VASL 6.4

[hongkongwargamer]

I wanna be able to right click on an Ordnance, an AFV or a (small) mortar and generate an "associated" Acquisition counter.

The beauty here is that perhaps I can click on a weapon and see its Acquisition counter light up. Or click on an Acquisition counter and have the weapon light up.

Rgds
Jack

 

[jrv]

I wanna be able to right click on an Ordnance, an AFV or a (small) mortar and generate an "associated" Acquisition counter.

The beauty here is that perhaps I can click on a weapon and see its Acquisition counter light up. Or click on an Acquisition counter and have the weapon light up.

A similar proposal could be made for the bore-sighted hex.

JR

 

[hongkongwargamer]

I'd like to see a right-click option that attaches a "HIP" Dare Death tag on GMT and Russian (Red Chinese) MMC.

Rgds Jack

 

[Will Fleming]

I'd like to see a right-click option that attaches a "HIP" Dare Death tag on GMT and Russian (Red Chinese) MMC.

Rgds Jack

I think that would be good in general for all squads. "HIP label" that can be revealed later on. It would save us labeling 10+ Chinese squads and get rid of some clutter.

 

[Will Fleming]

If scenario designers start using vehicle numbers in their OB listings, perhaps adding that to the counter tray would be useful as well. Maybe a tab with all vehicles sorted by vehicle #?

 

[von Marwitz]

That would be real nice. My new 4k monitor makes things VERY small. I have to zoom to 200% to see the boards. All the menus are very small as well, and the largest font size available in the control window is bearly readable. I suspect more and more people will be getting these more advanced monitors and will also start having issues.

This is a very good idea. 4k monitors will indeed surely spread in the future. Would be nice if VASL is ready for that.

von Marwitz

 

[von Marwitz]

I wanna be able to right click on an Ordnance, an AFV or a (small) mortar and generate an "associated" Acquisition counter.

The beauty here is that perhaps I can click on a weapon and see its Acquisition counter light up. Or click on an Acquisition counter and have the weapon light up.

Rgds
Jack

Another very nice idea!

von Marwitz

 

[hongkongwargamer]

I think that would be good in general for all squads. "HIP label" that can be revealed later on. It would save us labeling 10+ Chinese squads and get rid of some clutter.

Exactly!!! Otherwise we have to number all the Chinese squads first and then designate one (or two) DD squad on the side. Like you said!


Rgds Jack

 

[zgrose]

If scenario designers start using vehicle numbers in their OB listings, perhaps adding that to the counter tray would be useful as well. Maybe a tab with all vehicles sorted by vehicle #?

Don't hold your breath, apparently scenario designers find adding useful information to scenario cards detrimental to our hobby.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

Don't hold your breath, apparently scenario designers find adding useful information to scenario cards detrimental to our hobby.

This is a great idea though, no?

 

[zgrose]

This is a great idea though, no?

AFV vehicle notes would be helpful. Sometimes a page ref and/or "this counter was found in" is needed as well.

 

[apbills]

JR, Worked like a charm. Awesome!

 

[jrv]

JR, Worked like a charm. Awesome!

Glad you were able to complete it. The work is not for the casual PC user, but I knew that a user that can get past the problem of windows hiding extensions should probably be able to do the job. Except for that "gotcha" it's not rocket science. The bad news is the next time vasl upgrades, you have to do it all over again :-( I have been looking over the code, and while it should be possible to add a configuration file outside of the .vmod, I think to do it right would require modifying VASSAL rather than vasl.

JR

 

[Will Fleming]

JR should bet obliterated with the positive rep gun if it still exists. Kind of solves a long-standing issue for some.

 

[zgrose]

The Other zoom should also let you zoom to any value you want w/o modifying anything

I have been looking over the code, and while it should be possible to add a configuration file outside of the .vmod, I think to do it right would require modifying VASSAL rather than vasl.
JR

What are you trying to do right? Add more zoom levels?

