which way you put it.

• Fix the presets:
  Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  One of the most helpful ideas for managing stockpiles efficiently is the list of presets. Unfortunately, currently the presets are almost useless in the sense that the only time I can define a preset and not have to then manually adjust its settings is when I define a wood stockpile. A very simple and effective improvement would be letting the user add their own named stockpile presets. These presets should be somewhere in the ini files, to allow for easy editing and sharing with the community. Each preset's hotkey can probably go a, b, c like in the military menu (the one for giving commands).
  
  This suggestion is a simpler version, but if we could just specify our own presets, it would be far less painful to resize stockpiles already. A resize option would still be helpful.
  Overlaps with Interface Improvements II (7. Saner stockpiles) on the eternal suggestions list.
• String filter for specifying stockpile settings:
  Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  By now it's gotten to the point where we have two dimensions of items (item type and item material) and each dimension is so populous that it needs at least two levels to conveniently navigate it (finished goods -> totems, metals -> iron) due to the many possibilities. We can't make a 2D grid thing for every material/item combination. So what then? Just ditch the categories altogether.
  
  We would have three column in the stockpile settings screen, as before. The 1st column is a set of regexes/text filters to include, 2nd column is a list of filters to exclude, and 3rd column is a list of all the items in your fortress matching these in order of quantity. For instance, with "copper weapon" and "iron weapon" (yes, you need some clever wildcards like "weapon") in 1st column, then "axe" in second column, you will see all the copper crossbows, hammers, swords, everything which is defined as a weapon, has copper in the name, but doesn't have axe.
  
  Exactly how these wildcards work would be a crucial factor in the usefulness of such a system. Therefore, they should be exposed. One way to do it would be to add tags such as [STOCKPILE_FOOD] or [STOCKPILE_WEAPON], and have the wildcards match those. With this method, a separate file could also define what string the wildcard is called by: [STOCKPILE_MELEE_WPN:melee weapon] for instance. The file could also define basic hierarchy for which tags include which ([STOCKPILE_AXE] should appear under [STOCKPILE_WEAPON]). Tags should be on either dimension: I should be able to tag something [STOCKPILE_PROCESSED_REMAINS] or [STOCKPILE_WHITE_STONE] or [STOCKPILE_PRECIOUS_METAL], to then define a stockpile only for melee made of precious metals.
  
  Another way would be to simply use the already existing RAW tags, but I don't know much about modding, so I'm not sure how applicable that would be. If it can be done, though, it would make things a lot easier.
  
  In either case, crucially, the third column should show results as you type, just like the job manager -> new job screen does.
• Better containers:
  Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  I'm not sure if this can be modded (if it can, it should be a mod rather than suggestion), but we need universal bins. Call them crates, make them cost 10 logs to produce, anything, but we need them. Whatever Toady was thinking when he made bins not accept stone, he was wrong. The whole quantum stockpile fad is both unavoidable and absolutely ridiculous at this point, this could be solved if stones (and everything) stacked better. Inb4 realism: Hey, same rock makes one mug or one wall already. Deal with it.
  
  Also, perhaps we can have bins hold 5000 feathers but 5 crossbows (items already have volume so it would be nice to use that)? Or alternatively, just have many specialized containers (either feather box, weapon case and so on or just large bin, small bin etc.) for every item size class, and then have small bins go in large bins? Can the game currently handle containers in containers?
  
  While we're here: Currently, the bin's weight includes the weight of its contents. How does this work in the code? Is it possible to have a bin which weighs its own weight, plus the combined weight of its contents divided by 10? Because if you have that, you have a wheelbarrow.
  
  Note that being able to carry crates full of stone is optional: Just being able to stack the literal mountains of stone that inevitable accumulate in a reasonable manner would be enough. (but it would be nice if dwarfs did not attempt carrying containers above a certain weight)
  
  This suggestion is a less general (I think) version of a small part the improved hauling suggestion.

Trade:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The interface is bananas: First, I should be able to ask the liasion for "whatever I ordered last year". Ideally, I would save preset orders and select those. Second, there must be some kind of mark all of this type/just mark all function. Perhaps a stocks-like thing where you toggle between listing individual items and grouping items of the same name?

Besides that, there are some things the trade interface does right (search by name support) and some that the stockpile interface does right (don't list every item, marking whole categories). Both of these serve the same function: Selecting groups of items. I don't see why they shouldn't use the same interface, which has the good parts of either. And some other things too, like ordering all items with "*sock*" in name to be brought to the depot, and then ordering all items with "*sock*" in name to be marked for sale. If the above stockpile string filter suggestion is implemented, the same interface can be used for requesting trade goods (3rd column would show a list of matching entries, then you go there and increase/decrease premium), marking goods to be brought to the depot and for actual bartering (Tab can switch between the screen for selecting which goods to offer and which to demand).

Stocks:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Either needs to have another layer of organisation, like the current stockpiles, or should be sorted alphabetically. Yes, some people may complain that they already learned the current order- I'm sure learning an alphabetical order won't be too much work for them. As for the rest of us, not having to blindly grope in the dark every time we need to know how much food we have would be a big improvement.

