Builder Media

Media represent pictures or sounds that you use in your cartridge. You can associated multiple files with each piece of media. Typically, you will have one file for each device for which you plan to publish your cartridge. The builder will include the appropriate file based on characteristics such as image size (for pictures) or file extension (for sound). It's not clear that this feature is fully functional as of 02/25/2008.

Constructs Which Use Picture Media

The following constructs can use picture media. Unless otherwise noted, the picture appears on the detail screen.

• Cartridges *
• Zones *
• Items *
• Characters *
• Tasks *
• Message boxes (displayed when the message is displayed)
• Dialog message series (displayed as each message is displayed)
• Inputs (displayed when asking the player for input)

* You can use script to change the media associated with constructs marked with an asterisk. For example, when the player opens a box, you change the picture to show the lid open.

Each piece of media has an associated description. Even for pictures, this is never shown to the player. Instead, any text comes from the description or text of the construct which uses the media. For example, when the detail screen for an item is shown, the picture comes from the media but the text is the item description. Media in the Builder To add or change media, begin by choosing Media in the left sidebar. You will see a list of existing media.

• To add a new piece of media, choose Add and provide the requested information.
• To change an existing piece of media, choose Edit and provide or change the requested information.
• To delete an existing piece of media, choose Delete and confirm your intention to delete.

For each piece of media, you will be asked to provide the following information.

• A short name. Must be unique among all media in the cartridge.
• A brief description. As far as I know, not used anywhere.
• Alternate text. As far as I know, not used anywhere. In normal accessibility parlance, this would be for use with assistive technology (such as screen readers) which cannot interpret or render pictures. Possibly intended for display on a GPSr with no image capability?
• A list of one or more files containing the pictures or sound for this piece of media. Typically, you will want one file for each target type of GPSr. See below.

To the right, you will see a list of files associated with this piece of media.

• To add a new file, choose Add. Browse to the location of the file, select the file, and choose Open.
• To replace an existing file, choose Edit. Browse to the location of the replacement file, select the file, and choose Open.
• To delete an existing file, choose Delete. Confirm your intention to delete the file from this media definition.

Note that none of these activities affect the files as they exist on your PC. These operations only affect whether or not the file is included in your cartridge when you build it.

Picture Sizing Guidelines

The Wherigo Media Group provided this information in a forum post. Additional information was provided in posts by David Loew.

Currently, the Colorado supports only JPG. The pocket PC supports both JPG and BMP.

When you photoshop your JPG, use Save for web, High, Quality 70.

For current devices, all pictures are 230 pixels wide. Height varies by device and the construct with which the picture is to be used.

Construct	Garmin Colorado	Pocket PC
Cartridge	130	130
Zone	180 with text, 230 without text. WMG prefers 180 regardless. Use the same height for all zones.	130 with text, 174 without text. WMG prefers 174 regardless. Use the same height for all zones.
Object details	250	174
Message boxes	230	130
Tasks	230	130

All icons are 32x32, regardless of device.

File Naming Suggestions

WMG suggests using the following filenames for your picture media. Note that these are not used by the builder. They just make it easier for you to figure out which file is which. Judging from the sample code for the demo cartridge, the parentheses delimit variable information in the forum post. They are not actually present in the filename. For example, for a task "open the box", the Colorado filename might be "taskopenthebox_garmin.jpg".

Construct	Garmin Colorado	Pocket PC
Cartridge	No recommendation	No recommendation
Zone	zone(zone name)_garmin.jpg	zone(zone name)_ppc.jpg
Object details	(media object)_garmin.jpg	(media_object)_ppc.jpg
Message boxes	(media object)msg_garmin.jpg	(media_object)_ppc.jpg
Tasks	task(task name)_garmin.jpg	task(task name)_ppc.jpg
Icons	icon(media object).jpg	icon(media object).jpg

Pictures Not Used in the Cartridge

Miscellaneous pictures not used in the cartridge are sized as follows.

Posters for the web site are 120x150.