How to Create a Message Popup Icon

Message Popup Icons

The icons used in Custom Message Popups belong to the class of Textures - Not Environmental

Information on Message Popups can be found at the Trainz Wiki pages:-
Using the Message Popup Rule
Using the Message Popup Rule (Applications)
How to Create a HTML Asset
Message Popup Rule (description)

How to Create a New Non-Environmental Texture Asset

Step 1: Create the Asset From the TANE Launcher select Manage Content in Content Manager open the Developer menu select New Content This will create a new asset and open it for editing. A message window will appear that will (hopefully) report on the successful creation of a new asset. Close the message window

	Step 2: Display the New Asset Set the CM Search Filter to Open for Editing This will display only those assets that have been opened for editing (hopefully only your new and as yet unnamed asset will be shown)

	Step 3: Open the Asset in Windows Explorer Right mouse click on the entry New Asset Select Open Select Show in Explorer

	Step 4: Open File in Notepad There will only be a single item in the asset, its config.txt file Double click on the file to open it in Notepad

	Step 5: Edit the File You will need to edit the contents of this file. The next section, The Config.txt File, identifies the changes you will need to make. The new name you give to the asset will not take effect until after it has been committed. After editing, save the changes and exit Notepad.

	Step 6: Add Any "Extras" You will need to add three additional files (possibly more depending on how the icon is created) to the asset folder:- a thumbnail image as described in the section The Thumbnail Image the icon image as described in the section The Icon Image a texture text file as described in the section The Texture File

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY This is the minimum number of files needed in a Texture asset

Step 7: Finish Up Close the Asset window Commit the asset in Content manager Right mouse click on the asset Select Submit Edits Hopefully there will be no errors. Notes: Because you still have the Filter Open for Editing in operation, the now closed and committed asset will vanish from the window display. To check that your asset has been correctly created and renamed, set the CM Search Filter to "Today". Some of the most common errors that can occur when creating and committing a new asset are:- no thumbnail image in the asset typing errors in the config.txt or .texture.txt files poorly formatted tags in the config.txt file incorrect file types added to the asset folder files missing from the asset folder

The Config.txt File

This file should follow the same (or a similar) format as the example below. Entries in blue will be different for each asset. The order of the "tags" is not important:-

kuid                                    <kuid:this is an auto-generated number>
kind                                    "texture"
texture                                 "asset_name.texture"
username                                "place your selected asset name here"
category-class                          "JI"
trainz-build                            4.3

thumbnails
{
  0
  {
    width                               240
    height                              180
    image                               "name_of_thumbnail.jpg"
  }
  
  {
    width                               64
    height                              64
    image                               "asset_name.texture"
  }
}
description                             "Place your description of the icon here"

	Settings: For the above example: The <kuid> is unique to every asset so it is not advisable to select your own. This will be automatically generated by the Content Manager program when a new asset is created The kind identifies the type of asset and the types of files that TANE will expect to find in the asset. It also tells TANE how to render and error check the asset. A list of asset kinds can be found at KIND Hierarchy The texture is the name of the assets texture file. This will be a simple text file and will have the name asset_name.texture but the actual file itself will be named asset_name.texture.txt - ending ".txt" is not added to the texture tag The username is your name for the asset and the name that other users will see. It is a good idea to make it compact and meaningful. The category-class identifies the intent of the asset and is important in classifying it for filtering and searching. A list of category classes can be found at Category-class The trainz-build identifies the minimum Trainz version for this asset. A list of asset trainz-build numbers and their corresponding Trainz versions can be found at "Trainz-build"_number The thumbnails container holds the preview images of the asset shown by the Content Manager program, the Web version of the DLS and the Message Popup Rule. Information on thumbnails can be found at Thumbnails The first thumbnail (size 240 x 180) is the thumbnail image used by CM and the Web DLS Page for this asset The image is the name of the thumbnail image - it must be a JPG format image The width of the image must be 240 pixels The height of the image must be 180 pixels The second thumbnail (size 64 x 64) is the thumbnail image used by the Message Popup Rule for this asset The image is the assets asset_name.texture.txt file (but without the ".txt" at the end) The width of the image must be 64 pixels The height of the image must be 64 pixels The description provides more details for users than the username

The Icon Image

You will need image editing software to create the icon image or to change an existing image to the required dimensions and format.

(not to scale)

Settings: The image must meet the following specifications:- 64 pixels wide and 64 pixels tall bit depth should be 24 bits image file format can be any of:- bmp jpg png tga (tga compression should not be used)

The Texture File

The .texture.txt file mainly contains the transparency (or Alpha Channel) data.

	Settings: the Texture File is a standard text file the filename is composed of:- a user selected asset_name followed by a period (.) the word texture followed by a period (.) the letters txt

A sample .texture.txt file is shown below:-

primary=ashpit.tga secondary=ashpit.tga tile=st

Settings: primary - this is the name of the icon image file that contains the RGB colour image secondary - this is the name of the icon image file that contains the Alpha Channel (transparency) image tile=st - instructs TANE to tile the image both horizontally and vertically. This has no effect on the icon in a message popup window but must be included for validation purposes

Notes: In the example shown above, both the primary and secondary images are the same. In this case the image must contain both the RGB colour data and the Alpha Channel data.

This is a work in progress. More to come.