Hover to see token name and bars

+1, I'd like to see a feature like this too.

+1 here. Anything to improve the state of tokens.

+1, I'd really love this feature.

+1 

Sounds like one of those things I never knew I needed until I saw it.  

(Strangely my video recorder is not capturing my mouse position correctly. I'm clicking on and off the token.)

I don't know how useful hover is.
Something can be done pretty well with a click but on hover you have to have determinations for what counts as a hover and how long that should be and also what to do with touch screens and I think on select is just better. Don't have to worry about all that.

Shameless plug.
https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6790397/

We have some improvements coming to the way that token templates work. That update ties into the Custom Status Icons feature. The one potential problem with this idea is what constitutes a "hover." If the purpose is to make it easy to find tokens when they're really close together, hovering is potentially going to be a bad experience. Either names and bars will jump all over the place, or it will take as long or longer to find the token you want.

We see the value of this feature and it's something we hope to include in the future. First we'll need to do more research into the right implementation before we find a place for it in our development queue. We'll update here when any action has been made.

I know I'm unaware about what the team has already discussed but, having made a couple different styles of implementation myself, I think the two useful types are "onclick/ ontouch" and "onhover". Here's my thinking with a good way it could work and logic behind it:

Touch screens can't hover so they only need ontouch if they want it.
Regular users could need both in various situations but hover could actively hinder the game like you said.

Therefore...

onclick/ ontouch already has bars but should also have nameplates. If you can select a token you can open its settings and the board already has to do a redraw so it's not very expensive at this point.

onhover should be a hotkey.
You could either do it where while holding a key (like tab) anything you hover over on the current layer shows names/ bars
OR
a button (like tab) would show all nameplates you have permission to view. As a GM this option seems much quicker and more user friendly for users as well. It even opens up the possibility of it being a gameplay mechanic (Think tab in Baldur's Gate) where you hold the button to see what you can interact with as a player. It also seems more sensible to redraw the canvas one time instead of many.

Just my 2 cents.

Keep in mind that you currently can't click a token that you don't control, so simply surfacing the nameplate along with the bars on click isn't sufficient. 

Noon said:

If you can select a token you can open its settings and the board already has to do a redraw so it's not very expensive at this point.

Aaron said:

Keep in mind that you currently can't click a token that you don't control, so simply surfacing the nameplate along with the bars on click isn't sufficient. 

Already minded.
Nobody wants that. That's why we have self/ other visibility buttons on each token.

Folks are saying that doing things onhover will be noisy (true) so we should do them onclick. Problem with that is that if you can't click, it doesn't work. I agree that the current click behavior is correct, it just breaks the proposed implementation of this feature. 

There is also accessibility to consider, and that many forms of interactive control are not mouse-based, so only focus/click is possible not hover (and as mentioned before, hover doesn't exist on touch) 

+1

Thank you all for the feedback. We have several thoughts about the right way to implement this feature. We intend to explore and prototype later in 2019 in connection to some other enhancements to the VTT that will be coming behind the Get a New Look update polish, an overhaul of WebGL utilization of Advanced Fog of War, and with an eye on plans for Mobile.

Additionally, it should bring the info to the top layer, so that it doesn't get hidden behind other tokens. Personally I wouldn't want it hidden, but I would love to be able to select or hover over a token to see what it's name is (Or in the case of my baddies, it's number!)

+1

Having an option to allow a player to mouse hover over a token to reveal its name would be helpful.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about.

Huh, "Not Now" isn't a tag I've seen too much on these.

Craig said:

As it is right now, the a token is placed on the north side of wall and Show Nameplate is enabled, then the nameplate will show on the south side of the wall. There isn't an option to move the name plate, and it's inconvenient to edit a token during a game session to enable Show Nameplate after the token is revealed, especially with multiple tokens.

Yeah, this interaction is something my party stumbled upon when we were exploring DL and AFoW.

Implementation options to migrate the above problem:

• Option to have the nameplate appear only on a hover(this suggestion)
• Option to have the nameplate be on the token, like how health bars can be at the token bottom part(not surprised if there is a suggestion for this)
• Make the nameplate only show when enough of the tokens lower part is visible. With the UDL, this might be easier to implement than before. Maybe the nameplate's visibility should be keyed/tied to the lower 25% part of the token, so that if one is visible, the other is also, or vice versa. This would mean that UDL Dim Lighting's fading visibility could result in a far-away token being barely visible, and it's nameplate have same transparency as the token's lower part.
  

  
  
  
  

I would like to give this thread a +1.  This feature would be lovely.  In addition to characters, would also work on signs in a village or city.

I would like a flexible rollover so you could choose what information is displayed. A default name tag and stat bars/numbers but other free form text would be handy

+1 Seems crazy that this is not in the game yet. 

While MapTool did it for years.

Would be nice, so you can avoid having the nameplate expose characters otherwise hidden by dynamic lighting. Haven't tried out in a while, so not sure if it's an issue any longer, but would be a nice feature regardless.

But as this is tagged as "Not Now", seems really low priority for them.

+1

I’m excited to say that this work is officially Queued and I’m updating the status of the thread. As you all know, we’ve done a lot of other work on the VTT in the last year especially and have more planned. This is part of that planned work.

Andreas J. said:

• Make the nameplate only show when enough of the tokens lower part is visible. With the UDL, this might be easier to implement than before. Maybe the nameplate's visibility should be keyed/tied to the lower 25% part of the token, so that if one is visible, the other is also, or vice versa. This would mean that UDL Dim Lighting's fading visibility could result in a far-away token being barely visible, and it's nameplate have same transparency as the token's lower part.

It might be possible to tie visibility of the name plate to show if the token's DL square is visible (the little square which dictates whether a token can move through a space)?

+1

Hey folks, very excited to say that this option is now available on the VTT (under Settings > Graphics)! Happy we were able to tackle this as part of our push to deliver 5 of the top 10 most popular Suggestions & Ideas from the forum this year. As a note, hover will not work on tablets or mobile devices.

I'm now closing this thread and refunding votes so you can vote on your next favorite idea in the Suggestions & Ideas forum.