So I thought of a way to break the 99 texttag limit today. Since they're pseudo-handles they can essentially be manipulated any which way by GetLocalPlayer() if-blocks without risk of a desynch. What this lead me to think about was using a texttag locally for each player that you want to show it for. So instead of using five whole texttag to display "Aweseome!" to Player 1, "Press the right arrow key" to Player 2" and "Watch as the duel commences" to Players 3, 4, and 5 the way texttags are normally done, you could display all of those messages using only a single texttag.
The limit is, of course, that the maximum number of messages you are able to display is 99*<number of players in the map>, and still no player can see more than 99 texttags at any given time. However, take a map that uses texttags to show unit taunts for the opposing team (such as in Rising_Dusk's AotZ), the description for an item currently being tempered at a player's altar, and for a few spells on the map that show text for the casting player as an example.
Because all of the taunts on the map are only shown for half of the players, the number of texttag taunts increases from a cap of 99 to a cap of 198 (though still 99 for each player). Whereas all of the item tempering would take up 12 texttags, using this system you would only need 1 texttag. And for the spells that use texttags; assume the mapmaker has judged there to be a maximum of 15 different texttags from spells at any given time. Thus, the number of texttags required for the bare minimum of the map has been reduced from 27 to 3, and the cap for the number of unit-saying texttags has increased from 72 to 162.
Maybe none of what I said makes any sense to you, in which case you should take a look at the code and see if that gets my idea across. At any rate, I thought this up and started writing a system to handle this; I haven't finished yet, nor have I even syntax checked the part I have written, but I think the barebones are there and enough to make the system understandable.
JASS:
library MultiTags initializer Init
globals
private constant integer USED_TEXTTAG_AMOUNT = 99
private constant real TIMER_UPDATE_PERIOD = 0.10
endglobals
globals
public texttag array TT
private timer PTimer = null
private integer PCount = 0
keyword MultiTag
private keyword TagSeparator
private MultiTag array PTags
private TagSeparator array Separators
private player LocalPlayer
endglobals
private function NewParent takes integer PId, MultiTag MT returns TagSeparator
local integer J = 0
loop
if not(Separators[J].Used[PId]) then
set Separators[J].Used[PId] = true
set Separators[J].References[PId] = MT
return Separators[J]
endif
set J = J+1
exitwhen J > USED_TEXTTAG_AMOUNT
endloop
debug call BJDebugMsg("MultiTags Warning: Could not allocate new parent for Player("+I2S(PId)+")! You've surpassed the new limit... Returning -1")
return -1
endfunction
private function Periodic takes nothing returns nothing
endfunction
private struct TagSeparator
integer Index = 0
boolean array Used[12]
MultiTag array References[12]
static method create takes integer Index returns nothing
local TagSeparator TS = TagSeparator.allocate()
local integer J = 0
set TS.Index = Index
loop
set TS.Used[J] = false
set TS.References[12] = 0
set J = J+1
exitwhen J > 11
endloop
return TS
endmethod
endstruct
struct MultiTag
string Text = ""
real Height = 0.00
real XCoord = 0.00
real YCoord = 0.00
integer Red = 0
integer Green = 0
integer Blue = 0
integer Alpha = 0
real LifeSpan = 0.00
private TagSeparator array Parents[12]
readonly boolean array ShowForPlayer[12]
private real XOff = 0.00
private real YOff = 0.00
method ShowForPlayer takes integer forPlayer, boolean Show returns nothing
local integer PId = GetPlayerId(forPlayer)
if Show then
if not(.ShowForPlayer[PId]) then
if .Parents[PId] < 0 then
set .Parents[PId] = NewParent(PId, this)
if .Parents[PId] < 0 then
return
endif
endif
set .ShowForPlayer[PId] = true
if LocalPlayer == forPlayer then
call SetTextTagText(TT[.Parents[PId].Index], .Text, .Height)
call SetTextTagPos(TT[.Parents[PId].Index], .XCoord, .YCoord, .Height)
call SetTextTagColor(TT[.Parents[PId].Index], .Red, .Green, .Blue, .Alpha)
endif
set LocalText = null
endif
elseif .ShowForPlayer[PId] then
if LocalPlayer == forPlayer then
call SetTextTagText(TT[.Parents[PId].Index], "", 0.00)
endif
endif
endmethod
static method createForPlayer takes player forPlayer, string Text, real Height, real X, real Y, integer R, integer G, integer B, integer A returns MultiTag
local MultiTag MT = MultiTag.allocate()
local integer J = 0
loop
if Player(J) == forPlayer then
set MT.Parents[J] == NewParent(GetPlayerId(forPlayer), MT)
set ShowForPlayer[J] = true
else
set MT.Parents[J] = -1
set ShowForPlayer[J] = false
endif
set J = J+1
exitwhen J > 11
endloop
set MT.Text = Text
set MT.Height = Height
set MT.XCoord = X
set MT.YCoord = Y
set MT.Red = R
set MT.Green = G
set MT.Blue = B
set MT.Alpha = A
return MT
endmethod
method onDestroy takes nothing returns nothing
local integer J = 0
loop
if .ShowForPlayer[J] and LocalPlayer == Player(J) then
call SetTextTagText(TT[.Parents[J].Index], "", 0.00)
endif
set J = J+1
exitwhen J > 11
endloop
endmethod
endstruct
private function Init takes nothing returns nothing
local integer J = 0
loop
exitwhen J >= USED_TEXTTAG_AMOUNT
set TT[J] = CreateTextTag()
set Separators[J] = TagSeparator.create(J)
set J = J+1
endloop
set PTimer = CreateTimer()
set LocalPlayer = GetLocalPlayer()
endfunction
endlibrary
One other thing I just thought of right is this: what if you figured out which texttags could be seen on the screen by each player, and then showed only the relevant ones when necessary. That way the other tags would be there to be seen if a player moved the camera there, but not unless he/she did so. These two in conjunction might drastically increase the 99 texttag cap.
