Adding text to a map

[Zacchaeus]

Interesting regarding the tooltip thing.

Another thing to consider if you're going to be writing the same text over and over, is making transparent tokens with the text you need. I do that in my game; the players have a scroll that displays an everchanging prophecy. I make up the verses as tokens. I don't know if that helps with your exact problem, but sometimes thinking outside the box allows for some cool things in FG.

Very interesting. So how do you make a transparent token? Also how do you attach the text? I see that you can have the text in a story entry, drag that to the chat line then drag from there to the token. This of course is fine but there is no permanency since the text disappears when the map is closed or the token removed. Sounds like you have some permanent or at least more persistent method?

[Mask_of_winter]

Maybe he make a png file with nothing in it and uses it as a token. And to label a token you can type in the chat window but don't press enter. Then drag and drop the text on the token. Tooltip text.

[Zacchaeus]

Maybe he make a png file with nothing in it and uses it as a token. And to label a token you can type in the chat window but don't press enter. Then drag and drop the text on the token. Tooltip text.

Hah! Yes, but if you are a completely useless artist like me detailed instructions on how to do something like that was what I was hoping for.
I do have tokentool, Campaign Cartographer and GIMP but I can't find a way to use any of those to make something that is transparent.
Yes, the text thing I know, but my question is, is there a more permanent way to attach the text or is it just drag and drop on the fly?

[feral1]

I just tried it in GIMP, which I have but rarely use. Open a new project. Add a new layer, this layer should be transparent by default. (I tried deleting the background on the original layer, but it wouldn't let me). Delete the original layer. Add the text to the new layer. Crop it to suit your needs. Save it as a .xcf file for backup. Then Export it as a .png file. That should do it. You can then import the image into token tool if you want to put a nice border on it.

[Zacchaeus]

Thanks feral1, I'll give that a go.

[Blackwolfe]

You can't add text directly to a map. Another option is to drag tokens to the map and then add "tooltip" text to them by typing a label in the chat window (don't press enter) and then drag the label text from the chat window entry area and drop it on your token on the map. This gives that token the label text as a tooltip (hover the mouse over the token to see the text).

Adding text directly to the map is a fairly popular item in the FG wishlist: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=40911 Go vote for it, although it probably won't be looked at until the future migration to the Unity engine.

This is one of the top ten most useful tips I've read on the forums.

[Milke]

I see that this thread started in 2015. But I'm wondering if Unity has a way to add text to a map layer yet? Some of the PF2 adventures come out with GM-only text in the rooms, but I don't know how they did it.

[Zacchaeus]

NO, there is no text layer as yet.

[ColoradoGM]

Give them time, it's only been 8 years.

[Zacchaeus]

Give them time, it's only been 8 years.

The original post was for Classic and there were no layers in Classic. Adding a text layer isn't trivial; especially in Unity which is a game engine and not something that would normally expect to have text layers.