F1/Help Personalization Mod

[lexloma]

Here's a simple mod that you can do yourself to personalize your F1/Help screen however you like.

I modified the ..\data\menu\menu.txt and ..\data\menu\help.txt files using Notepad to replace the F1/Help screen's five pages of hotkey explanations with a personalized "log" of my boat.

http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu177/lexloma/F1.gif?t=1236366163

Before making any changes, copy "menu.txt" to "menu.ORIG.txt" and "help.txt" to "help.ORIG.txt" or something along those lines.

To change the "page" headers on the left-hand panel of the F1 screen, edit the "menu.txt" file and search for the text "3951=". I just changed the values for 3951-3955; these are the titles to the five pages of the F1/Help screen.

---
;Help items
3950=HELP
3951=STATIONS
3952=NAVIGATION
3953=ATTACK ORDERS
3954=OTHER CONTROLS
3955=CONVOY COMMANDER
3960=CLOSE
---
;Help items
3950=HELP
3951=SS-145 USS S-40
3952=BATTLE FLAG
3953=PATROLS I
3954=PATROLS II
3955=PATROLS III
3960=CLOSE
---

To change the "body" on the right-hand panel of the F1 screen, edit "help.txt" file.
Basically, you can remove all text from this file except the first line (this defines the separator character and number of pixels between the two columns of data displayed, which I modified from "#120" to "#130".)
I also left in the "F1" and "Esc" lines as I don't know if that affects anything.

---
#130 first is the separator character and the number after it represents tab length (in pixels)

F1 Help
Esc Game Menu

# SS-145 USS S-40

`C0xFFFFAAFF`Boat`C0x0`
Class: S
Type: Holland (S-1) Group
Built At: Bethlehem Shipbuilding, San Francisco, California
Keel Laid: Mar 5 1919
Launched: Jan 5 1921
Commissioned: Nov 20 1923

`C0xFFFFAAFF`Command`C0x0`
Commander: Lt Cmdr E. F. Morrissey, commissioning

`C0xFFFFAAFF`Specifications`C0x0`
Complement: 42 officers and men
Length: 219' 3"
Beam: 20' 8"
Draft: 15' 11"
Displacement: 868 tons surfaced
1,079 tons submerged
Speed: 14.5 knots surfaced
11 knots submerged
Armament: 1 × 4" deck gun
4 × 21" torpedo tubes

# BATTLE FLAG

`C0xFFFFAAFF`Summary`C0x0`
Patrols: 2
Tonnage: 33,624

`C0xFFFFAAFF`Patrol Types`C0x0`
Patrol: 2
Sink: 0

(...and so on for each of the five pages)
---

The "#" character denotes the separation of the various "pages" from one another. The relation between your page headers on "menu.txt" and the page bodies you define in "help.txt" is simply sequential: whatever appears after the first "#" will be related to help item 3951 and so forth.

The beauty of all of this is that you basically have five pages of data that you can fill up however you please... you could have one page for some of the hotkeys you can't remember and another with an ode to your boat...

I made these changes on SH4 v1.4

Any help testing is welcome!