This component contains all the boards that may appear in this map window. It contains Board components and defines the dialog that is used to select boards when a new game is started.

Dialog Title: The title of the dialog window for choosing boards on this map.

"Select Boards" prompt: The prompt message in the drop-down menu for selecting boards

Cell scale factor: The relative size of the boards in the dialog compared to their final size during play.

Cell width: The width of a cell when no board has been selected.

Cell height: The height of a cell when no board has been selected.

Default Board Setup: Click this button to choose a default set of boards. When a default has been set, the dialog will not be shown to players when a new game is begun. Instead, the game will always be started with the boards you select. If you click this button and then clear the boards, then dialog will again be shown at the start of each game.

Disable stacking: If checked, then pieces will never form stacks in this window

Horizontal Separation when expanded: The distance in pixels from the left edge (right edge if negative) of a piece in a stack to the edge of the piece above it when the stack is expanded.

Vertical Separation when expanded: The distance in pixels from the bottom edge (top edge if negative) of a piece in a stack to the edge of the piece above it when the stack is expanded.

Horizontal Separation when not expanded: The distance in pixels from the left edge (right edge if negative) of a piece in a stack to the edge of the piece above it when the stack is compact.

Vertical Separation when not expanded: The distance in pixels from the bottom edge (top edge if negative) of a piece in a stack to the edge of the piece above it when the stack is compact.

Color of pieces when not expanded: If set, then pieces below the top piece in a compact stack will be drawn as plain squares of this color and a black border. If not set (click the "Select" button and cancel the color-selection dialog to "unset" this) then pieces will be drawn normally.

Adds a button to the Toolbar of the Map Window. Clicking the button will allow the player to drag the mouse between any two points in the window, drawing a line between those two points.

Hotkey: Specifies a keyboard shortcut or Named Key Command for the Toolbar button.

Button text: The label on the Button in the Map Window’s Toolbar

Draw Range: If checked, draws the range between the two points, in hexes or squares, as appropriate for the board in use.

Pixels per range unit: If drawing the range on a board without a grid, this determines how many pixels on the screen equal a single unit of range.

Round fractions: For distances that are a fraction of a range unit, specify whether to round fractions up, down, or to the nearest whole number.

Hide Pieces while drawing: If checked, then all game pieces in the map will be hidden (or transparent) while the thread is being drawn.

Opacity of hidden pieces: Set the transparency of game pieces while the thread is being drawn. 0 is completely transparent, 100 is completely opaque.

Thread color: Specifies the color the thread on the screen. If set to null (by clicking the "Select" button and then the "Cancel" button in the color-choosing dialog), then a Preferences option will determine the color of the thread at game time.

Groups buttons in the toolbar into a single drop-down menu. See full article for details.

Button text: Specifies the button text for the Toolbar button

Tooltip text: Specifies optional tooltip text for the Toolbar button

Hotkey: Specifies a keyboard shortcut for the Toolbar button

Icon when pieces are showing: Configures an icon which is shown when pieces on the map are currently visible.

Icon when pieces are hidden: Configures an icon which is shown when pieces on the map have currently been hidden by this button.

Preset Zoom Levels: Configures a series of fractional scale factors for display of the Map Window. In the list on the right hand side, all of the currently configured scale factors are listed. The one with an asterisk () indicates the scale factor at which the Map Window will begin when the module is started. The other scale factors represent the settings along a range which clicking the "Zoom in" and "Zoom out" buttons will move the zoom level.

*Add: To add a new scale factor, type it into the blank and then click the "Add" button. The new scale factor will appear in the list to the right.

Remove: To remove an unwanted scale factor from the list, select it in the list at right and then click the "Remove" button.

Set Initial: To select the scale factor at which the Map Window will begin when the module is started, select it from the list at right and click the "Set Initial" button. An asterisk () will appear next to the new at-start scale factor.

*Zoom In: Configures a Toolbar button and/or hotkey that cause the Map Window scale factor to jump to the next higher magnification level.

Tooltip Text: Configures optional tooltip text for the Toolbar button.

Button Text: Configures button text for the Toolbar button.

