Sometime between 3.0.0 and 3.0.13, I reworked the way that overview maps are
displayed. Before, they were displayed within independent windows which we
tried hard to keep in position over the upper-left corner of their parent
map, so that the user couldn’t tell they weren’t being drawn within the
main app window. This led to various oddities, like overview maps not
minimizing with the rest of VASSAL.
The way that overview maps are handled now is that they sit in a LayeredPane
on top of the parent map. The LayeredPane acts like a HUD. The upshot of this
is that the machinery you’d need to have other map overlays—like an area
which pops up to display dice rolls—already exists, though it’s all burried
inside the Map class at the moment.
Yes, I think C is the best in the end. I’m thinking that the
functional implementation would be an addition option to the symbolic
dice widget for “Display on a map”. Enabling this option would allow
you to pick a map, and enter coordinates on that map. Then whenever
rolls were done by that dice widget, it would clear out those
coordinates, and draw the roll results. Other dice could use the same
area, etc. This would allow a module to put the dice results in a
separate map window and let players choose whether its displayed or
not.
Sounds like the map overview is probably a good example.
I’m still waiting to see what magic Tim can come up with. I think I
see what he’s trying to say, but I think that direction might not
allow for a consolidated result message to be displayed in the message
window. But I’ll wait to see.
I’ve promised module development to several people, so if its easy
enough to accomplish without the java coding I’ll probably go that
route first just to some people to stop hounding me.