I mooted the idea (Discord link) to help in the creation of predefined setups, for which the <observer> mode is primarily used by some modules (any Predefined setup should normally be saved from <observer> role, so this change avoids unnecessary side switching). You can see an example of this in the development C&C Nap module, recently announced.
The key is that this is only allowed if no Sides are taken. Once a Side is taken, Scenario Options should be locked against observers as you require. This means that the time-window for <observer> to amend Scenario Options should be limited to when a game is not yet joined to by a player role and that is largely under control of the person who creates the game.
I post here because i have see now exist a ZOC function interesting but a suggestion she can to be modified bcs sometimes units donāt have a ZOC beyond a major river by hex possible ?
Or have function for supply line.
Thank you.
Could you please give the build VASSAL-3.7.0-beta5-3537766-Console from Builds of vassalengine/vassal a try and let me know what you think? (About the font in the Beanshell expression window).
After looks more pleasing to my eye. The font appears to have less weight but apart from the zero (which looks more modern) and the inter-character spacing being slightly more readable, I donāt notice much difference (same font family ?). So one vote from this Mac user for the change.
I generally prefer typefaces with serifs to those without. However, my biggest concern is distinguishing similarly looking characters. For example in some typefaces at least two of these: the lowercase āLā, the uppercase āIā, and the numeral ā1ā, look alike.
The actual font I am using is an open source font called Jet Brains Monospaced that is used in the Intellij IDE. The fact it is similar to what you have already is coincidence, you have a much better default monospaced font than I do.
My results on Windows below. The v3.7 monospaced (the ābeforeā) can potentially be different on every different system, even with the same OS. It depends on what fonts are installed on the system.
For a laugh, I changed the default Swing font to the same JetBrains font. It actually looks really good!(You can see a little in the bottom panel) But this may blow anyones carefully crafted button sizing using the existing fonts
The Jet Brains Mono font has been specifically designed for maximum readability. Itās not a serif font, but it has sufficient differentiation in the shapes to make it very obvious:
The top viewāthe font on Windowsāis so hard to visually parse when it comes to parens and brackets in complicated expressions. The fixed width is immensely superior.
I donāt know if itās possible but perhaps it would be nice if this improvement could be applied to extend the (what I assume are) universal font options for the Text Label.
Also, would any such additional font(s) be available to use in html font settings ?
I have found it tricky, as anyone else might imagine, to produce text that is both appealing and consistent across platforms.
A somewhat more serious suggestion:
Consider leveraging existing Section 508 guidance. For instance the below linked document recommends Times New Roman, Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, and Calibri.
I came across a similar set of recommendations when I was trying to resolve cross-platform issues causing differences in this Mouse-Over display (shown here, as designed on a Mac)ā¦
To get this to display reasonably similar on Mac, Windows and Linux, particularly for line spacing, I tried all those recommendations. I ended up specifying a font order as follows: Times New Roman, Garamond, Tahoma, Arial Unicode MS, San-Serif
I think it works now, but I canāt be sure as I only have MacOS to test on directly.
Yes, I can make additional fonts from āIn Vassalā available as available fonts to use in the Text Label drop-down, and they should theoretically become available for use in HTML fragments after I read and register them with Vassal during startup.
āIn Vassalā can mean two things. I can add a new Fonts component and allow you to load TrueType and OpenType fonts into your module.
As with the Jet Brains Mono font, I can also load fonts into the Vassal Vengine.jar and have them available across all of Vassal where a font can be selected.
Presuming we can find suitable licenced true/opentype versions of fonts, do we want a selection of common fonts included with Vassal? Although that leads down a Rabbit hole of what to include and what not to include. A āFontā is really a āFont Familyā which may include many different individual font files to cover bold, italic, bold italic, narrow, etc. etc.This starts to bloat out the Vassal run-time.
Perhaps better to maintain a curated set of suitably licenced font files on the Vassal site as assets that can be downloaded and included into modules as needed?
In my experience, even distributing TT fonts with Vassal or the Module, there is still no guarantee of pixel perfect composition across platforms. Although that was many years ago, maybe things have changed?
Bearing in mind your warning about bloating, this sounds like safer, and more extensible, approach. Especially considering that any module designers venturing into this area will probably be doing so consciously.
The current Vassal seems (to me) to offer very limited choice (thinking of the Text Label trait here), so if it is possible to extend that with one or two much improved / āobviousā font-families, then maybe do that if it doesnāt cause unacceptable bloat. Otherwise, and for more than that, the include-in-module approach.
Turns out this is a bit of a minefield. When you buy a PC you also buy the right to use any of the fonts distributed with the OS in any works you produce.
You do not have the right to package one of those fonts in a piece of work and distribute it to someone else.
So, we cannot include licensed fonts in Vassal, nor technically, can a designer include those in a module. You can only include a reference to that font so that another user can use their licensed copy of the font on their system. If they have it!
All those sites offering free download of Arial and Times New Roman are only offering illegally copied versions of those fonts with no right to use them.
Any fonts included in Vassal, or supplied on the website would need to be appropriately free licenced fonts that are similar to the common commercial fonts. There are a lot of these to choose from. The curation aspect would mean choosing the best Arial look-alike, the best TMR look-alike etc.
Of course, once the facility to load fonts into modules exists, I have no control over what designers do with it.
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