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Chief Concerns
The presence of a chief reduces the available size of the field. This document seeks to list all the consequences that arise from that. Square brackets are used to show the current state of support.
The functions that draw charges, ordinaries, divisions (and 1 treatment) all need to know whether a chief is present, however there is no single "fix" that can be applied to each category due to the presence of chief, the actual change is specific to the object being drawn.
At present the chief is always 300 units high. Should this change depending on the shape of the shield (or the aspect ratio of the flag)? If this the case then all of the changes described below probably need to be made relative to whatever the height of the chief ends up being.
We need to ensure that the code that checks for the presence of the chief only applies to the "parent" shield of the object. In particular, when placing charges on an escutcheon we only make adjustments if there is a chief on the escutcheon itself, however the overall escutcheon must take account of any chief on the "parent" shield.
This is fairly straight-forward, the space available for charges to be positioned is reduced by the presence of a chief. The arrangements are not affected but the position of charges effectively moves down, typically just by 300 units (or the height of the chief, see above).
However, note that "in nth quarter" also needs to be reduced proportionally, the space available for each quarter needs to take account of the reduced space on the field.
Also, there is a question about charges placed "in base". In theory there is no need to change this as the space is not impinged on by the presence of a chief, however my thought is that since the spaces above the base are compressed the area "in base" should be compressed too. But I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
Most (but not all) ordinaries are affected by the presence of a chief. I will list them here:
Bends all types), pall, label(?), quarter, saltire - move down the height of the chief
Fess (all types) - move down 100? units and narrowed? [Not currently supported]
Pale & tierces (all types) - move down by height of chief (so that features like "angled" remain centered vertically)
Pile (all types) - Start from bottom of chief, reach to near bottom of field [not currently supported]
Bordure, Orle, Tressure & variants - should fit around the reduced field UNLESS specifically set as overall. Obviously also depends on the shield shape [partially supported]
Chevron, saltire (all types of both) - move down by ??? units
Plain cross - move down [supported], make narrower? [not supported]
Quarter, canton - move down height of chief [supported]
[None of these changes are currently supported]
enty, base, graft, point in point, trimount, ford - no change
flaunches, gore, gusset - move down, make smaller?
Gyron, point dex/sin, Fret - move down the height of the chief
Gorge - move down 100? units
Lozenge throughout - redraw to fit
For all of the above, charges which are positioned "on an ordinary" or which are "between an ordinary" need to take account of these revised positions. At the moment, charge positioning like this is done with absolute units that happen to place the charges in the right place. (i.e. we don't draw a bend with 3 roundels on it, we draw a bend, then we draw 3 roundels positioned such that they overlay the bend in the "right" place. [currently partially supported, some ordinaries only]
Where a division has a corresponding ordinary the adjustment for the presence of the chief is usually the same as that of the ordinary.[partially supported]
Chape, chape ploye - move down height of chief [not supported]
Quarterly - should split the remaining vertical distance...? [crude support]
Gyronny - move down ??? units [crude support]
Multiple Bars - recalculate to fit into the available space [mostly supported]
Multi-colour divisions - as per corresponding single ordinary [mostly NOT supported]
Pily divisions - redraw to fit available shapes (really should take account of shield shape too, like bordure) [not supported]
Other Pattern Divisions - probably OK as they are
At present, there are a small number of charge placements that are adjusted based on the underlying division. These are:
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2 charges with per bend or per bend sinister
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4 charges with quarterly
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n charges with gyronny of n
If the division position changes we need to change the position of these charges [currently supported]
No changes required
Checky of 9 - needs to be re-drawn to fit [not supported]
All others - no change required
No changes required
I don't know whether there is such a thing as a quarterly shield with a separate chief, (same for impaled / dimididated shields) so hopefully we can ignore this.