Editing unit label text size

Module Discussion
1

This is a question for users and module designers.

One module I play is the ECW game For King & Parliament and I have a problem with the amount of space available for unit information text.

For every unit and commander there are two lines where you can add or change text. For a commander, it’s “right click” and the screen menu gives you Generals name line 1 and line 2. For a unit, the “right click” screen menu is unit name line 1 and line 2. With current text size on screen I’m limited as to how much information I can put one a unit before text line lengths expand into adjacent map boxes and overlap text on those units.

My question is how do I use module edit facilities so I can reduce the size and font of any text appearing on screen ?.

Thanks for any help received that points me in the right direction.

2

Do you mean the module For King and Parliament? Please remember to give a link to the project page when reporting on a specific module or project. That really helps others see and understand what you are talking about, and thus better help you.

In the prototype Text Label traits.

  • Remove the Menu command
  • Remove the Key command

For the specific Text Label traits some specific changes need to be done. Let us take the first line of the unit name. In that Text Label traits do

  • Change the Label text to
     {GetString("UnitName1").substring(0,Math.min(UnitName1.length(),10))}
    (this ensures that only 10 characters are shown. Adjust as needed).
  • Change the Property name to UnitName1_Value
    Do the same for the other Text Label but use a piece unique property name (e.g., UnitName2 for the second line of the unit name).

For each Text Label in the piece prototypes (using UnitName1 above as an example)

  • add a Dynamic Property trait:
    • Property name: UnitName1
    • Add a key command (press the :plus: sign)
      • Menu command: Set unit name
      • Key command: Ctrl-L
      • Type: Prompt user
      • Prompt: Input unit name (max 10 characters)
        (adjust the above prompt to the number of characters you will display).

(perhaps you want a shared prototype - say Named - that is included in both the Unit and General prototypes - that only has these traits).

The logic is as follows:

  • The Text Label takes the string value (GetString) of a property (for example, UnitName1), and then chops it to be no longer than 10 characters long (adjust as you see fit).
  • The Dynamic Property traits allows users to set the property (say UnitName1) to some value, warning the user to not exceed 10 characters (adjust as you see fit). Note, the limit on the number of characters is not enforced, and the property will have what ever value the user gave it, but only the selected number of characters will be shown underneath the piece.

If you make these changes and upload to the Game library, remember to set the module version according to the semantic versioning standard: major.minor.patch . You may need to contact the current owner @Edwin11 (click the user name and then the big blue Message button) to add you as an owner so that you may upload to the project.

Yours,
Christian

3

Christian,

Many thanks for the help, I found what I needed to do from following your pointers. Managed to go into Prototype Unit Traits and edit the text size number in the box so Unit information appeared smaller on screen. I also made the text Bold Face so they can be read more easily.

I saved the edited version and opened it to see how the changes look and everything is much better for my personal tastes.

I’ll take your advice and contact Edwin to see if he’d allow me to have my edited version included on the Vassal module page.

Again many thanks for your help,

Steve Rowe