Lix Version: Lix 0.10.27
Operating System Version: Windows 10 LTSC 2021 64-bit English-United Kingdom, Version 21H2 OS Build 19044.5131
Description: When I attempt to title a Lix level (or the filename through Lix) there is a character length limit. This is too small to put everything I need in the title, and I could just manually edit in a file browser for the filename, or text editor for the title anyways.
Steps to reproduce: - Open Lix
- Create a new level
- Attempt to name it more than whatever the current limit is
Screenshots/Recordings: None
Expected behaviour: No limit and we can create titles (or filenames through Lix) as long as we'd like
If you put longer titles, Lix will abbreviate your titles throughout the UI. You'll see abbreviations in the browser's level list, in the preview, ...
You'd also make it hard to talk about your levels in discussions. You're enticing people to abbreviate instead of typing the entire title, even if it's the first appearance in a post.
It's easy in the code to change the editor's text field for the level title from limited to unlimited. But given the exiting design throughout Lix's UI elsewhere, I prefer to keep that text field limited. It's a clear way to make people choose titles that render properly. Edit 2025-03-18: Instead of hard-limiting the length, I'm considering to allow typing more, but then show a nonintrusive warning, e.g., red text next to the field.
What kinds of titles do you want? Why do you need those? What are alternative titles that would fit, and why are they worse? How do you expect Lix to render your long titles? Do you want two rows of text for the title?
-- Simon
I use this for putting at the end of my practice levels e.g.
(single-player practice)
(single-player practice) (increased Lix)
(increased intended players)
etc.
You could maybe make it show the full name upon hover like with the HTML abbr element does (https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_abbr_test) or maybe have it so if you hover on it scroll from left to right etc. but I don't really care. I just want the ability to be able to do so
Idea: allow unlimited characters, but warn the user if they go over the amount that will play nicely with Lix UI. This could be done by changing the colour of the text to orange during typing (display it in the usual colour once it's set, of course) and/or showing a label below the title field that says "title is longer than the UI's limit" or something like that.
Also, how does this reasoning justify making the filename having a limit?
Yeah, the filename should be unbounded.
No decision for the title. It's good to know that you don't want to release levels with longer titles. Instead, you want to use extra title length as always-visible annotation.
-- Simon
Another idea, perhaps a bit out there: subtitles...?
Also, semi-related, I just noticed something, is it inentional that the length limit is based on the width of the characters, not the amount of characters, e.g. 27 upper-case letter X's, and then two full stops is allowed, but 27 upper-case X's and two lower-case letter a's are not allowed?
Quote from: WillLem on December 06, 2024, 12:47:56 AMAnother idea, perhaps a bit out there: subtitles...?
Where do you want to print subtitles in the browser's list of levels so that they help Silken?
Quote from: Silken Healer on December 07, 2024, 02:12:47 AMlength limit is based on the width of the characters, not the amount of characters
Yes, and even funnier: The editor's length limit depends on the font scaling, which is not perfectly linear with respect to the resolution. At 1280x800, I get 27
X and 4
., or 27
X and 2
a.
Title max length has always been vague. In the system as it is, you can't expect overly long titles to render abbreviation-free in every resolution. For now, the best is: Make titles shorter than 80 % or 85 % of what the box offers. Even if it fits in the editor, it won't necessarily fit in the level browser. This is a problem, but it's a different problem than what you want here.
For your use case (training variants of existing maps, and you aren't going to release the variants), I'd invent abbreviations and rely on the existing title support. 1P for single-player practice, +L for more lix, +P for more players, +S for more skills.
-- Simon
Quote from: Simon on December 07, 2024, 02:56:33 AMWhere do you want to print subtitles in the browser's list of levels so that they help Silken?
(https://i.imgur.com/vNHk5iv.png)
Quote from: Simon on December 07, 2024, 02:56:33 AMI'd invent abbreviations and rely on the existing title support. 1P for single-player practice, +L for more lix, +P for more players, +S for more skills.
Yes, this is probably a better idea tbh. FWIW, I'd suggest using "1P(P)" or "SPP" for single-player practice, as "1P" by itself could just mean "1-Player Level".
Can you add support for emojis and symbols like star, heart, etc. in the title?
Can you also for the time being if this feature is taking too long at least make it so if I get the longer title myself in a text editor and then edit the level in Lix it doesn't save over it with a truncated title please? Thanks
(edit: same thing I said applies to the author field)
Quote from: Silken Healer on March 18, 2025, 02:35:43 AMlonger title myself in a text editor and then edit the level in Lix it doesn't save over it with a truncated title
Ah, yeah, that truncating is awkward.
Idea: The editor fields (title, author) should never cap. Instead, whenever the text is too long, the fields should warn you. Here, we define text to be too long when the level browser would truncate it in a few different standard-sounding resolutions. And warnings will be red text that appear next to the field, never a new clickbox.
Quote from: WillLem on December 05, 2024, 01:28:41 AMIdea: allow unlimited characters, but warn the user if they go over the amount that will play nicely with Lix UI. [...] showing a label below the title field that says "title is longer than the UI's limit"
Yeah, in hindsight, you had the right idea first. Silken has now given me yet another reason why it's better.
-- Simon
Here is a 64-bit Windows executable that, in the editor, removes the length cap for title and author. It doesn't show any warnings yet: https://www.lixgame.com/etc/lix-0.10.30-unlimited-title.exe
My unstable repo (https://github.com/SimonN/lix-unstable) has this too, in the branch master.
Without the warning, this isn't ripe for a stable release yet. It merely gets around Silken's silent data loss, the truncation of the title when he saves in the editor.
-- Simon
Thank you for the temporary build :lix-smile: