Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
C'mon now, vonM. You telling me there's no 24-letter German word for "Offboard grid snapping feeling different"?
Offboard grid snapping feels different in v6.6.1
- Thread starter von Marwitz
- Start date
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
That is what I figured. So I will take the opportunity to do some cattle rustling to drag you out from the shadows into the spotlight:
Thanks of the community are due to Cattlesquat for supporting the VASSAL effort along with the more well known code-gnomes.
Three cheers! ???
von Marwitz
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Hmm...
"Das Einrasten in die Matrix außerhalb des Spielplans erscheint unterschiedlich verglichen mit der Vorversion."
I am afraid not. The above has 95, only a single special German 'ß', and not a single Umlaut. On the bright side, there is a hidden 'ACHTUNG' in it. Maybe this will snap you to attention and serve as some sort of consolation.
von Marwitz
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
The VASL team is nothing but win. The time and dedication you put into this so that others can play this game is invaluable to the rest of us. -- jim
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
It's meaningless without beer. -- jim
PS: Google translate does a good job on it though: Snapping into the matrix outside of the game board appears different compared to the previous version.
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Indeed, remarkable. This prompted me to attempt it the other way around:
Offboard grid snapping feeling different
google translates
Offboard Grid Snapping fühlt sich anders an
Apparently, German ingeniuety has not yet thought about 'Offboard Grid Snapping' since there's no German word for it. Aside from 'Marwitz Translate' that is.
von Marwitz
Sparafucil3
Forum Guru
The translator isn't royalty too? -- jim
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So why is it possible to do finer adjustments of counter moving off-board than on-board?
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Onboard, there is the grid, where counters will either snap to the center of a hex or to a hexside (bypass) when dropped after dragging. This, of course, makes sense.
Offboard, there is no grid, so there is nothing to which counters could snap to when dropped after dragging.
This means, you while there are only limited positions where you can drop counters onboard, there are basically unlimited positions where you can drop them offboard. And this is good, because it will allow you to place the OoBs in a pre-made VASL setup offboard using less space, which is somewhat limited on the standard margins around the playing area.
AFAIK, there is somewhere the possibility to set a different margin around the playing area somewhere in the Preferences, but this will apply only to what you see and not to what your opponent sees and as such is not of use to generate 'extra space' offboard. Still you can achieve this by placing extra cropped versions (?) of bdNUL or bdNULV. Since the standard margin has been significantly increased since VASL v6.2, this is only very rarely an issue nowadays, so I have forgotten the details of how to best do it.
von Marwitz
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
I have just finished creating the first VASL file with the 'Mouse Drag Threshold' set to '1' in the Preferences.
This is so much more comfortable!
In honor of Joel Uckelman fixing this age-old bug, I have named the two of the German Leaders 'Uckel' & 'Mann'.
von Marwitz
This is so much more comfortable!
In honor of Joel Uckelman fixing this age-old bug, I have named the two of the German Leaders 'Uckel' & 'Mann'.
von Marwitz
AFAIK, there is no preference to set the size of the margins. It is fixed at 400 pixels. What you can now do as per 6.6.0 is change the color of the space around the map.
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Ah, ok.
Well, it used to be 200 pixels before VASL v6.2 which was not enough.
If you need extra space now beyond 400 pixels, then you need to meddle a bit with bdNULV, which you normally need to incorporate a combination of regular boards and Fort boards (1a, 2a, etc.).
A bit of trying out combinations will enable you to add extra space above, below or to the left or to the right of the playing area.
While the area available to place stuff below the playing area and to the right of it is, in fact, unlimited by default, you will only be able to scroll to - and thus see - such areas if you ZOOM OUT (i.e. set the zoom to less than 100%). This is not a viable option and makes the counters, labels, etc. smaller, of course. By adding bdNULV / bdNUL as needed, the 'extra space gained' will be within the scope of the scrollable area.
In the below example, I selected:
Row 1: bdNULV (Cropped to coordinates 1-5)
Row 2: bd00
The effect in this case is an extra half-board's breadth of space without grid offboard above bd00 in which you can accomodate large orders of battle.
von Marwitz
Last edited:
dlazov
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Very nice addition and thanks for all the explanations.
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
If there are some functions to add beside those directly game related, these could be it:
- A freely definably margin which will be part of the VASL file (i.e. the one opening the file will have the same margin set).
- And - of course - an update-function for old to current VASL files (inclusive of labels/names of counters) in order to enable the buildup of a database of up to date VASL files with ready-made setups.
@von Marwitz, you are a VASL set up master. I’m impressed with all the innovations you employ.
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
Thanks for the praise.
