Lettering improvement

[Wh33lman]

Hi there!
First of all let me congratulate you guys for this great game.

What brings me here are the menus in the game, they give the user lots of information but due to the background some times its difficult to read. So instead of just having black letters I propose to make the letters with some sort of outline, ex: white letters with a black outline.
If someone has already posted this, feel free to spank me. :P
Cheers.

[Seahorse]

I second that - you can't adjust buttons in car as you can't read them. I have to aim at some sky and switch to wheel only view...:hide:

[Wh33lman]

Yep and some of the hotkeys on the right hand side I just don't know what they are, I simply can't figure out the letters.
Please give it some thought.:thumb:

[ColeusRattus]

IIRC you can already customize every text and background-color in game...
atill, have not had similar problems, because an issue of monitor brightness or contrast?

[mantis9]

wondering what keys do what? try these 2 -

driversemporium (http://driversemporium.com/racing/lfs/LFS_Keys_Commands_V2.PDF)

liveforspeed (http://www.liveforspeed.net/?page=keys)

:)

[Huru-aito]

Or ..\docs\keys.pdf :smileypul

[Seahorse]

You are missing the point - sat in you car wanting to adjust something is nigh on impossible if I can't read it...:spanakinp

[mantis9]

Can you not resolve it in Options > Display > Interface ?

[Seahorse]

I'll have a look this evening. Would prefer this kind of this to work "out of the box" as it were...:scratchch

[tristancliffe]

What resolution/views/etc do you use? I use the default text settings, and can read them fine on a 19" TFT at 1280x1024, from any camera, pointing in any direction. If you mean the menu texts, I thought the default ones were VERY readable, if not the nicest to look at in terms of colours...

[Seahorse]

1280 x 1024 on an 19" iiyama CRT. I have been fiddling with wheel buttons using a manual clutch. Sat in the car (FO8) the Pit limiter button is a prime example of invisible...:really:

[tristancliffe]

??? I thought you wanted more visible text, not extra buttons on the wheel?

Edit: Oh you mean on the LCD/LED panel on the wheel!!! Yes, this has been discussed many times, and I think we might see a change when S2 is final, but unlikely before.

[Seahorse]

No - I mean I can't read the menus to re-programme the buttons on the wheel. Black text on a black background has that effect...:mr-t:

[andylec]

Have you got the attached file in \data\pic?

[Bob Smith]

1280 x 1024 on an 19" iiyama CRT.
Just a niggle, you might want to switch to using 1280x960 if you want to an undistorted image your monitor. :)

[Seahorse]

Yes, but if you're sat in your car and you bring up options in game that pic has nothing to do with not being able to read the font...:(

[AndroidXP]

Hmm, try making a screenshot

[andylec]

Yes, but if you're sat in your car and you bring up options in game that pic has nothing to do with not being able to read the font...:(
Oops! Very true :nod:

You can change the colour of that text though. Options->Display->Interface and change the Text unselected colour. A nice lime green shows up well :D

[tristancliffe]

I have no idea what the problem is. If you posted a screenshot, we'd be able to help you.

LFS's default fonts are NEVER black on black, so you've got something set wrong somewhere...

[andylec]

Does this help explain it? There are certainly bits I would have trouble reading here:

[tristancliffe]

Options->Display->Interface->Unselected Text ----> make not black.

[andylec]

You can change the colour of that text though. Options->Display->Interface and change the Text unselected colour. A nice lime green shows up well :D
Options->Display->Interface->Unselected Text ----> make not black.

Is there an echo in here :D

But I think the original post was referring to the fact that, depending on the background, some text may not be clearly readable, especially the default black. Lime green should be OK though :)

[Hallen]

Yep, I had that problem too. Did what Tristian suggests. Plus, the printed versions are much more handy when programming your wheel because you don't have to keep toggling back to LFS and then the wheel profiler, etc, etc.


The one that bugs me is black font in screen names. You can't read them at all when they are posting text (roof of almost all the cars are dark). You can read the text, but not who posted it. This was really annoying when I was trying to ban wreckers on the Demo version from the dedi server. (of course people that use extended ASCII characters in their names make that difficult too. I mean, who knows what the ASCII code for ┘ or ò is???)

[tristancliffe]

Ctrl+Shift, Right click username, type number of days ban, press home, type /ban. Gets round every odd character or spelling in double quick time.

Sorry about the echo Andy :)

[hrtburnout]

Have you got the attached file in \data\pic?

yes, i think it announces the rallypack as the car is a Subaru Impreza Rally Car

[Wh33lman]

Does this help explain it? There are certainly bits I would have trouble reading here:
This is what I was nagging about, its a bit on the "dark side" and difficult to read. That's why I sugested an outline on the lettering, doing so might suck, since all the caracters would have to be changed. It's not a big deal but would improve things a bit.
Since we're talking the menus, some text boxes could use a bit more space. Some languages like portuguese, my mother tong, have longer words for little things. An example:

On - Ligado
Off - Desligado

For english speaking dudes it's not a problem, one just uses the english language, but some definitions of the car setup are difficult do understand even if you know a bit about how cars work. Anyway the thing is that where "On" fits at ease, "Ligado" gets so squeased that one can't make any sence of it. I haven't tryed yet, but I imagine german words would look pretty blury in some places.

Also just a reminder, some of the text on the menus isn't translated yet, at least not to portuguese. From what I could see the easy stuff got left out, seems that 95% is done though. I know that some of the technical stuff is difficult to translate since its very english\french\take you pick based so keeping it in english makes it more unversal, but give it a go.

Cheers

[Seahorse]

Does this help explain it? There are certainly bits I would have trouble reading here:

This screenie shows the problem perfectly. Great I go change the font colour - but it does not get away from the issue - out of the box - it's too hard to read. OUtlined fonts or 3d effect would be better...

Lime green for now though...:nana:

[Cue-Ball]

Is there a way to make the button backgrounds non-transparent? This way you could leave the text as black and use a white background behind each button. You get a clean, easy to read look without having to resort to lime green.

[SlamDunk]

Really sorry for the bump but I'd like to see this outline thing for text being done, even though you can change the colour of the text.