Button Icon: Configures an icon for the Toolbar button.

Hotkey: Designates a keyboard shortcut or Named Key Command for zooming in.

Zoom Select: Configures a Toolbar button and/or hotkey that will allow the player to pick a specific scale factor, including by typing in an arbitrary scale factor manually.

Tooltip Text: Configures optional tooltip text for the Toolbar button.

Button Text: Configures button text for the Toolbar button.

Button Icon: Configures an icon for the Toolbar button.

Hotkey: Designates a keyboard shortcut or Named Key Command for selecting the zoom level.

Zoom Out: Configures a Toolbar button and/or hotkey that cause the Map Window scale factor to jump to the next smaller magnification level.

Tooltip Text: Configures optional tooltip text for the Toolbar button.

Button Text: Configures button text for the Toolbar button.

Button Icon: Configures an icon for the Toolbar button.

Hotkey: Designates a keyboard shortcut or Named Key Command for zooming out.

Recommended Delay before display: When the mouse has been stationary for this many milliseconds, the viewer will appear. This can be overridden in the preferences.

Keyboard shortcut to display: Players may display the viewer without waiting by pressing this shortcut key. This can be disabled in the preferences.

Background color: Pieces/text are drawn against a background of this color.

Border/text color: Color of any text drawn and the border around the overall viewer.

Display when at least this many pieces will be included: If set to 0, then the viewer will display even if the location is empty. Otherwise, it will display only if 1 or 2 pieces have been included via the settings below.

Always display when zoom level is less than: Regardless of the above "at least this many" setting, the viewer will also display when the map’s magnification factor is less than this number.

Draw pieces: If selected, then the included pieces will be draw in the viewer.

Draw pieces using zoom factor: The magnification factor to use to draw the pieces in the viewer.

Width of gap between pieces: Empty space in pixels to place between each drawn piece.

Display text: If selected, then the viewer will draw some summary text and some individualized text for each piece.

Font size: Fort size for the text drawn by the stack viewer.

Summary text above pieces: A Message Format specifying the text to display above the drawn pieces in the viewer. In addition to standard Properties, you can include $countPieces$ to count the pieces included in the display. You can also include a property with the name sum(propertyName) where propertyName is a property defined on a Game Piece. The sum of the numeric values of this property for all included pieces will be substituted.

Text below each piece: A Message Format specifying the text to display below each included piece.

Text for empty location: A Message Format specifying the text to display when no pieces have been selected.

Include individual pieces: Specifies how pieces are to be selected for inclusion in the viewer. You may restrict the pieces according to the Game Piece Layer that they belong. Alternatively, you may specify an Property Match Expression to match desired values of one or more Properties in order for a piece to be included.

Include non-stacking pieces: If selected, then pieces with a Does not stack trait are eligible for inclusion in the viewer. Otherwise they are excluded regardless of any other filters.

Show pieces in unrotated state: If selected, then pieces that can rotate are drawn in the viewer as they look when not rotated.

Include top piece in Deck: If selected, then the top piece of a Deck is eligible for inclusion.

Show all pieces overlapping the first piece found: If selected, then all Game Pieces that overlap the mouse cursor location are eligible to be displayed; otherwise only pieces at the exact X,Y position of the top piece found are displayed.

Draws a colored border around the last piece to have been moved, added, or deleted in a logfile or by an opponent during live play. Color is the color of the border and Thickness is the border thickness. The highlight is cleared by clicking on the map.

Allows you designate certain "layers" of Game Pieces to be drawn before others. Pieces in higher layers are always drawn on top of lower layers, and pieces never combine into stacks with pieces from other layers.

See full Game Piece Layers article for details.

Adds a "Camera" button to the Toolbar of the Map Window. Clicking the button will dump the contents of the Map Window to an image file. This allows you to take a screen shot even if the Map Window is too large to fit entirely on the screen.

Adds a "Save Text" Button to the Map Window’s Toolbar. Clicking the button will write a plain text summary of the contents of the map to a text file, using the names assigned to the pieces and the appropriate numbering and/or naming of the board’s grid.

