TOAW IV USER INTERFACE

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There is one more Editor to examine. Click on the “Edit Fonts” button:



This Editor has buttons for editing each of the 39 fonts. If you are unclear what each font is used for, mousing over each button will show its use in the Info Panel.

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Click on the first button (“Document Font”):



The “Font Editor” is invoked.

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The first button selects the Font Name. Left-clicking on that button allows the font name to be typed in. But a better option is to right-click. This brings up the Font Menu:



This is a list of all the fonts that either come with Windows or are included with TOAW IV. Obviously, this is a better way to set the font name, but if you have another source of fonts (for example, MS Office), there may be a font you want that isn’t on this list. That is what the “type it in” option is for.

Other values are just numbers to enter. (Color codes are in hexadecimal). Note the two check boxes at the bottom. If the “Windows Font?” box is not checked, all values are blanked out, since they only apply to Windows fonts. If the “Background?” box is not checked, the “Background Color” button is disabled.

The exit button sets the changes. Exiting the “Fonts Editor” saves the changes to disk.

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Now let’s return to the “Select New Game” dialog.

With the “France 1944 Cobra” scenario selected, run that scenario via the “Check” button. Before the scenario is ready, there is a new dialog showing the designer’s Advanced Rules preferences:





Note that most of the Advanced Rules were set by the designer of this scenario. Setting them is optional, so most scenarios won’t have this dialog. Note that the first player has the option to override any of the preferences – but if he does, the second player will be so notified. We won’t override any of them.

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The scenario is finally ready:



Note that there are six panels:

“Show Panels Panel” in the upper left.
“Micromap Panel” in the lower left.
“Info Panel” in the lower center.
“Unit Panel” in the upper right.
“Air War Panel” in the center right.
“Button Panel” in the lower right.

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Let’s examine the “Show Panels Panel” first. Note that it has two buttons. The first button cycles between “Normal View”, “Combat Review”, and “PO Mode”. (We’ll cover those later). The second button toggles between showing only those two buttons and showing the rest of the panel. Clicking on it brings up the rest of the panel:



There are now six new buttons.

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Clicking on the first new button hides the Info Panel:

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Clicking on the second button hides the Button Panel:

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Clicking on the third button hides the Microview Panel:

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Clicking on the fourth button hides the Air War Panel:

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Finally, clicking on the fifth button hides the Unit Panel:

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With all the panels off, the second button can be clicked again to close the second part of the Show Panels Panel:



This is the maximum amount of map area that can be made visible, with only the minimized Show Panels Panel blocking the view.

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Restoring the rest of the Show Panels Panel, click on the last button:



This has converted the TOAW IV panels back to the TOAW III Control Panel mode – for those who prefer the old way. This may also be necessary for users with very small screens

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Reverting to the new panels, this shot shows that some of the panels can be dragged to other locations, as desired:

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Let’s take a closer look at the new Unit Panel:



There are five sections.

The top section shows the Force Flag Roundel, the Force Name, and the Turn number, followed by the Date.

The second section shows the Unit Stack that the cursor is over (or the Current Unit if it isn’t over anything). The formation and unit name of the top unit is also shown. Deployment mode is at the bottom. Finally, any transport options (rail, ship, air, helicopter, disembark) is shown with a button if available.

The third section shows the Health, Combat Strength, Defense Strength, and Mobility.

The fourth section shows the Proficiency, Readiness, and Supply values with Pie Charts and percentages.

Finally, the fifth section shows the current combat round and the Progress Pane. The Progress Pane functions just like the old “Circle of Stars” used to – just taking up a lot less space.

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Note that the second section’s contents change as the cursor is moused over other stacks on the map:

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Even over enemy stacks:



But this still leaves the display as a stack. It’s hard to tell just what is in the hex.

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Right-click inside the Unit Panel:





The display has changed to a “Group Composition” view. Now you can see what is inside each hex as you mouse over each one.

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Even over enemy stacks!

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Now let’s look at the Air War Panel:



The Air War Panel is a permanent display of the contents of the Air Briefing. It gives each side’s Air Superiority level, Interdiction level, and planes lost. Enemy planes lost are subject to fog-of-war as before. However, now the fog-of-war factor is fixed at the start of the turn and will not change every time the Air Briefing is displayed (this was a cheat that could be employed in earlier TOAW versions to figure out the fog-of-war factor and back it out to get true enemy losses).