5 ms·

It's got great shortcut usage going for it -- which makes me think of vim/emacs and the learning curves therein.

justinhj 4y ago
Yes this is what people miss. When you know the keys it’s a very efficient UI. You have to learn it and it’s not immediately accessible
- seanhunter 4y ago
  I don't really agree. In and of itself the existence of keystrokes doesn't make the UI efficient. There is still a ton of cognative dissonance and unnecessary friction in DF. Keystrokes that work in one place don't work (or worse, don't work the same way) in another, menu options that are very similar are ordered differently in different places etc. If you learn how to work one aspect of UI (say the millitary menus) you can't transfer that knowledge to working another (say the minecart UX) most of the time. Except sometimes you can, which makes it even more confusing.
- avereveard 4y ago
  And of you don't know the keys the mnemonics are all there on display. My real gripe with the UI is that it exists in different state of growth, so hospitals are zones but dorms are rooms; I can guess why hospitals were crammed there, likely because the hospital has a stockpile of items and the room menu didn't have the code for that while zones, which handle stockpile, did, but still.
  - db48x 4y ago
    Apparently rooms, zones, and locations have been reunified in the forthcoming release. But yea, since all (well, most) of the keys you can press are shown on the screen when you need them, learning them should not be very difficult. Getting fast and fluid with them takes some practice, but a lot less practice than the violin or piano.
    - avereveard 4y ago
      Yeah I've been following the blog and apparently it's shaping up great
- initplus 4y ago
  Learning all the shortcuts isn't really the challenging part of learning DF, the underlying mechanics are often just as baffling. For example the distinction between "Rooms", "Zones", "Stockpiles" and "Locations" which are all just variations on "area marked for some purpose" but that all exist as their own independent concepts and are specified in different ways.
Agentlien 4y ago
I'm not sure how great it is. I've learned most of them by heart and it really allows you to do things smoothly, but there are some serious issues in the choice of shortcuts. It is inconsistent and oftentimes the grouping of actions makes little sense.
- hoseja 4y ago
  "smoothly"... Last time I played it, no amount of keyboard jockeying made trading less tedious.
- coryfklein 4y ago
  I always thought the hjkl movement for constructing walls and floors was very cool and vim-esque. But then the fact that you can't build a wall with more than 10 segments at a time ended up being one of the most trying aspects of the game for me, where I loved focusing on building a 3-tier outer castle wall with fortifications on the outside with steps going up and down on the inside and my army patrolling along it's border.

Yes this is what people miss. When you know the keys it’s a very efficient UI. You have to learn it and it’s not immediately accessible

seanhunter 4y ago
I don't really agree. In and of itself the existence of keystrokes doesn't make the UI efficient. There is still a ton of cognative dissonance and unnecessary friction in DF. Keystrokes that work in one place don't work (or worse, don't work the same way) in another, menu options that are very similar are ordered differently in different places etc. If you learn how to work one aspect of UI (say the millitary menus) you can't transfer that knowledge to working another (say the minecart UX) most of the time. Except sometimes you can, which makes it even more confusing.
avereveard 4y ago
And of you don't know the keys the mnemonics are all there on display. My real gripe with the UI is that it exists in different state of growth, so hospitals are zones but dorms are rooms; I can guess why hospitals were crammed there, likely because the hospital has a stockpile of items and the room menu didn't have the code for that while zones, which handle stockpile, did, but still.
- db48x 4y ago
  Apparently rooms, zones, and locations have been reunified in the forthcoming release. But yea, since all (well, most) of the keys you can press are shown on the screen when you need them, learning them should not be very difficult. Getting fast and fluid with them takes some practice, but a lot less practice than the violin or piano.
  - avereveard 4y ago
    Yeah I've been following the blog and apparently it's shaping up great
initplus 4y ago
Learning all the shortcuts isn't really the challenging part of learning DF, the underlying mechanics are often just as baffling. For example the distinction between "Rooms", "Zones", "Stockpiles" and "Locations" which are all just variations on "area marked for some purpose" but that all exist as their own independent concepts and are specified in different ways.

Agentlien 4y ago

I'm not sure how great it is. I've learned most of them by heart and it really allows you to do things smoothly, but there are some serious issues in the choice of shortcuts. It is inconsistent and oftentimes the grouping of actions makes little sense.

hoseja 4y ago
"smoothly"... Last time I played it, no amount of keyboard jockeying made trading less tedious.
coryfklein 4y ago
I always thought the hjkl movement for constructing walls and floors was very cool and vim-esque. But then the fact that you can't build a wall with more than 10 segments at a time ended up being one of the most trying aspects of the game for me, where I loved focusing on building a 3-tier outer castle wall with fortifications on the outside with steps going up and down on the inside and my army patrolling along it's border.