Show Section of Another Map when Selecting Counters on a Map

Is there a way to show a section of another map (ex. force display) when selecting counters on a map (ex. main game map)?

For example. The main game map has counters that represent groups of forces (force markers), while the forces represented by the force markers are placed on the force display map (for fog of war, decluttering main map, etc.) What I would like to do is have an option to show a zone on the force display map where the counters for that force display marker are located when either hovering over the force markers (a-la mouse-over stack viewer) or to have a menu item in the counter properties that can be selected to display the zone on the force display map for the force markers.

The purpose of this would be to make it easier determine what the composition of the force markers are without having to have the second force display map up on the screen and having to look back and forth between the two maps.

I think the best you can do (without writing custom Java code) is to add a Hotkey to Show Window to your Force display map, add one or more Move Camera buttons (couldn’t find a hyperlink, but it’s explained further down the same page as the Map documentation) to the Force display map, and give it/them Hotkey(s), and then add a Trigger Action to the pieces that sends a pair of Global Hotkeys, one to open the Force display map and one to trigger the appropriate Move Camera button. You can add another Trigger Action or Global Hotkey to allow the user to close the Force display map from the piece again, if you like.

Whether you add one Move Camera button or multiple buttons depends on where you want to perform the calculations to determine the correct location to move to–if you can figure out a BeanShell expression that will return the correct location “on the fly”, (if you have fixed Zones for each Force Marker or otherwise store the correct location in a Dynamic Property or Marker on the Force Marker, for example), you can get away with a single Move Camera button; otherwise, you might need multiple buttons, each with its own set of coordinates. Keep in mind that the Move Camera button can’t “see” any properties of the piece that triggered it, so you would also need to add a Set Global Property to the Trigger Action to copy the location information to a Global Property before triggering the Move Camera button, if you’re trying to use a single button.

Note that you can hide the Move Camera buttons (so they don’t clutter up the interface on the Force display map) by leaving their button text and button icons blank.

3 Likes

That’s a clever proposal, I will give it a try.

Thank you.