Mike R.. said,
When you hover your mouse over the turn order it will highlight that specific token. What I'm asking for is that same highlight function to show up to everyone in the game for whoever/whatever is currently at the top of the list automatically. (. . .)
I also agree with this suggestion. The necessity of making clear to the players what PC/NPC/creature is next was one of my reasons for posting the "Turn Tracker displaying names in the Text Chat box" thread (<a href="http://community.roll20.net/discussion/2824/turn-tracker-displaying-names-in-the-text-chat-box#Item_1" rel="nofollow">http://community.roll20.net/discussion/2824/turn-tracker-displaying-names-in-the-text-chat-box#Item_1</a>).
Specifically, one of the things I was (am) missing is that currently the token highlight function from the Turn Tracker (that yellow square) is not streamed/shared to the players, not helping thus with GM/Players communication. And specifically stating again and again (by speaking it or by typing it) who is acting at the beginning of each turn is, in many cases, a hassle.
I like this idea. I think it would also help the GM when the map is so big that it they have to scroll around. Instead of scrolling to a new part then mousing over the unit in the turn tracker to see if it is on the bit of the map they can see, they can just scroll until they see the token with the box around it.
Alternatively, there could be an automatic scroll/pan towards the map area containing the highlighted token for the players noticing it, followed by an automatic return to the player's map position or arrangement, after a brief lapse of time. This would be elegant.
(Speaking of that "zoom solution", it's unfortunate and also awesome that Chrome is needing to draw 8 GB of RAM! What size are you maps? O_o)
Mr G said,
What you could do instead is set a tint colour for the token that is current. I use a yellow tint for this purpose. You can find tint colour in the edit token dialogue.
Not a bad idea to my mind, Mr G. But to my mind this has two drawbacks:
1) Roll20 already has a way of showing what token is current --the yellow square, appearing by placing the mouse over a token in the Turn Tracker. Using two ways of showing what token is current can be a bit confusing.
2) Manually editing tint colour in the Edit Token window . . . is also a hassle, since the GM needs to do it each turn and besides, for different tokens. I believe it's better if the Roll20 app automatically handles things like these -- automatically here is "in opposition to making it manually" in a turn by turn basis.
Returning to Mike R..'s suggestion:
In particular, for text based games, sharing this highlighting related to the Turn Tracker can be very useful, because it can be tiresome to type again and again who is acting each turn than to just speak it via WebCam --still a sort of bother, though. So, if the app automatically handles this, if would be beneficial to both types of games (text and voice).
Many steps for enhancing and speeding communication between game masters and players in a virtual tabletop are good, and they not necessarily go against the way of playing in a physical table --there, if you use minis, you just can point with your finger who is acting in this turn in an immediate way, without needing to type or say it.
