FREQ: setMapVisible() and renameMap()

[Full Bleed]

I would love to be able to set Map Visibility and Rename a Map with a function.


I think setMapVision() and setMapFow() might be nice, too. But I'm most interested in visibility and renaming.

[Lee]

It shouldn't be too hard; though it's unlikely to make it into b90.

[Full Bleed]

It shouldn't be too hard; though it's unlikely to make it into b90.

If we can't get these function in any time soon, would a patch for one (or both) of the following things be in the cards (in order of importance):

1) Hide the "Map Invisible to Players" warning.

2) Hide the Map Change Icon in the upper right hand corner.


As noted in another thread, I've been running two campaigns from the same campaign file (one Greyhawk and the other Golarion). Maintaining changes to the frameworks across two campaign files is a nightmare so I had to start running them from the same file. But the different worlds and groups makes managing what maps each can see a pain in the buttocks, so I've built a map-switching macros that:

a) Checks a player's name to see which campaign they are a part of.
b) Checks the prefix of the map name (GH- or GO-) to see if a map is available to that player's campaign.
c) Checks the suffix of the map name (-H or none) to see if the map is truly visible to that player.

Once I have the above information I can generate a list of maps they can switch to instead of having to use the the built-in map selection method that simply does not allows for these things. It also gives me the chance to call some other actions (like notifying me of what maps they are currently on and adjusting character sheets, etc.).

But some problems are that:

a) The way we have to change map names in MT is really tedious (it doesn't even default to the current name on a rename, you have to retype the entire thing). With a rename function I could easily make a map hidden or tag it to a specific world using my map switcher without having to constantly use the manual rename.
b) When players are on a map that isn't visible in the in-game map selection they have that ugly warning about "Map Not Visible to Players" at the top of the screen even though the maps clearly is. If I frame this as a bug can we get a patch to remove the warning without losing the functionality of being able to send them to "invisible" maps? Even making it so that the warning ONLY shows to GM's would be better than we have right now. Players don't need to see it.
c) So long as the Map Selection icon is on the screen, some players will use it instead of the better macro map switching. Being able to disable the in-game map selection would make the interface much more intuitive.

[Lee]

Again, these sound reasonable and shouldn't be hard to implement, but, also again, this will probably not be included in b90. I'll keep you posted

[Full Bleed]

I would love to be able to set Map Visibility and Rename a Map with a function.


I think setMapVision() and setMapFow() might be nice, too. But I'm most interested in visibility and renaming.

Shamelessly bumping this feature request since I see feature posts going up in the 1.4 forum.

I really doubt adding these functions would be all that difficult.


And I'd still like to have a Global "Lock Player Movement" Preference: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=24636

[wolph42]

ah yes, we have this forum as well. hmm now I'm wondering whether I should move the features threads from 1.4 to here or this one to there or wait for an admin to create some structure where it can go...

[Full Bleed]

hmm now I'm wondering whether I should move the features threads from 1.4 to here or this one to there

Depends on the purpose of the threads. Only Devs and Contributors can participate in the current 1.4 threads you've created.

If putting them there means they'll get better Dev attention, then leave them there. But you might want to take a look in the general feature request forum and migrate some things over there that are 1.4 feasible so they get some attention, too.

[JamzTheMan]

I'm pretty much watching all the new posts, but it could get buried after a while. At the very least, just throw a link to this topic over in the Feature list topic RPT created if it's not already.

And yes, I would have to guess this is a quick hit.

[Full Bleed]

I'm pretty much watching all the new posts, but it could get buried after a while. At the very least, just throw a link to this topic over in the Feature list topic RPT created if it's not already.

And yes, I would have to guess this is a quick hit.

Not sure what thread you're talking about. The "Functional Direction and Assignments" thread is also in the read-only Dev/Contributor 1.4 forum.

[JamzTheMan]

I'm pretty much watching all the new posts, but it could get buried after a while. At the very least, just throw a link to this topic over in the Feature list topic RPT created if it's not already.

And yes, I would have to guess this is a quick hit.

Not sure what thread you're talking about. The "Functional Direction and Assignments" thread is also in the read-only Dev/Contributor 1.4 forum.

Ya, that's the one, and sorry, meant to note for one of the Mods to link it...

[RPTroll]

I'll add it. You can also drop me a PM to get something on the list.

[Edit]
added.

[d4rkAlf]

Hey! I intend to start work on these features. For starters I'm going to focus on the renaming aspect of it.

Is there a specific reason as to why you want a macro function to rename the map? Would it be better to instead focus on improving the workflow of map renaming? For example you mention in a previous post that the Map>Rename... dialogue doesn't default to whatever the current map name is so I've added that piece of functionality. It would also be possible to add a keyboard shortcut and maybe other things.

[Full Bleed]

Hey! I intend to start work on these features. For starters I'm going to focus on the renaming aspect of it.

Thanks for looking into this.

Is there a specific reason as to why you want a macro function to rename the map? Would it be better to instead focus on improving the workflow of map renaming? For example you mention in a previous post that the Map>Rename... dialogue doesn't default to whatever the current map name is so I've added that piece of functionality. It would also be possible to add a keyboard shortcut and maybe other things.

Well, in my particular use-case I was running two campaigns from a single campaign file. So the shared map viewer icon was pretty useless (i.e. if a map was "visible" in one campaign it was "visible" in the other, too.)

I basically set all maps to being "Not Visible to Players" and built a map switching macro into their character sheets so that they could only switch to maps that were a part of their campaign (which was noted my adding characters to the front of the map name... "GH-" for my Greyhawk maps and "GO-" for my Golarion maps). I also appended "-H" to map names for maps than were not supposed to be actually be "Visible" through the map switching macro.

I was, essentially, attempting to bypass MT's default map switching and visibility. This may have not be the most elegant solution and I would probably do it differently now, but being able to rename maps from a custom map management macro as opposed to doing it through the current interface would have made things much easier.

And I figured if I came up with this use case, others might come up with lots of others uses for macro renaming of a map (i.e. maybe an event triggers a change to the map's name from something non-specific to something specific... say from, "A Mysterious Tomb" to "The Lost Tomb of the Last Crusader".)

Improving manual renaming/work-flow would certainly be a good thing (i.e. defaulting to the current map name when renaming for starters like you've done). But taking it a step further and allowing people to do it within macros would add new functionality.

[Full Bleed]

b) When players are on a map that isn't visible in the in-game map selection they have that ugly warning about "Map Not Visible to Players" at the top of the screen even though the maps clearly is. If I frame this as a bug can we get a patch to remove the warning without losing the functionality of being able to send them to "invisible" maps? Even making it so that the warning ONLY shows to GM's would be better than we have right now. Players don't need to see it.

I have no illusion about the functions requested in this post being added any time soon... but how about this one "fix" to hide the "Map Not Visible to Players" notification being visible to players?

[Jagged]

I think I know that area of code, I will take a look.