[crossfire] msg/endmsg in maps/objects

[Mark Wedel]

Kevin R. Bulgrien wrote:
> Mark Wedel wrote:
> 
>> On a broader scale, there is a problem with most of the msg/endmsg in 
>> maps/objects.  They are pre-formatted for a certain width.  If your text window 
>> is wider, it isn't terrible - it just doesn't use the full width.  If your 
>> window is a bit smaller, it gets really ugly, as it will display a full line, 
>> then perhaps 1 word, then another full line, etc.
>>
>> Ideally, I think most of the newlines from the msg/endmsg structures should be 
>> removed - the client is plenty smart enough to do proper wrapping.  There are 
>> also a few messages which should have the '[fixed]' tag added, since they are 
>> maps or diagrams, and just don't look right when printed with the proportional font.
> 
> I have been wondering about this for some time.  I agree the formatting needs
> to go in general.  The formatting is not consistent and so one never knows how
> to format or reformat content.  It is good to know that it is okay to string
> the paragraphs on the same line.
> 
> "Most" newlines is right, considering that some should be left in order to
> separate paragraphs and/or allow certain lines of text to be rendered on a
> line by itself.
> 
> I'd ask also for some clarification of whether there is a common practice to
> follow with respect to whitespace between sentences.  There is a variation in
> that one space is used much of the time, but two spaces also exists.

  I'd be tempted to say that for simplicity, we use whatever is most prevalent 
right now.  So if the most prevalent is 1 space after the period, that is what 
we should use.

  I'm not sure if it is worth it to go through all the maps and update just for 
that.  But if doing it as part of a newline conversion, etc it could make sense 
to fix those.

  And a lot of these changes also need to be made in the server, in terms of the 
messages it prints.  In cases where there are several draw_infos() strung 
together, in many cases I've been changing that to just one draw_info on the 
basis to let the client wrap the text.  In some cases, this doesn't work because 
there is specific formatting, but not that often.

> 
> How about blank lines?  Is this discouraged in order to consume less vertical
> space, or is it seen to be acceptable for improving readability for longer
> multi-paragraph output?

  I'd say they should be there for readability.  Without a blank line, it can be 
very difficult to really see where the paragraph breaks are.

  In addition, this really only comes up with NPC messages - generally, I'd say 
those are a relatively small portion of the total text output (things like 
attack messages being much more prevalant), and I can't imagine a couple extra 
newlines being that big a deal.

> 
> Is there an advantage to using leading whitespace acceptable to inset example
> text?  I think so, but wonder what others might think.

  Depends on what you mean by example text.

  Also, look at the server/doc/mediaTags file - it supports a limited  number of 
HTML like tags.  What this really means is that within a message itself, you can 
change various attributes (like make the text italic, or change the color, use 
fixed width fonts, etc).  Using those tags is probably better than using 
indentation.

> 
> Is there a document anywhere that might be used to help map editors know how
> to write these messages?  If not, a wiki page might be in order.  These topics
> are of special interest to me since I have an interest in working on grammatical,
> spelling, and conversation improvements on maps as I play them.

  I don't think there is a document on indentation, punctuation, etc.  So one 
should probably be written.