I am fond of a nice aesthetic appearance of the playing area (and around). For that reason I shunned VASL loong ago when I first came across it. Rediscovering VASL in 2010 with Version v5.7, I saw boards and counters looking like the 'real thing'. That got me hooked. Since then, VASL and VASSAL have improved a lot - a good part of it due to your efforts.
Now, one can manage to depict around 95% of the scenarios with what is offered by VASL. For any non-standard situations, I actually use printed VASL maps for face-to-face play, because, for example, a scenario with white Ground Snow looks so much better than 'green fields'.
Meanwhile @Pacman Ghost has created a gadget that automates some things I do.
Optimally, this saves time for others setting up a VASL scenario and provides them with more time for actual play. While some prefer pulling stuff themselves to make sure they have the right quantity of counters and things done correctly, I believe it would be quicker to check existing pre-made setups for the purpose.
Over the years, I have created around 300 VASL files of the 'nice type' and others have done many more.
What is somewhat regrettable is the fact, that these files all become obsolete after a couple of years because at the current state of affairs, each VASL file would need to be updated manually to the current VASL version.
If some sort of script existed for automatically updating a VASL file from an old to the current version, eventually ALL (or at least the most often played) scenarios would be ready at once for everyone. The knowledge that the work that went into the creation of a nice setup would not become obsolete might encourage others to join the effort.
For example the late Patrick Ireland created VASL files for ALL Starter Kit scenarios published back then to make entering the hobby easier for new players. A ton of work. Now, with the necessary version updates of VASSAL and VASL, all of this has become obsolete and one would have to start again from scrap. Further in the past, there were setup-files for all core modules (for VASL v5.7 and v5.8). These were rather simple with merely the counters pulled and the boards arranged. Yet still someone had done the work back then for the benefit of everyone.
It would just be great if this tremedous time would not be lost over and over again. But we'll see...
The code gnomes have achieved great things for VASSAL and VASL over the last years and maybe they will tackle this issue, too.
von Marwitz
Maxwelk1
Member
As a long-time VASL "crafter" who has done app. 2000 VASL setups, WITH ALL ORDERS OF BATTLE, SCENARIO VICTORY CONDITIONS, AND ETC, ETC, INCLUDED, with a constant problem of "Setup Obsolescence" and "Setup Obsolete" hassles going all the way back to the good old days of VASL4.whatever, I now have more VASL setups than I can manage. I thought I could finish this in my lifetime, and now I'm so far behind I can never die!
von Marwitz
Forum Guru
This is very impressive!
And it illustrates what the community could have had now, if VASL included some sort of script which can handle the automatic updating of VASL files (with VC/SSR excluded for copyright reasons).
Imagine not only having the ASL Scenario Archive but along with it your 2000 VASL setups up to date! Add my 300 and those of others... It would be an absolute boon.
Even if the updating function could not catch 100% of the issues by maybe only 95%, if the versioning is apparent, it could become a community effort to catch the details missing or to correct errors in given pre-made setups when they are loaded and checked before play.
That said, I believe the anti-obsolence effort, which is impossible to stem individually the manual way (and a PITA to boot) could be successfully tackled by an update function as part of VASL which includes a clear version-tag of the file in combination with the possibility for everyone to access and correct the setup files on a site such as the ASL Scenario Archive website if an error is spotted.
I'll cross-post this in the VASL-Suggestion thread because I really believe this function would evermore become a fundamental improvement of VASL.
von Marwitz
I am committed to trying to build this in 6.6.2. It is already on the vasl issues list on github.
Not every new vasl version will require use of the updater. It depends on the nature of the changes.
These can fall into 3 categories: (1) maps and overlays, (2) counters, and (3) code.
We can add a fourth which is different: VASSAL changes.
Personally, I think counter changes are probably the prime culprit. They certainly were in moving from 6.4.4 and 6.5.0 and beyond.
But I can see coding changes causing problems as well.
In your experience, what problems do you encounter when trying to move your work from one version to another (via a saved game format):
.vsav opens but counters missing?
.vsav opens but notes, html, etc missing?
.vsav opens but does not work?
.vsav won't open?
Anything else?
Not every new vasl version will require use of the updater. It depends on the nature of the changes.
These can fall into 3 categories: (1) maps and overlays, (2) counters, and (3) code.
We can add a fourth which is different: VASSAL changes.
Personally, I think counter changes are probably the prime culprit. They certainly were in moving from 6.4.4 and 6.5.0 and beyond.
But I can see coding changes causing problems as well.
In your experience, what problems do you encounter when trying to move your work from one version to another (via a saved game format):
.vsav opens but counters missing?
.vsav opens but notes, html, etc missing?
.vsav opens but does not work?
.vsav won't open?
Anything else?