 

[jrv]

The Other zoom should also let you zoom to any value you want w/o modifying anything

What are you trying to do right? Add more zoom levels?

The zoom levels disappear between sessions, you can only have one "other", and you can't switch to one of the "standard" values then switch back to your "other" except by typing in the value again as I understand it. One could imagine a configuration file (in linux, .configuration/vassal/current or similar) that is loaded as part of the startup procedure and is definable & save-able from within VASSAL/vasl. As far as I can make out, when VASSAL loads a module it passes in the "buildfile" stream. If vasl wanted to have its own configuration apart from the buildfile in the jar, it would be nice if VASSAL opened that up too and passed it in rather than either having each component open up the file, read, parse, and close the file, or having some global object in vasl for it. To me having VASSAL provide both is the "right" way (although having a global object might not be so bad; at this point I am just thinking out loud).

One could also imagine multiple zoom configuration sets being available, one for large scenarios with extra "reduced" levels, one for regular-sized scenarios without the extra levels, one for deluxe, etc. The user could then select between his different zoom configurations, and that could be saved as part of the scenario rather than setting it globally. One could also imagine that the current zoom level is saved as part of the scenario so that the user could resume with exactly the same setup as when he shut down. Once could also imagine the current screen setup being saved, so one wouldn't have to re-size and/or re-open windows when one starts again. One could also imagine that the parts of the counter tray could be trimmed down so that, for instance, if you you were playing a Soviet/German scenario, the only items not hidden in the axis & allied OB would be German & Soviet. Similarly one could imagine being able generally to hide other counter sets (e.g. Night) that are not being used in the current scenario. This too would be stored as part of the saved game.

JR

 

[zgrose]

That's a lot of imagining... You sure you couldn't solve 90%+ of your situations by just adding some more likely candidates?

Speaking for myself, I'm either zoomed out or zoomed in and I don't find myself micromanaging the scaling. What actual gameplay examples have you come across where adding a 50%, 75%, 200%, 300%, 400% wouldn't pretty much cover all your needs?

 

[jrv]

That's a lot of imagining... You sure you couldn't solve 90%+ of your situations by just adding some more likely candidates?

Speaking for myself, I'm either zoomed out or zoomed in and I don't find myself micromanaging the scaling. What actual gameplay examples have you come across where adding a 50%, 75%, 200%, 300%, 400% wouldn't pretty much cover all your needs?

I have no examples. I use vasl exclusively by myself, mostly for making up pictures to post to gamesquad. I was brought to the question by posts on this thread. Since I am trying to get a grip on how the vasl/VASSAL code works, I investigated the question and figured out how to "hack" the buildfile. I then imagined what I/another player might find useful given no restrictions. The ideas are just "thinking out loud," so perhaps some/all of them are not useful to anyone. Even if they were useful to some people, they don't strike me as being high priority. But every so often I am surprised to find what I think is not useful is the most important item to others.

JR

 

[boylermaker]

I would like to see an option to display informational counters in the color of the counters beneath them. It need not be all of them, necessarily, but being able to see at a glance which nationality are the various DM and CX units would be very useful, and to a lesser extent, colored motion or malf counters. Possibly the color of the text could be changed instead of the color of the background? (I know, I know, the color of the text encodes information: but who uses that info, especially in VASL?).

 

[von Marwitz]

I would like to see an option to display informational counters in the color of the counters beneath them. It need not be all of them, necessarily, but being able to see at a glance which nationality are the various DM and CX units would be very useful, and to a lesser extent, colored motion or malf counters. Possibly the color of the text could be changed instead of the color of the background? (I know, I know, the color of the text encodes information: but who uses that info, especially in VASL?).

If this proposal is followed up upon, it should only be optional. Colored DM/CX counters etc. could also create confusion. In CX in combination with pinned units might not always see the CX counters on top of a stack. In that situation, a CX counter in national colors would be a solid drawback IMHO. With regard to changing the font color instead of the background: Hm - imagine "British" font color vs. white background for example. I reckon, I'd pass...

von Marwitz