Again, if the string filter system is implemented, the stocks screen should use that. That way, I can go to stocks, type "prep foo" and see all my food, or type "iron narrow" and mark all my goblinite for melting, and so on.

Unrelated, but there's also the problem of the stocks screen lagging when there are large numbers of items in a category, especially stones, seeds and threads (thousands of webs in caves). It seems like there should be some simple way of fixing this. With a string filter, the problem would probably be crippling, so it certainly has to be dealt with.

Footkerchief has a suggestion which would be resolved by this.
There is a suggestion for "Tabbed Filters and string search for all selection screens (stocks, units, etc)" which appears similar.
Way at the bottom of the eternal suggestions list, there is the "alphabatized stock/request list" which puzzlingly received 0 votes.

Workshops:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

First, they need to have a "take from stockpile" option. This will look just like the stockpile's similarly named command: Each workshop can have one or more "source" stockpiles. If none are defined, the workshop works as it does now. If any are defined, the workshop uses materials ONLY from that pile.

Although it becomes less of an issue if stockpiles can be specified for each workshop, we also need much better material support: First, rock types should be distinguishable. I should be able to order microcline tables. I should also be able to order rock tables (using the same wildcards as stockpiles, perhaps?). Same goes for the job manager ("make some boots out of metal, I don't care what metal, use any metal" - this will be invaluable once we can specify rock type). Crucially, it should be possible to specify color of the object! (not the actual color (specified by the color tokens), but the displayed color of the tile) I should be able to order 5 tables made from whatever greenish rock I have.

Also, there should be a toggle somewhere which switches workshops and the order manager to show only those orders which you can currently execute, ie for which a workshop is present, materials are present, and a dwarf with appropriate labors enabled exists. Perhaps there can also be a number, and when you set that number to 5, you will only see the door option if you have enough to make 5 doors.

Related: When giving orders, the workshop and manager screens both should indicate how many materials are present. When ordering 7 wooden doors, it should remind me how much wood I have. For workshops with defined stockpiles, it should count only the materials in those stockpiles.

Jobs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dwarfs should never suspend constructions. Dwarfs should never cancel workshop orders, they should at most suspend (I've never seen a dwarf suspend workshop orders). This is a headache when dealing with large projects ("17 of the 121 coffins you want placed are now suspended, have fun figuring out which ones!"), and their judgement is terrible anyway. It does more harm than good.

Is issuing jobs directly to dwarfs feasible? It could be very helpful if I could select a dwarf, and say, "you find a workshop now and make some bone bolts". Perhaps it can be like a player-induced strange mood (of course they would stop if they get hungry and so on)? It's possible to do this already through roundabout ways, but, well, they're roundabout.

Announcements:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The option to change job cancel announcement frequency is nice, but not enough. Cancelling due to interruption by carp, interruption by goblin maceman, due to item misplaced, due to not enough iron bars to make the weapon ordered, and due to injury are absolutely not the same, but the options menu acts as if they are.

Announcements which need a zoom-to option:

• Urist has created a masterpiece.
• Urist has become a recruit.
• The dwarfs have suspended construction of Wall. (they shouldn't suspend at all though. Perhaps there can be an "allow dwarfs to suspend" option?)

Also, when a dwarf tantrums, the announcement should say what was the last unhappy thought that pushed them over the edge.

Autopause:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is another old nasty. Autopausing on damp and/or warm stone, where are the toggles for these? Migrants, births, vein discovery, death, the various stages of caravans (arrival, unloading, finished unloading, loading, "leaving soon"), these should all have their own toggles for pause. They should each have a toggle for automatically zooming to the event as well.

Building:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When building things under b-c (walls, floors, stairs), there should be no validation. Currently the game tries to prevent you from ordering impossible constructions (floors hanging in mid-air, walls on isolated islands with no access to materials), but it isn't very good at detecting them and there are many false positives and false negatives.

It also checks which materials are reachable, and this is nice, but only when it works correctly. Suppose I want to lay down a blueprint for a bridge to a small island, and then some walls on the island. I have to wait for the bridge to be finished before ordering the walls. Why? By the time those wall blueprints are reachable, the bridge will be finished anyway. There is no need to check for which materials are reachable- if I pick something unreachable, the dwarfs will simply spam target unreachable cancels anyway (and if announcements are fixed, I would be able to filter out this specific message if it bothers me).

This overlaps with Interface Improvements II (5. Building planning) on the eternal suggestions list.

If you think there is anything that should be added, or removed, please let me know. Also, I'm not always the best at explaining things, so if you'd like to suggest rewriting any sections, feel free to say so.

[Babylon]

To add to the jobs thing,  stockpiling and storing owned items SHOULD be suspended in the way that constructions currently are.  That would take care of store owned item and stockpile item inacccessable spam.  it would be better if we could see what item they are trying to store, but suspension would be better than the current situation.

[ArPharazon]

That reminds me: There are certain common announcements, especially job cancels, which should be zoomable to but aren't. Examples are:
- Urist has created a masterpiece.
- Urist has become a recruit.

