several problems with GamePieceImages

Try slightly larger size and/or adding Bold and/or different font. Some fonts do not render very well at smaller sizes.

Using the standard ‘Dialog’ font, I find you need to use Bold for sizes 12 or 14 to get a decent thickness to the letters. Size 10 or smaller does not render well.

Regards,
B.


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Thanks.

Brent,

OT but related,

Although its not likely to happen anytime soon I still think font
independence is a feature that will benefit GPI’s and have the font file
embed/saved within the module when used and automatically read when called
so all users see the same thing

It is probably out of the scope of current progress but I liken this to the
same idea as reading mp3 or wav within engine. Doable or more elaborate to
handle?

Tim

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Tim,

Font independence is already built into GamePieceImages. The GPI’s are created once on the module designers machine and saved into the module using the fonts on the designers machine. The images created are then distributed with the module and are not recreated on the users machines.

Various changes and bugs seem to have broken this and is one of the problems I am working on now.

I do not believe that distributing a font with a module that is guaranteed to work on every OS that Vassal may run on is an achievable goal.

B.


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Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

I’d like to see the module being talked about here—it might not be
a problem with the fonts, but with how we’re rendering them.

If you need something which is very readable at extremely small sizes,
I’d recommend the Artwiz fonts, which you can get here:

artwizaleczapka.sourceforge.net/

Many of these are legible as small as 5pt.


J.


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Thus spake “Tim McCaron”:

This is something I’d already been planning, because SVG would beneift
from it also.


J.


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Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

I think Tim means something different from what you mean by “font
independence”. You’re saying that GPIs render regardless of what fonts are
available (true), but what’s Tim’s asking for is that GPIs render the same
way regardless of what fonts are available.

It should be. TrueType fonts (and possibly Type 1 fonts also) are usable on
every platform we support.


J.


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easy enough, it’s available for download on the modules section, it’s the ‘Operation felix’ one.

Hi Joel,

I think I have this sorted out now in swampwallaby-work@4162.

I rearranged and simplified the way the GPI configurer works. It could probably be more efficient, but it’s only Edit mode, so there is no real problem. In play mode it is as efficient as can be.

I had to make a change to ArchiveWriter also to fix a new bug I found. If you change the name of a Game Piece Image, then the old image is deleted and a new one created with the new name. However, ArchiveWriter did not actually support deletion of existing images, only images that had been added to the Archive this editing session, but not yet written. If you changed the name of a GPI that was created in an earlier editing session, the old named image was not being deleted from the module.

This should fix:

  • Changing the Item dialogs updates the dialog image immediately.
  • Changed images are correctly saved to the module.
  • Changed images update correctly in any open game palette or game.
  • Renamed images should no longer be left in the module.
  • Images are never rebuilt when a module is opened in Play mode only.

B.

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On 28/09/2008 at 7:33 PM Joel Uckelman wrote:


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Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

I’ve picked these up in trunk@4167,4168.

BTW, the problem I’m seeing with dialogs repainting is still open.


J.


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Joel,

Strangely, you’re the only person who has ever reported this. I have never seen or been able to reproduce this problem. I have no problem at all with the layout - it is repacked whenever any control is touched.

Do you get this is the Layout dialog, or in the Game Piece Image dialog, or both? What module are you using to test?

B.


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Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

This happens in every module I’ve tried (including new modules) with the
Font Styles and Game Piece Layout dialogs, but not the Game Piece Image
dialog (though the Game Piece Image dialog flickers when the item selection
is changed).


J.


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Thus spake “Brent Easton”:

I believe this is an OpenJDK bug, because it doesn’t do this when I use
1.6.0_07-b06, but does with 1.6.0-b09. I’d like to submit a bug report,
but I haven’t been able to construct a test case which exhibits the problem,
despite that going to the “Default” font dialog under Game Piece Images
and toggling “Outline” on and off again does it every time.


J.


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