Symbol Wrangling
thehawk
Surveyor
Is it accurate to say that all CC3 symbols are in one of the FSCs? So if I open all 2268 (give or take) of them, then in theory I've seen all of the symbols there are? I have the Forgotten Realms and the Harnica symbols installed, but nothing else extra at the moment.
I can automate the getting the list of those files and the opening of them with CC3, but I am not seeing a way to automate the SYMOUT command - I don't see a macro version talked about in the help file or by pestering CC3, and I'm not having success trying to make it take input like you can a line (for example) by putting it all in a command line so I can script it. Is there such a thing?
As an aside question since I'm talking about symbols, is the 'Simple' button left out of DD3 these days on purpose (maybe because I'm the last person in the world still using it)? I've had to add it back in on the last couple of installs I've done. Which, on the good side, I did learn how to configure menus and buttons and whatnot..
I can automate the getting the list of those files and the opening of them with CC3, but I am not seeing a way to automate the SYMOUT command - I don't see a macro version talked about in the help file or by pestering CC3, and I'm not having success trying to make it take input like you can a line (for example) by putting it all in a command line so I can script it. Is there such a thing?
As an aside question since I'm talking about symbols, is the 'Simple' button left out of DD3 these days on purpose (maybe because I'm the last person in the world still using it)? I've had to add it back in on the last couple of installs I've done. Which, on the good side, I did learn how to configure menus and buttons and whatnot..
Comments
Is it accurate to say that all CC3 symbols are in one of the FSCs?
For all practical purposes, yes.
but I am not seeing a way to automate the SYMOUT command
As far as I know, no, it can't be automated. There isn't a macro-version of this command
As an aside question since I'm talking about symbols, is the 'Simple' button left out of DD3 these days on purpose
This button is a relic from the time before styles, where you only had a single "set" of symbols. The catalog buttons are meant to load the catalogs belonging to the current active style, and no styles come with a simple catalog, so it is basically useless (and confusing) on modern installs. Unless you hard-code it to the old simple catalog, it is going to just display an empty catalog list most of the time. If a style does define a simple catalog (The main DD3 style actually does this for legacy reasons, put it is just a pointer to the old catalog, and not really a DD3-version of it) you can easily find it by clicking the Symbol Catalog Settings
button yo get all catalogs defined for the current stylke.
That's what I suspected, but wanted a real answer from a person smarter than I am - so thank you for that too! Oi, this is maybe going to take a while..
Why Monsen, that was a very polite and kind way for you to say "yes thehawk, you are in fact the only one still using that symbol set, the rest of the world has moved on to join the 21st century. Ya luddite!" I know. Maybe one of those days. I've thought for a long time that it would be cool to do the ADnD Goldbox or old Might and Magic (or Bards Tale, or Wizardry, pick your poison) in a newer style, or Perspectives, or something. Add some Token Treasury 'feelies' as encounters.
I did do the hard-code to put the button back into the dungeon.mnu this way (and every time it gets overwritten in an update because I can't be bothered to figure out the better way):
#614,@Bitmaps\Icons\simple.bmp:[Simple]|SYMICONM;Simple*;Probably ninety-eight and then some percent of the CC3 work I actually keep these days is this kind of mapping.
As an extension to that, are the various 'All' catalogs (where they exist) really amalgamated from the various 'specialised' catalogs, or are there symbols in those that aren't in the specialised ones?
They should be complete, but it is a manual process building them, so there is always the chance of human error, or a "regular" symbol catalog was missing a symbol originally that has since been added, but the "all" hasn't been updated..
I think you're wise to avoid relying on the "All" catalogues, as in my experience, they're not always reliably complete. As Monsen noted, their completeness may also be a factor dependent on when you last downloaded each one, and some I think have never been amended anyway.
Although, if you wanted to make more work for yourself, such a project could let you identify which "All" catalogues need amending still ??
Everything on that dialog defaults to the shown value every time you start CC3+. So, yes, they are hard-coded and can only be changed via the dialog.
Ouch. When I have been trying to find particular symbols, I have been looking in all.fsc. I hadn't realized some of those are incomplete. Moving on.
It is the same catalog, minus the borders drawing tool. Since cartouches doesn't have it's own button on the toolbar, it isn't uncommon that Ralf takes these symbols from it and throws into the border catalog for easy access. The border catalog is usually quite small anyway, so combining them usually works out fine.
Look at having a map note named "OnOpenMacro". It will run automatically when a map is loaded, if I recall correctly.
You can also do that other thing that you mentioned with the .SCR file as well.