DDF Styles

Stored in the DDFSTYLE data lump, or the styles.ddf file.

DDFSTYLE allows you to define the background color/image and text font/color/scaling information (and sounds too) for various parts of EDGE-Classic's user interface.

Commands

Each entry describes a section of the UI and consists of a unique name, enclosed in square brackets, followed by a series of commands that define the "style" to use. To modify one of the default styles EDGE uses you must use the appropriate hard-coded entry name:

MENU MAIN_MENU CHOOSE_SKILL CHOOSE_EPISODE LOAD_MENU SAVE_MENU OPTIONS EXIT_SCREEN STATS CONSOLE INTERLEVEL_TEXT CAST_SCREEN MESSAGES IMPORTANT_MESSAGES RTS_TIP AUTOMAP HOST_NETGAME

Note that RTS_TIP is limited to allow only the TEXT.FONT command: other stuff like text size, colour etc. depends on the RTS tip slot definition.

BACKGROUND COMMANDS

The following is a list of the commands that are accepted by BACKGROUND:

COMMAND	TYPE	EXPLANATION
BACKGROUND.COLOUR	[hex]	Specify a colour directly without needing any lumps. Example: BACKGROUND.COLOUR = #FF9030; //Orange
BACKGROUND.IMAGE	[image name]	The image to show behind any text.
BACKGROUND.TRANSLUCENCY	[percentage]	The percentage of translucency. 0% is invisible, while 100% is visible.
BACKGROUND.ASPECT	[float]	Adjusts the width of the image. 1 is normal, 0.5 makes for tall and skinny, 2.0 makes for obese.
BACKGROUND.SCALE	[float]	Stretches or shrinks the total size (width and height) of the image. 1 is normal perspective, 0.5 will make image half normal size. Used when you wish to use a larger and more detailed image than normal DOOM.
SPECIAL	[special]	A comma separated list of special flags. See below.

TEXT, ALT, TITLE, HELP, HEADER or SELECTED COMMANDS

The following is a list of the commands that can be used after the ".": i.e. TEXT.FONT:

COMMAND	TYPE	EXPLANATION
.COLOURMAP	[colourmap]	Used to remap text colours. The value is a reference to an entry in colmap.ddf. Examples: 'TEXT_RED', 'TEXT_LT_BLUE', 'ALLWHITE'.
.FONT	[font name]	The font(defined in DDFFONTS) to use for the text.
.TRANSLUCENCY	[percentage]	The percentage of translucency. 0% is invisible, while 100% is visible.
.ASPECT	[float]	Adjusts the width of the text. 1 is normal, 0.5 makes for tall and skinny, 2.0 makes for obese.
.SCALE	[float]	Stretches or shrinks the total size (width and height) of the text. 1 is normal perspective, 0.5 will make image half normal size. Used when you wish to use a larger and more detailed image than normal DOOM.
.X_OFFSET	[float]	Can be used to offset text-based menus
.Y_OFFSET	[float]	Can be used to offset text-based menus

Specific COMMANDS for Menu items

The following is a list of the commands can be used to change ECs Menus:

COMMAND	TYPE	EXPLANATION
ENTRY_ALIGNMENT	[string]	Used to set text/image alignment for menu item names. The value can be: 'LEFT', 'CENTER' or 'RIGHT'.
CURSOR.POSITION	[string]	Used to determine cursor position relative to menu item. The value can be: 'LEFT', 'CENTER', 'RIGHT' or 'BOTH'. "BOTH" will drawn the cursor in both LEFT/RIGHT positions. Defaults to "LEFT".
CURSOR.BORDER	[boolean]	Only has an effect when the cursor position is set to CENTER. Will scale up to the dimensions of the tallest menu item. Good for highlights/frames/border style cursors.
CURSOR.TRANSLUCENCY	[percentage]	The percentage of translucency. 0% is invisible, while 100% is visible.
CURSOR.IMAGE	[image name]	The image to use instead of the default for this menu's cursor.
CURSOR.STRING	[string]	If present, will use these characters from the style's font as the cursor instead of an image.
CURSOR.SCALING	[boolean]	Will set whether or not the cursor scales proportionally to menu item heights. Defaults to true.

SPECIALS

These allow some control over the ways the image is used.

SPECIAL	EXPLANATION
TILED	Background image should tile (otherwise covers whole area).
TILED_NOSCALE	Background image should tile (1:1 pixels)
NO_STRETCH_FULLSCREEN	Background image will NOT be stretched to fill the screen
CURSOR_RIGHT	Menu cursor will be drawn on the right side of menu entries

Examples

The following is an example of an RTS_MENU style entry:

[MENU3]  
BACKGROUND.IMAGE="WNTPSTR2";//background image  
BACKGROUND.TRANSLUCENCY=100%; //solid image  

//TITLE controls the question part of the RTS menu  
TITLE.FONT="DOOM";  
TITLE.COLOURMAP="TEXT_YELLOW";  
TITLE.SCALE=1.1; //make the text a bit bigger  

//TEXT controls the menu options  
TEXT.FONT="VERDANA";  
TEXT.COLOURMAP="TEXT_GREEN";  
TEXT.SCALE=0.9;//make the text a bit smaller  

DDF docs written by Andy Baker and Ziggy Gnarly, with updates by Andrew Apted, Andy Brewood and Luke Brennan. © EDGE Team, et al. 1998 - 2024.