Well, I still haven't cracked making the check box start out checked - I was able to "remove" the check box and dragging box entirely by moving them well off-screen. However, while doing that seems to prevent you from drag-moving the box, you can still manually drag-resize it, so removing it isn't quite the same as having it be checked. Gonna have to think about this one some more :hmm:

Prodded by your post, however, I did figure out how to resize the message text area - just change the two numbers noted below (in the menu_1024_768.ini file):

[G3F I233]
Zone= 262 742 338 68 0 1 0x3F2A0000 0 0 0x3F320000 0 0 6 -22

Add whatever numbers you want to the "338" to make the message area wider, and to the "68" to make it taller - you'll need to experiment a little to get the size you want. I tried it with adding 100 to each, and it gave a pretty good increase without taking over the whole screen. Don't worry that the scroll bar on the right seems to disappear - it comes back as soon as you have enough text messages to need it again.

While I was at it, I also went ahead and did something I've been meaning to do since I figured out how to make it start transparent - which was to remove the opacity slider along the top (which doesn't work any more once you make it transparent the way I did anyway) - just make the following change:

[G3F I234]
Zone= 328 767 120 30 0 1 0x3F2A0005 1 -0.5 0x3F360000 0 0.5 10 -2000

Thanks for bringing me back to this - been meaning to get that opacity thing off there for a while now and just needed a little prodding :D

Thanks! Will make those changes.

Updated for Patch 1.3
 

Patch 1.3 altered the numbering of the sections in the menu_1024_768.ini so that these fixes to the message box (relocating, as well as making transparent and removing the opacity slider) need to be made to different-numbered sections, as follows:

Moving message box to bottom left (at 1024x768):
[G3F I237]
Zone= 256 764 350 94 0 1 0x3F000000 0.25 0 0x3F2A0000 0 0 -255 -614

Making message box start transparent:
[G3F I249]
Color=0xFFFFFF00 ;was 80

Removing opacity slider:
[G3F I242]
Name=OpacitySlider
Zone= 328 767 120 30 0 1 0x3F2A0005 1 -0.5 0x3F360000 0 0.5 10 -2000

The opacity fix works for any resolution, but as before, if you're running a different/higher resolution you may need to tweak these numbers a bit to get it where you want.

Enjoy!

This one has been bugging me for some time. I've upped that first number to 500, but the size of the message box never changes for me. I really want to set it to that value, because it's really stupid having such a small message box when I have a 24" widescreen. Is there another value in that block that needs to be edited?

Were you trying this before or after the latest patch? Turns out that the patch renumbered this section as well - what was [G3F I233] is now [G3F I241]. When I tested it with the new section number (adding 100 to each of the numbers as noted in my earlier post), the box expanded as shown in the picture below:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96...messagebox.jpg

Try that and see if it works for you now. Good luck! [BTW - you'll need to move the box up to make room for the larger area, or it will get blocked by the order bar]

Thanks! That almost did it for me. :D Now, when I try to move my mouse cursor to the right edge of the message box the scroll bar disappears! Why is this happening?

Position settings
 

I have a ViewSonic 22" at 1680 x 1050 with the TM1.6 mod.

For the above screen using the dimensions 25 -900, as indicated in the previous posts, at the [G3F I237] line,
positions the scrolling text menu at the bottom 'sitting' on the command bar and up against the rightmost command tab. Essentially bottom-middle of the screen. I hope this helps other ViewSonic owners.

For general info the left number (25) moves the menu left as you decrease the value, the right number (-900) moves the menu down as you decrease the value.

Thanks for the info gents.
:up:

Do you have more messages/text than fits on the screen at one time? If you only have a few messages/lines of text, the scroll bar disappears ('cause you don't have anything to scroll) and then it comes back as soon as you have enough messages/lines of text so that you would actually need to scroll to see them all.

If that's not the problem, let me know and I'll see what else it might be.

I don't think that was the problem, as I recall. I just went back to the stock setting and left it at that, as it wasn't that big of an issue for me.

1.3 values work for 1.4!
 

I play at 1280x1024 and my menu_1024_768.ini changes to move the message log on start-up from 1.3 still are valid for 1.4! This change , along with Jake's MetalHud mod, really add a polished look to the game that is lacking from the stock game.

Glad it's working for you - thanks for posting an update. I've checked the changes to the menu_1024_768.ini file in patch 1.4 and there weren't all that many, so I was hoping this little trick wouldn't be affected, but I hadn't had time to check it myself yet.

Okay, now I wanted to get back to this issue. The problem is that, as soon as I move my mouse cursor to the right, just past the text, the scroll bar will disappear. I would be mighty grateful if you could help me with that. :yep:

OK - you may need to post or PM me with the resolution you're running and the numbers you used in your tweaks to do this, but in the meantime, I want to make sure I understand the problem/behavior you're talking about.

In my game with this done, this is what I see when I have my mouse cursor anywhere in the message box:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96...hscrollbar.jpg

As you can see, the scroll bar/arrows on the right (and the move/lock indicators at top left) are visible.

Then, whenever I move my cursor anywhere outside the message box, this is what it looks like:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96...tscrollbar.jpg

Is this what you're talking about, or is it something else? It works the same way for me in stock, so I figure you must be talking about something else, but I can't recreate any problem here. If you send me your resolution and tweaked menu_1024_768.ini lines, I'll see if I can figure out what's going on.

Luke, I play at 1280x1024 and get the exact same results as you regarding the scroll bar.

It drove me crazy until I found that by placing your cursor somewhere in the message area (as pictured in panthercules' last post - first screen cap)
you can scroll through your messages using the scroll wheel on your mouse, rather than the onscreen scroll bars. Hope this works for you as well.

@panthercules,

The problem is that my scroll bar disappears before I move my mouse cursor out of the box just to the right of the text (in your first above example pic the cursor would disapper on me about 15-20 pixels to the right of the word of).

This is the pertinent line from my file. I am running the game at 1920x1200:

@Scott,

Thanks, I'll give that a try.