Ticker View

A ticker view displays text as a continuously animated marquee inside a fixed-width window. It supports multiple independent motion styles and visual effects that can be freely combined.

General Information

Note

A ticker view is defined with a percent (%) and the characters TK, followed by the view number. For example: %TK1

Note

See MCI for general information on how to use views and common configuration properties available for them.

The ticker starts automatically when the screen loads and runs until the screen is torn down. Standard and focus SGR colors are set by placing duplicate MCI codes back-to-back in the art file.

Properties

Property	Description
text	The text to display. Supports pipe color codes and predefined MCI format codes (e.g. {BN}, {CT}).
width	Width of the visible ticker window in columns.
motion	How the text moves. See Motion Styles below. Default: left.
effect	Visual effect applied to the text each tick. See Effects below. Default: normal.
tickInterval	Milliseconds between animation steps (default: 100). Lower = faster.
holdTicks	For reveal, typewriter, and fallLeft/fallRight motions: ticks to hold at full display before cycling (default: 20).
fillChar	Character used to fill empty space in the window (default: space).

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Motion Styles

Controls how the text moves within the window. Set via the motion property.

Motion	Description
left	Continuous left-scroll that loops with a gap. Default.
right	Continuous right-scroll that loops with a gap.
bounce	Text oscillates left and right, reversing direction at each end. No gap between loops.
reveal	Text slides in from the right, holds for holdTicks, then slides back out. Repeats.
typewriter	Characters appear one per tick from left-to-right, hold at full display for holdTicks, then instantly clear and repeat.
fallLeft	All characters start spread evenly across the window then slide left, stacking against the left edge. Holds for holdTicks, then re-spreads and repeats.
fallRight	Same as fallLeft but characters slide right and stack against the right edge.

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Effects

Controls the visual appearance of the text. Set via the effect property.

Text-Style Effects

These apply a character-level transformation to the text at setText time. The transformation is permanent per-tick (no per-frame overhead).

Effect	Example
normal	Text as-is. Default.
upper	ALL CAPS
lower	all lowercase
title	Title Case
firstLower	fIRST lETTER lOWERCASED
smallVowels	sMALL vOwElS
bigVowels	bIG vOwEls
smallI	smAll I — every “i” is lowercase
mixed	rAnDoM cAsE (re-randomized each setText call)
l33t	l337 5p34k

Dynamic Effects

These are applied per-tick to the visible window, producing animated color or noise.

Effect	Description
rainbow	Each character cycles through 6 bright ANSI colors. The color band swims through the text with the scroll, producing a flowing neon look.
scramble	About 30% of non-space characters are replaced with random noise characters rendered in bright green each tick, giving a decryption/hacker feel.
glitch	Real text with 1–3 random characters corrupted to red noise per tick. Looks like signal interference.

Tip

Text-style effects and dynamic effects are independent axes — l33t + rainbow works: the text is l33t-ified first, then rainbow colors are applied to the visible window each tick.

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Examples

Scrolling board name with rainbow effect (expand)

TK1: {
  text: "Welcome to {BN} -- {VN}   "
  width: 60
  motion: left
  effect: rainbow
  tickInterval: 80
}

Bouncing l33t ticker (expand)

TK1: {
  text: "ENiGMA BBS - the future is now"
  width: 50
  motion: bounce
  effect: l33t
  tickInterval: 60
}

Typewriter reveal with glitch effect (expand)

TK1: {
  text: "SYSTEM ONLINE"
  width: 40
  motion: typewriter
  effect: glitch
  tickInterval: 100
  holdTicks: 30
}

Slide-in reveal (expand)

TK1: {
  text: "Welcome back, {UN}"
  width: 40
  motion: reveal
  effect: normal
  tickInterval: 60
  holdTicks: 25
}