Section & Snippet Layout

[ruhar]

Last night, while I was working on my campaign, I kept thinking something was off but I couldn't quite put words to it. Today, while working on it, I think I can.

When we are in edit mode each snippet is in a text box. If a text snippet includes GM Directions then the player text is in a text box and the GM Directions are in a separate box. This makes it easy to find and distinguish everything. When you leave edit mode the text boxes go away. Text snippets with GM Directions are in a faint box with the GM Directions in a box with white background and individual GM Directions are in a box with white background, but everything meant for the players is in the same blue background as the surrounding area. So if there are several text snippets together with no GM Directions the individual snippets don't stand out.

I know this is very minor in the scheme of things, but I'm a visual person so I look for visual cues. I could color every single snippet, but that's a lot of snippets to color. It's bad enough I change the font and size on each one. I suggest that individual snippets are more distinguished for us GM who are already juggling a lot during a game session, something similar to the edit mode would be nice. It would make it easier to take a quick glance and see what's next or if something was missed.

Thanks.

 

[Parody]

I've gotten used to telling the start of Snippets by the reveal ball, rather than the text itself. I tend to write multi-paragraph Snippets, so it's not so important to me where each part starts and ends, but I can see where having more contrast between them would be useful.

Aside: I can see we have different monitor and/or color calibration settings. To my eyes the GM Directions have a yellow background and the main part of the Content Pane is gray; snippets with attached GM Directions are in a darker gray box.

Also Aside: You probably wanted this in the Feature Requests forum. :)

 

[ruhar]

Aside: I can see we have different monitor and/or color calibration settings. To my eyes the GM Directions have a yellow background and the main part of the Content Pane is gray; snippets with attached GM Directions are in a darker gray box.

That's always a problem with images, the colors are always different on each monitor. Even the same make and model.

Also Aside: You probably wanted this in the Feature Requests forum. :)

You're right, didn't think about that. Can it be moved?

 

[Vargr]

Text snippets with GM Directions are in a faint box with the GM Directions in a box with white background and individual GM Directions are in a box with white background, but everything meant for the players is in the same blue background as the surrounding area. So if there are several text snippets together with no GM Directions the individual snippets don't stand out.

I can't quite follow you here.

What I get is:

This is after I save and after I click on the View button.

After reveal, it looks like this:

In both cases I find it easy to distinguish.

Btw. I can't locate the screenshot you and Parody mentions.


EDIT:
I can't figure out how to attach pictures, so no pictures. Sorry.
OK - apparently the forum keeps some sort of buffered data in this input as it claims:
The text that you have entered is too long (31131 characters). Please shorten it to 15000 characters long.

 

[Vargr]

Ignore.

Please remove.

 

[Parody]

[singing]Two different sets of responses!
Unsolicited advice! Woo-hoo!
Stuff I'm only an amateur at
but it could turn out really nice! Yay![/singing] :)

That's always a problem with images, the colors are always different on each monitor. Even the same make and model.

Yeah, but in most cases you can get them close. I have two monitors of the same make and model and they're as close as I can get them when in their normal positions. (They're on arms so I can move them around if need be.)

I don't know what else you do with your system, but I would guess that you have something (brightness?) turned up too high in your monitor settings. A simple way to try different settings is to write down what they're set to now (yay, digital onscreen menus!) and then try adjusting them using a pattern from a website. Here's one I like:

Photo Friday's Calibration Tool

Maximize your browser and adjust brightness and contrast until you can see the slightly differently colored boxes and circles. On an LCD you might try starting with them both in the middle and going from there. (The CRT advice was to turn the contrast all the way up and turn brightness all the way down and only adjust brightness.)

If you have a laptop or tablet you might have to poke around to find the monitor settings. Mine have them on the Fn-keys but they might be hidden in a utility or similar.

If you search for "monitor calibration" or "display calibration" or similar terms you can find a lot more advice out there.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I can't quite follow you here. ... This is after I save and after I click on the View button.

After reveal, it looks like this: ... In both cases I find it easy to distinguish.

