[MOD 0.14] Text Plates

[Earendel]

Text Plates

• Name: Text Plates
• Version: 0.1.5
• Factorio-Version: 0.14.0
• Description: Text shaped metal plates for signs and labels. Letters, numbers and symbols. Iron, copper, large and small variants.
• License: GNU LGPLv3
• Release: 2016-10-21
• Download-Url: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Earendel ... /downloads
• Dependencies: base
• Category: Decorative
• Tags: Decorative
• Contributors: Earendel, y.petremann

Full Description

Text shaped metal plates for signs and labels. Ideal for labeling parts of your base, stations, signs, instructions for other players.

Letters, numbers, arrows, and other symbols.

Iron and copper variants.

Small (1x1) and large (2x2) variants.

You can use a Blank text plate and select what symbol to place so your inventory does not get full of symbols.

All text plates mine in to blank iron or copper plate so that you don't end up with an inventory full of alphabetti spaghetti.

Non-blocking: You can walk over it.

Not a floor tile: You can choose your own flooring.

[Downloads]

[steinio]

Great.

[aubergine18]

So simple yet so awesome! Loving it!!!

I imagine it won't be long before someone concocts a circuit network device for printing these out on the ground based on signal inputs.

[Earendel]

I imagine it won't be long before someone concocts a circuit network device for printing these out on the ground based on signal inputs.

I'm thinking about a couple of structures for my Programmable Warfare mod that would be able to do that. The first is a structure where you pass in an item signal and an X,Y coordinate and the structure creates a ghost entity based on the item signal at that location, so if it's in construction range a robot can build it. The second is a similar structure but needs to be preloaded with a blueprint, the blueprint would be stamped down at whatever coordinate signal you pass in.

[aubergine18]

I think justarandomgeek is also working on something similar to that - a blueprint printer of some kind - to wire up to his insanely cool computer stuff. In fact, seems he might already have completed some of those tools: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/justarandomgeek

[Earendel]

I've seen the recursive blueprints mod, it looks good but it's quite different from what I was thinking. It is what let me know that my idea was probably possible. He actually has quite a few mods that would pair well with Programmable Warfare but this is not that right thread for that discussion.

Anyway back to Text Plates. I've thought of a way of not clogging up inventories by making Text Plate Blanks - if you have one on your cursor you can select what sort of text gets placed when you put it down. I already have some output selection code in Programmable Warfare so I might be able to get it done today.

[Earendel]

Text Plate Blanks have been implemented now. Instead of making letters just make some blanks. With the blanks on your cursor you can choose what to put down using the UI. It saves on inventory space.

[Earendel]

An now you can type in a message and placing blanks will place down the message characters/symbols in sequence.

[Dr. Walrus]

Why is the entity type for the letters a constant combinator? Wouldn't it be simpler for the entity to be a decorative or a doodad type? As far as I can see there is no reason to need to be able to click on the letters and see the constant combinator GUI.

[Earendel]

Why is the entity type for the letters a constant combinator? Wouldn't it be simpler for the entity to be a decorative or a doodad type? As far as I can see there is no reason to need to be able to click on the letters and see the constant combinator GUI.

They were originally the simple-entity type, but were changed to constant combinators because simple-entity, decorative, doodad types can't be used in blueprints. I believe it is because those types cannot have a force.

I have made a modding interface request for a Simple-Force-Entity that can be used to this sort of situation here: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=34379
If you think this new type of entity is a good idea please show your support in that thread so that it might get noticed by the devs.

[y.petremann]

You can add the fact that now constant combinator property is used to store the character when using ghosts (and when placing down blueprint).

[Earendel]

Yes, although now that I think about it's only the ghost version version actually needs that combinator slot so there could be another 'square' entity for a placed blank that does not need to be swaped on construction.

Thanks for the help on the ghost signal setup.

[aubergine18]

In your `item_suffix_from_char()` function, you could massively reduce the invocation cost by putting all that in to a table, for example:

Code: Select all

local suffix = {
  a = "a",
  b = "b",
  -- etc...
  ["^"] = "hat"
  -- etc....
}

function item_suffix_from_char( char )
  return suffix[ string.lower( char ) ] or "blank"
end

You could even move the suffix dictionary out in to a separate file to declutter the control.lua:

Code: Select all

-- suffix.lua

return {
  a = "a", 
  -- etc....
}

-- control.lua

local suffix = require "suffix"

function item_suffix_from_char( char )
  -- etc...

[Zaflis]

Pic from ingame, in case you're wondering what it looks like. Very clean mod imo. (ignore the top right gray stripe, hid fps counter..)

[Dr. Walrus]

Another problem with using constant combinators is that render_layer = "floor" does not work properly. You can only change the render layer of decorative and simple-entity entities. See attached picture. This is another annoying problem that I had trouble with in the past when I was working on my pressure plates mod.



The sprites for the letters are really beautiful though and really fit into the factorio art style.

[y.petremann]

I will try something but with no promise of success :
- simply all plates would be a decorative, but the ghost blank would still be a constant combinator
- this can only be done if those decoratives accept to be put in blueprintable

[Earendel]

I don't think that there is a way to make decoratives blueprintable (I tried it but there may be a workaround)

We might be able to do something where the constant combinator is invisible and a decorative is placed underneath to act as the display.

[Earendel]

In your `item_suffix_from_char()` function, you could massively reduce the invocation cost by putting all that in to a table, for example:

Code: Select all

local suffix = {
  a = "a",
  b = "b",
  -- etc...
  ["^"] = "hat"
  -- etc....
}

function item_suffix_from_char( char )
  return suffix[ string.lower( char ) ] or "blank"
end

You could even move the suffix dictionary out in to a separate file to declutter the control.lua:

Code: Select all

-- suffix.lua

return {
  a = "a", 
  -- etc....
}

-- control.lua

local suffix = require "suffix"

function item_suffix_from_char( char )
  -- etc...

I'll try and do that tonight, there are some other bits that I'd like to clean up too.

I didn't realise this mod would be so popular.

[Ronkhar]

Hello,
I downloaded your mod a few minutes ago and sadly encountered a bug while writing text (perhaps I did something wrong, don't know)
I attached a screenshot of the error message

Actions to reproduce the bug:
- produce stack of small iron text plates
- select the plates and watch the "select symbol" GUI appear on the left
- write a text in the "type a sequence" field (in my case "iron")
- put the plates on the ground. All letters appear correctly except the last
- the popup appears. "Ok" sends to main menu of the game.

I tried again with a longer sequence "ironstonecopper"
I could write "iron", "stone" and "coppe" before getting the same bug.

Various information:
- text plates version: 0.1.11 (the latest)
- game version : 14.18
- other game mods : bobmod package, map labels, orbital ion cannon, skip first hour (all these have worked together for 60 hours of playtime)

For now, I'm still enjoying your mod by adding a dummy letter after the text I want and hitting escape instead of adding the last character.
Thanks for bringing this mod to the community
Bye
Ronkhar

[Earendel]

Hi Ronkhar,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have fixed this in the new version (0.1.12).