Shouldn't you better hope for a PS developer? Aww sorry, I forgot...no active devs left...

There is one very important file to configure text sizes of PS: "data/gui/styles.xml". There you can change almost all default font-sizes for every GUI element in PS.

For example changing
    <!-- Font used for all standard (non-editable, non-clickable) text -->
    <style name="Standard Font">
    <font name="/planeshift/data/ttf/LiberationSans-Regular.ttf" r="121" g="147" b="42" size="9" shadow="no"  />
    </style>

to "size="20"" will give you this:


But as you can see it also causes some problems like in the Info-window. Almost every window in PS is coded with a fixed size and can't handle changes of the font size so you are bound to run into problem with text not fitting in a specific area.

Still, in most cases you should be able to find font-sizes there that at least allows you to play the game to some extend. You can change the size of the font for almost ever gui element there, including buttons, text input boxes and even the floating name and guild labels in game. You also can switch to another font there but keep in mind to use the PS notation for the filename...meaning you have to use "/" to separate directories and you can only access folders that are below the installation folder of PlaneShift.

Reminder: If you change styles.xml always make a backup of your changed files. The updater of PS will most likely overwrite your changes with the next update again. Oh..and depending where you installed Planeshift you might need administrator/root rights to edit that file.


Now for orientation in game...mhh...all textures used in PS are inside "art/materials.zip". So it should be possible to change some wall textures there to simpler versions with higher contrast. But it will be for sure some work...and this is part of the PS art so the ABC license forbids to publish modified versions, meaning you are all on your own with those changes (What reminds me...most likely anything I say here is seen as modifying the client what is forbidden. But I assume nobody will really enforce this policy in this case...heck even I was never banned for using a modified client and only for speaking out too loud). I can just assume that changing for example the skins textures of "characters" to some brighter color might make it easier to identify them against the background. In case you want to change some textures just unpack that zip file somewhere, edit the textures (but make sure to not change their filenames), save them as .dds (Direct Draw surface...I think most image editing tools support that format...gimp does for sure) again, then package everything in a materials.zip file again and replace the old one with it.


And last but not least...a compass or mini-map. Good luck with this one. Both are discussed for many, many years now. I have seen some pretty sophisticated suggestions for a compass system including the math needed for a polar coordinate compass system over the last years. But even in times when PS actually still had some active devs none of those suggestions ever made it in the game. So...I wouldn't count to see a compass or a mini-map within the next ten years.

Edit: Typos

*grins* Well, I guess with that I can help:

Open data/gui/shortcutwindow.xml in a text editor.

Find the widget for the commands ("<widget name="CommandBox" factory="pawsMultilineEditTextBox">") and then add a "<spellChecker enable="true" r="255" g="0" b="0"/>" line to it. (Can see an example of this in data/gui/bookwriting.xml).

With the "enabled" you can define if you want spellchecker support...so if you want to disable it again you don't have the remove the whole line but only need the change this to "false". The "r", "g," and "b" define the color used for typos..in the example pure red.

This way you can enable the spellchecker for every "pawsEditTextBox" and "pawsMultilineEditTextBox". So if you want spellchecker support in quest notes or guild description...no problem either.

Oh..and as always...sorry windows users, I think after two years the spellchecker still didn't make it to your platform...touch luck.

Edit: Link to my original introduction to the spellchecker: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=40477.0

Actually this thread is about two different problems..so which one did you run into?

If it's the "ERROR: XOpenIM() failed" problem....get away from gnome! Or good luck with trying to get the settings of gnome right.

If it's the "brw_begin_query: Assertion" problem...sorry, no clue. I really thought that's more a intel gfx chip problem..I guess the only suggestion I can give then is playing around with the gfx settings of PS and see if it helps.

http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/

I know we have a slightly different opinion there Rigwyn but I really don't get the need of a complex dice rolling system at all. Maybe PS changed a lot in the last years but I just can't imagine any system that would work well. There will be always players who will just stay with the game mechanics. And players like me who will always ignore the mechanics completely.

For me it always worked best to not roll any dice at all and just try to write a good story together. But of course that isn't possible with everyone. So basically I tried to keep the few fights I had in PS with players I trusted. Of course that isn't always possible either...but a simple /roll 10 system for both was usually enough. It's about having fun together and playing out interesting situations, not about having a calculator next to your computer ( ) just to find out what kind of roll command you will need next. If you have the feeling a fight goes "wrong" and is not really fun with the other player then just leave it to chance.../roll 10 is enough for that. Take the pressure off you to work towards winning a fight...you only have to write emotes that fit with the last roll of you both.

But what I try to say is...you won't be able to find a system that makes everyone happy. A lot people are proud of their stats and skills..and that is fine. But a lot people also will always just ignore these. I really can't see a good way to have both groups interact...so in the end it just boils down again that you better choose who you play with. It's in the interest of everyone that all have fun...if you can't have fun together look for someone else. That's a lot better than getting into useless arguments about who is worth more...the one who grinned silently for months or the one who never worked for anything in PS and only "chatted".

What I think is really a good way to deal with this is learning more about the others playing-style. Get into some training combats with others and figure out together what works well for both of you. And learn that fights don't have to end in winning or loosing at all. There are so many better ways to end a fight than killing the other (and have him stay in the DR for days). Have others intervene with fights and stop them without bloodshed, run away and hide, get too close to NPC guards and because of that stop the fight, have your weapons break..endless possibilities to end a fight without anyone feeling as looser. If you start a fight with the OOC objective to win it then you probably shouldn't start it in the first place..this will never end up in fun RP for everyone.

One the funny side..../rolls can lead to very funny RP situations as well...even with people you trust a lot. If you aren't exactly sure what you want to do...just use /rolls to determine what is happening. Never tease a female diaboli too much in a tavern...the /roll for her tail-slap between your legs could end up in a ten. I still feel soooo sorry for Orgonwukh for this...mainly because I wasn't able to type for minutes laughing too much about his emotes.

I think you should be able to turn of the repeating of an animation in that file too...so be able to go back to the old way of showing the animation only once when the spell is casted. But never really bothered much....I usually just deleted all spell effects and stayed with the notifications of the chat window...never liked them very much.

In the past it was announced in #planeshift-build which SVN release corresponds to the current stable client. No idea if that is still the case. And usually you really don't want to just use that release anyway. Simple errors are often fixed withing some weeks in the sources but it can take months until a new release of PS is made public. No real point in building your own client if you don't take advantage of the bugfixes. For packages I think I would try to version them by SVN versions and throw out packages a lot more often then official PS clients.