A deck of cards, a bag of chits, or a fixed supply of counters.

Decks are versatile containers for collections of pieces — especially the kind that need to be shuffled, randomized, hidden, and drawn from.

See full article for details.

A group of one or more pieces which begin the game on the map.

See full article for more details.

Adds a button to the map window’s Toolbar. Clicking the button will shift the position of all pieces on the map such that they are centered around the middle of the map as much as possible. This is useful for games where there are no absolute terrain features, such as some air and naval games.

An extension of Global Key Command that fires automatically upon completion of module load, once all the key listeners are started up. All fields behave identically to the corresponding ones in Global Key Command, except that those pertaining to the physical representation of a Toolbar button are suppressed as being inapplicable.

If multiple start-up commands need to be run in a particular order, they should be combined in a MultiAction Button and then launched from a single instance of Startup Global Key Command, as the sequence in which multiple instances of StartupGlobalKeyCommand are fired is undetermined.

NOTE: Startup Global Key Commands fire every time the module starts up, whether it is to begin a new game or to load and continue an existing one. Thus if you need the Startup GKC to initiate an activity that should only be done once at the very beginning of a game, then it would need to send a key command to a pre-designated piece, which could then check a Global Property (called, perhaps, "StartupDone") to determine whether the game had already been started — if it hadn’t, the piece could then perform those tasks and set "StartupDone" to true, which would prevent the actions from being taken on a subsequent load of a saved game.

Name: A short name of this shading for reference by pieces with the Area of Effect trait.

Shading Always On: If selected then the shading is always drawn. Otherwise, visibility is controlled by a button on the Toolbar.

Shading Starts turned on: If true, then the shading will begin visible when the module is loaded.

Button text: Text for the Toolbar button.

Tooltip text: Optional rollover text for the Toolbar button.

Button icon: Icon for the Toolbar button.

Hotkey: Keyboard shortcut or Named Key Command for the Toolbar button.

All boards in map get Shaded: Allows you to select which Boards in the map to apply the shading to.

Type: If set to Background then the shaded area includes the entire board, minus the areas attached to any Area of Effect traits. If set to Foreground, then the shaded area includes only the areas attached to Area of Effect traits.

Draw Shade on top of Counters: If selected, then the shading will be drawn over any pieces on the map. Otherwise, it will be drawn underneath all pieces.

Shade Pattern: Choose between 100/75/50/25 % hatch patterns, or choose a custom image.

Color: The color of the shading (if not using a custom image).

Opacity: The opacity of the shading. 0 is completely transparent, 100 is completely opaque.

Border: If selected, will draw a border around the shading area. You can specify the thickness, color, and opacity of the border.

To add a Global Property to your map, find the [Global Properties] subcomponent in the Editor, right-click it, and select Add Global Property. This will let you define the initial value and any numeric constraints. Then, you can right-click on the [Global Property] entry to optionally Add Change-property Toolbar Button, the configuration dialog for which is shown at left.

See the article on the Global Property trait of pieces for more details and examples.

Allows you to define additional ways to highlight the selected piece on a map. The additional highlighters are drawn only if the selected piece matches the specified properties. If a piece matches the properties of more than one highlighter, all will be drawn, in addition to the highlighting color/border specified in the Map’s properties.

To add an Additional Selection Highlighter to your map, locate the [Additional Selection Highlighters] subcomponent of your map in the Editor. Right-click it and select Add Highlighter. You can then configure your Highlighter using the dialog described below.

Name: A short name for reference in the editor.

Active if Properties Match: The highlighter will be drawn for all pieces on the map that match the given Property Match Expression. The expression can refer to Properties of the pieces to determine which ones are an appropriate match.

Use Image: Specify an optional image to be overlaid on top of the selected piece. The center of the image will be offset from the center of the piece by the given number of pixels.

Border Color: The color of the border to be drawn around selected pieces.

Border thickness: The thickness of the border

A Flare component is automatically added to each Map, so you will not normally need to add more. However, to add a Flare to your map, find your [Map] component in the Editor, right-click it, and select Add Flare.

See the full Flare article for more details.