Relationship Board
A relationship board is a scene that keeps Bondsmith’s connection lines drawn on the canvas at all times.
Flag a scene as a board
Section titled “Flag a scene as a board”Bondsmith adds three fields to the bottom of the scene configuration’s Miscellaneous tab: Show Bondsmith Connections, Relationship Board, and Board Badge Scale.
Turn on Relationship Board to make the scene a board. A board draws connection lines without waiting for a token to be selected, and applies the board badge scale.
Show Bondsmith Connections draws lines and ad-hoc connections without the always-on board behavior. A board scene draws connections whether or not that option is on.
Connection lines
Section titled “Connection lines”On a board, Bondsmith draws a line between every pair of tokens whose actors hold an individual relationship. The actors do not need to be tracked. The reputation tier of the relationship sets the line color, and your canvas line style sets the stroke. Line width grows with how far the value sits from zero, positive or negative. Reputation and tiers covers tiers and their colors, and the line style setting is on the settings reference.
Off a board, lines need Show Bondsmith Connections. With nothing selected, every line draws gray and dashed, without tier colors or your line style. Selecting a token narrows the lines to that token’s outgoing relationships, drawn with tier color, width, and your line style.
Hover a line for a tooltip naming both ends, the relation type, and the value. A player sees an entity’s masked name in place of its display name when one is set. The value is left out for a player when either entity’s score is hidden from players, or when reputation numbers are hidden world-wide.
Bondsmith drops a line when either token is hidden on the canvas, when either entity is hidden from players, or when the relation is hidden by default. Those lines disappear for you as well as for the players. A per-player override on a relation decides whether that player sees the line. It can hide a line from one player or show a hidden line to one player. Visibility and players covers how those states are set.
Individual relationships are directional. A pair with a value in both directions still draws a single line, reading whichever direction Bondsmith reaches first. The arrow in the tooltip shows which direction is read.
Ad-hoc connections
Section titled “Ad-hoc connections”Draw Connection is a toggle in the Token scene controls. Only you see it, and only on a scene with Show Bondsmith Connections on. A board scene without that option does not show the tool.
Turn the toggle on, then click two tokens to connect them. The connection is stored on the scene.
A drawn connection needs no relationship behind it. It has its own color and stroke style. Right-click one for a menu with Edit Label, Edit Color, Edit Style, and Delete Connection. Only you can open the menu. A labeled connection prints its label at the midpoint of the line and shows it as a tooltip on hover.
Deleting a token deletes the connections attached to it. A player does not see a connection attached to a token hidden on the canvas.
Reputation badges
Section titled “Reputation badges”A tracked token carries a circular badge showing its reputation tier. The badge color comes from a built-in palette based on the tier’s position in the tier list. The letter on the badge is the first letter of the tier name.
Hover a badge for the entity name, value, and tier. A player sees the masked name when one is set. The value is left out when the score is hidden from that player.
Badge size on a board follows the scene’s Board Badge Scale field. Leave it empty and each client falls back to its own canvas badge scale. A value here overrides that scale for everyone viewing the scene. The canvas badge scale is on the settings reference.
Arrange Tokens
Section titled “Arrange Tokens”On a board scene, an Arrange Tokens button appears in the Token scene controls for you only. It opens a dialog that repositions every token on the scene whose actor is tracked or has an individual relationship.
An arrangement needs at least two of those tokens on the scene. With fewer, Bondsmith reports that there are not enough tokens and stops.
Pick a layout mode.
- By Faction Hierarchy groups tokens by faction and places each faction’s top-ranked members above the rest.
- By Relation Strength runs a force simulation that pulls tokens with stronger relationships closer together. This mode needs the graph library and skips the arrangement without it.
- By Location clusters tokens by the location they are tied to, with each cluster laid out around its own center.
Tokens with no faction form a last group in the faction layout. Tokens tied to no location get their own cluster in the location layout. A token claimed by more than one faction or location is placed once, in the first group that claims it.
The Repulsion (Charge) and Link Distance fields take effect only for the relation-strength layout.
Every layout keeps tokens inside the scene rectangle. The relation-strength layout also rescales its result to fit the scene.
Before each arrangement, Bondsmith saves the current token positions on the scene. Choose Undo Arrangement in the dialog to return tokens to those positions. Each scene keeps one snapshot, so undo reverts only the most recent arrangement on that scene.
Undo clears the snapshot. Running it again reports that there is no snapshot to undo. The snapshot is saved before the layout is computed. A relation-strength run that stops for a missing graph library has still replaced the previous snapshot.