Map Notes | Foundry Virtual Tabletop

Overview

Tabletop roleplaying games often require note-taking for specific objects in a scene, or landmarks on a map. Foundry Virtual Tabletop supports the use of placing journal entries on the map to serve as map notes. This article will familiarize you with the process of creating map notes, editing existing map notes, and how permissions for journal entries determine visibility of map notes.

Creating Map Notes

Map Notes Configuration Menu — An example Map Note and its Map Note Configuration dialog.

To create a map note, take the following steps:

Create a journal entry in the Journal Entries sidebar.
Drag the created journal entry from the sidebar onto the scene.
Configure the note via the configuration window that appears.
Click Update Map Note to finalize and create the map note.

Once the map note has been created it can be double clicked at any time to open the associated journal entry, or double right-clicked to reopen the configuration window.

Map Note Visibility

Map notes are not displayed by default, and require the Toggle Map Note Visibility button to be clicked in the Map Note tool palette. This setting is per user - each player is able to turn on and off Map Note visibility.

The visibility of Map Notes is also determined by its corresponding Journal Entry and permission levels. If a player has "Limited" permissions to the Journal Entry, they will be able to see the position of the Map Note pin and its assigned tooltip, but will not be able to see its text content. However, limited permission journal entries with images may still be opened.

Journal entries that have map pins in the current scene will gain the "Jump to Pin" option in the context menu, which will pan the canvas to its placed Note location.

If a Map Note has no Journal Entry associated with it, the note will be visible to all users currently viewing the scene if map notes are toggled on by that user.

Deleting Notes

A Map Note can be deleted from a Scene by a Gamemaster by hovering the mouse cursor over the note and pressing the Delete key. Alternatively, all Map Notes on the current scene can be deleted by clicking the Map Notes button (bookmark icon) in the scene control toolbar, and clicking "Clear Notes" (trash can icon).

Deleting a placed object like a Map Note will not delete the Journal Entry that it refers to.

Configuring Notes

Map Notes - Config Screen — An example Map Note and its Configuration dialog which is opened by double right-clicking on the control icon.

A Map Note can be configured again by double right-clicking it. The details of each configuration option are listed below:

Journal Entry: The Journal Entry assigned to the Map Note. This field can be set to nothing, creating a universal map note that all users can see which does not link to a journal entry and cannot be double-clicked.
Text Label: The label the Map Note will display when hovered over with the cursor. If left empty, the label will default to the name of the Journal Entry. If the map note's journal entry is set to blank, the text label will be changed to "Unknown" unless a different string is entered first.
X/Y-Position: The coordinates for the Map Note on the scene. It is worth noting The Map Note can still be dragged and relocated after placing, making these fields more suitable for fine-tuning the placement of pins.
Entry Icon: The display icon for the Map Note.
Icon Size: The size of the Map Note's icon on the Scene. This defaults to 40 and has a minimum size of 32, but can be set higher.
Icon Tint: The tint color of the Entry Icon, this is empty by default, relying on the chosen icon's base appearance and colors.
Font Family: The font which will be used to display the text of this note, Signika is used by default.
Font Size: The font size of the Text Label entered. This defaults to size 48, but can go as low as size 8 or as high as size 128.
Text Color: The color of the Text Label. A text stroke will automatically be added in contrast to the color chosen to ensure visibility.
Text Anchor Point: The placement of the Text Label relative to the Map Note itself.

API References

To interact with Map Note objects programmatically, you will primarily use the following API concepts:

The Note Note Object
The NotesLayer NotesLayer Canvas Layer
The NoteConfig NoteConfig Application