[Silverionmox]

That reminds me: There are certain common announcements, especially job cancels, which should be zoomable to but aren't. Examples are:
- Urist has created a masterpiece.
- Urist has become a recruit.

In addition, the various stages of caravan presence aren't all available to pause the game upon. Especially the one where "the caravan from ... is leaving soon" would be very useful if you let DF run in the background.

[bombzero]

Nice to see someone complain about the interface, then provide multiple realistically implementable fixes.

[ArPharazon]

I organized things a bit and added a few minor things, as well as Silverionmox's suggestion.

To add to the jobs thing,  stockpiling and storing owned items SHOULD be suspended in the way that constructions currently are.  That would take care of store owned item and stockpile item inacccessable spam.  it would be better if we could see what item they are trying to store, but suspension would be better than the current situation.

I somewhat agree with this, but I'm not sure how to phrase the actual suggestion. Firstly, there's already a way to do this- forbid items. Yes, it is a very impractical way. For being able to see, I guess that job cancel should have a zoom-to option if it doesn't already, and it should zoom to the item not the dwarf.

In general, if we could just suppress inaccessible item announcements, would this still be a problem?

[Babylon]

I organized things a bit and added a few minor things, as well as Silverionmox's suggestion.

To add to the jobs thing,  stockpiling and storing owned items SHOULD be suspended in the way that constructions currently are.  That would take care of store owned item and stockpile item inacccessable spam.  it would be better if we could see what item they are trying to store, but suspension would be better than the current situation.

I somewhat agree with this, but I'm not sure how to phrase the actual suggestion. Firstly, there's already a way to do this- forbid items. Yes, it is a very impractical way. For being able to see, I guess that job cancel should have a zoom-to option if it doesn't already, and it should zoom to the item not the dwarf.

In general, if we could just suppress inaccessible item announcements, would this still be a problem?

It would if the dwarves are spending all their time starting and then suspending hauling jobs.  Being able to zoom to the item would fix it, that is something that is not currently possible.

[Snaake]

Bump because I agree, this is relatively fresh and still relevant (workshops taking from stockpiles has been added at least), and I have a couple of additions. There's some even older threads of course...

To reiterate:

- Stocks screen needs to be searchable, similarly to manager orders/as detailed above
- Some larger categories for stocks screen would be useful (so eg. show number of socks, not all by type; goblinite clothing clutters up the stocks screen to no extent).

New stuff which I don't think was mentioned, regarding managing animals
- Being able to view caged/pastured status in the status-animals screen, not just in units-pets/livestock (and adding pastured status there could be useful as well)
- Adding animal gender indicator to units list, why not also the v- and k-looking commands, not just animals screen. At the very least, the unit lists' zooming (c) and (v)iew animal commands to the animals screen. Would make sorting various animals by gender and eg. description (breeding for gigantic, very fat and very muscular animals?) much easier.
- frankly, combining the better parts of the unit list for pets/livestock and the animals screen, and using the same interface could work.

New stuff *specifically related to the new enlarged menus (in some screens) for larger resolutions (I play with 1920x1080 ):
- The new screens are annoying to scroll through, since one pageful can have literally dozens of entries, so pgup/pgdown or */ scroll too much. Add a new "scroll down 10 places" option, or something similar. Preferably shift+arrow (or +-), for similarity to the shift+arrow cursor movement with designations etc.
- Better mouse control could also help here.
- military schedules screen's modification to support larger resolutions should also include horizontal resolution, so you can see more than 3 squads' schedules at once with large enough resolution & appropriate zoom.

About the last section, I recall some people stating in the facepalm thread in dwarf mode discussion, that they could use the mouse in some screens (stocks iirc), where it doesn't work for me. Any settings that help, or has it changed in versions since?

Also, the "scroll 10 places" might in theory be doable as a macro or even keybind, but I haven't delved into either of those at all yet. Any advice on a workaround? I think one big issue is that it should preferably work with a variety of screens (stocks, unit lists, jobs, manager... and everything else that gets support for larger resolutions, eventually).

[GreatWyrmGold]

Most of the suggested stuff would be useful. I don't think all of it is needed, but meh. I'll focus my energy on the one I don't agree with.

"Dwarves should never suspend constructions."
How do you say "Hell, no!" in Dwarvish?
See, if a dwarf suspends a construction, there's ALWAYS a reason. It might be a stupid reason (Oh, no! A groundhog!), it might be a good reason (Oh, no! A goblin! ; Oh, no! Water!), it might be an annoying-but-needed reason (Oh, stupid cat!), but there is ALWAYS a reason. If dwarves didn't suspend buildings they couldn't work on, they'd keep trying to build it and failing, until you realised there was a problem and fixed it. That sounds like more work than...what, exactly? Having to occasionally go q-s when you're trying to wall off part of an aquifer? That's sort of a gamey aquifer-piercng method anyways. Having to unsuspend when there's a cat on the wall? Better than having the dwarf spam you with "I can't build the wall, there's a cat there!" announcements. And so forth.
And how do you tell which 17 coffins are suspended? Let the dwarvs haul the other hunderd in, then see which ones aren't there yet!