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<blockquote data-quote="Black Plauge" data-source="post: 4583113" data-attributes="member: 69833">I'm going to suggest against using a symbol font for icons and using choice fields rendered as images instead (much like I did on my set).&nbsp; Symbol fonts are inherently cumbersome to use (though easy to program) because they require knowing the letter to symbol mapping.&nbsp; Even when that is made as intuitive as possible, that's still a whole bunch of user overhead that makes using the style more difficult.The one situation where symbol fonts make sense (and the primary reason MSE has them) is in situations like the mana cost of a Magic card where you know you are going to have several symbols appearing in the same field in arbitrary combination.&nbsp; Most of the places where MSE styles for D&amp;D cards have used symbol fonts, it has been in a field that contains only one icon (such as action type, range, damage, etc.).&nbsp; In those cases a choice field that is rendered as an image makes far more sense from a user interface point of view.&nbsp; Heck, even in cases where multiple icons might be needed (as in damage for some powers) it's possible to use a multiple choice field to handle that (check out my set for an implementation of that).This will also make it easier to swtich from style to style as a style using a different set of icons would simply map the choice selections to the images it wants to use instead of having to write up a whole new symbol font.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Black Plauge, post: 4583113, member: 69833"] I'm going to suggest against using a symbol font for icons and using choice fields rendered as images instead (much like I did on my set). Symbol fonts are inherently cumbersome to use (though easy to program) because they require knowing the letter to symbol mapping. Even when that is made as intuitive as possible, that's still a whole bunch of user overhead that makes using the style more difficult. The one situation where symbol fonts make sense (and the primary reason MSE has them) is in situations like the mana cost of a Magic card where you know you are going to have several symbols appearing in the same field in arbitrary combination. Most of the places where MSE styles for D&D cards have used symbol fonts, it has been in a field that contains only one icon (such as action type, range, damage, etc.). In those cases a choice field that is rendered as an image makes far more sense from a user interface point of view. Heck, even in cases where multiple icons might be needed (as in damage for some powers) it's possible to use a multiple choice field to handle that (check out my set for an implementation of that). This will also make it easier to swtich from style to style as a style using a different set of icons would simply map the choice selections to the images it wants to use instead of having to write up a whole new symbol font. [/QUOTE]

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