Btw. I can't locate the screenshot you and Parody mentions.

Neither of us posted one. :)

As you can tell from the above, I believe we're all seeing the same stuff from Realm Works, but with different monitor settings. Even if ruhar posted a screenshot, we'd see the same thing as we normally see.

I can't figure out how to attach pictures, so no pictures. Sorry.

It's easy enough. First, you need to be in the full editor; if you're in the Quick Reply area, click Go Advanced. Here there's two buttons you can use to manage attachments:

The paperclip icon and related popup menu at the top of the edit box:


Or the Manage Attachments button in the Additional Options, below the edit box:


When there's no attachments, both will pop-up a Manage Attachments window. There you can Choose a File from your computer with the buttons and then Upload it from your computer. Repeat until all the images you want to use are attached, then close the Manage Attachment window.

Now when you click the Attachments (paperclip) icon a list will come up. Click on the name of the picture to insert it into your post.

OK - apparently the forum keeps some sort of buffered data in this input as it claims:
The text that you have entered is too long (31131 characters). Please shorten it to 15000 characters long.

Did you maybe try to drag your image to the window? Some combination of your browser and the forum's javascript tried to embed the image as encoded text. Here's a cropped version of one of them:



Anyway, use the buttons and you should have no problems going forward.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hope this helps both of you!

 

[Vargr]

@Parody:

Thanks for the help.

Actually I did what you suggest (and several other possible solutions since it didn't work), but to no avail.

Apparently I somehow messed up and - well.

And that cropped picture was indeed one of those I wanted to upload

Thanks for taking time to help me out.

And somewhere there ought to be a little picture (just testing).


EDIT:
Gee, I got it working!

 

[ruhar]

I can't find what I was looking at when I wrote the thread, but this example shows what I'm talking about even though it isn't quite as confusing looking as the original.

The example shows a group of text only snippets running together with nothing to separate each snippet. The text snippet with GM Directions has the GM direction in a white filled box and both the text and GM Directions are encased in a box.

What I was suggesting is that text only snippets have some way to separate them from the previous and/or next text only snippet. It has nothing to do with screen colors, monitors, nor screen settings.

 

[AEIOU]

First, I personally prefer the current method. I read it as a bulleted list. But if LWD added UI configuration so we can change colors and fonts, each item could have a text/background/border color that could be modified. I can leave at default since I like it but you could change the border to a darker color than the background to create boxes. Win-win.

Second, this thread has nicely highlighted an issue that pops up periodically in that how we see/describe things may not be consistent. Ruhar is likely correct that it's not a computer setting but rather how we as humans see different colors. And it really highlights the need for LWD to implement some accessibility functionality. Some folks simply NEED to be able to change default colors and text styles.

In your sample:
Standard text is on light gray background.
Standard text with GM note above is in a box on darker gray background.
The actual GM note box is on a pale yellow background.
The differentiation is subtle but noticeable. I see no white whatsoever.

 

[Parody]

I keyed on the yellow/white thing because that's exactly what happens on my monitors when you turn the contrast up too high. It also washes out the grays in a similar manner. Sorry if I went overboard. :(

 

[MNBlockHead]

Like AEIOU, I like the current way of displaying player text. I wouldn't want lines or extra space or colors added. It would make the topics look cluttered, take up more screen real estate, or look overly "busy", respectively. That said, I would be nice to give people who do desire/need these things the options to customize background color and boarders.

 

[ruhar]

Like AEIOU, I like the current way of displaying player text. I wouldn't want lines or extra space or colors added. It would make the topics look cluttered, take up more screen real estate, or look overly "busy", respectively. That said, I would be nice to give people who do desire/need these things the options to customize background color and boarders.

It doesn't have to take a lot of space. If you look at categories that have a group of revealed text only snippets there is a fine white line to distinguish each snippet. If that was slightly bigger and included in the non-edit, non-revealed mode it would be fine with me.

 

[Acenoid]

As workaround you could place a line between each of the snippets? or what ever should separate them. In case it is necessary