The message generation layer turns the Path Network, attached Signs, and the Destination Dictionary into messages displayed on signs. It considers routes to reachable target points, destinations bound to those target points, the destination groups those destinations belong to, sign orientations and sign types, and any manual message choices made by the user.
Key considerations
A Target Point must be bound to a Destination before it can produce an automatic message.
Direction signs use the first walking direction from the decision point and a set of acceptable directions defined in their sign types to select destination candidates for display. Fingerpost signs assign destinations to direction sectors and then apply both per-direction and whole-sign message capacity limits.
Destination groups can collapse several destinations into one broader message or expand them again, depending on the destination's disclosure parameters and the distance from the decision point to the group's closest target point. .
Navigation signs display the broadest destination groups available at a given level to produce a shorter and clearer directory.
Identification signs display messages for the destinations bound to the target points that signs are attached to.
Sign type capacity controls how many messages can be displayed on a sign face or on a sign as a whole.
You can manually attach destinations to sign faces to produce Manual messages.
Manual messages can coexist with automatically generated messages and have the highest priority when competing for space on a sign face.
Message selection via group memberships
A destination can belong to one or more Destination group. Group memberships tell WFP when several individual destinations can be represented by a single destination-group message. The internal planner always starts from individual destination entries bound to reachable target points. Group memberships then give WFP a second choice: keep the individual destination messages, or replace a set of related destinations with their group message.
WFP only selects a group message when the group can cover relevant member destinations using the same first-hop direction. A group normally needs at least two reachable member destinations before it is considered a replacement. If only one member is relevant, the internal planner keeps the individual destination message.
WFP always considers individual destinations and more specific groups before broader groups. For example, a Gates A group may be selected before a wider Gates group if that gives a better message for the current sign. If a group is inactive, WFP leaves its member destinations available, but does not use that group for automatic collapse or capacity-based merging.
Per-decision-point message selection settings
WFP provides two settings that help you fine-tune the behavior of the message selection algorithm at decision-point level:
Best-route pruning. This setting is
Enabledby default and means Keep only the shortest route per target from a given decision point.Message aggregation guard. This setting is
Disabledby default and means Synchronize destination group expansion across signs. It can be useful in certain projects, depending on the topology and complexity of the path network. Its applicability should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
New decision points, and path points converted to decision points, copy the current project defaults when they are created or converted.
Open Project → Project Properties... to edit the project defaults for both settings.
Each option also provides Reset all decision points, which applies the current project default to every existing decision point.
You can override either of these parameters for a single decision point. To do so, right-click that decision point in the Level View and edit its Route candidates and Message aggregation guard settings in the context menu.
Best-route pruning
Best-route pruning controls how route candidates are filtered before messages are assigned to signs.
When enabled, WFP keeps only the shortest route to each reachable target from the decision point. This keeps message selection stable in networks where the same destination can be reached through loops.
When disabled for a decision point, WFP keeps multiple route candidates for the same target when available. This can be useful when you intentionally want alternate routes to remain available for direction-sensitive signs, typically for further manual selection or de-selection on a sign face. Keep in mind that this can also make the same destination eligible through more than one first-hop direction.
Message aggregation guard
Message aggregation guard controls whether Direction signs at the same decision point coordinate their expand/collapse behavior for shared destination groups. Direction signs normally aggregate group messages independently (the project default is Disabled) unless the guard is enabled globally or for a specific decision point.
When enabled, WFP checks the Direction signs attached to the decision point before collapsing a destination group. If the same group would require different initial walking directions across those signs, WFP keeps the group expanded and prevents capacity re-aggregation from collapsing it. This avoids broad group messages that could direct visitors incorrectly or cause sibling signs to disagree about the same group.
When disabled for a decision point, each Direction sign aggregates group messages independently. Broader group messages may appear more often, or shared destination groups may expand on one sign and collapse on another when their route contexts differ.
Sign Face Capacity Packaging
Sign face capacity packaging uses the capacity parameters set in the sign type.
During generation, selected manual messages reserve capacity before automatic messages are packed. WFP then plans automatic messages for each face, and checks whether the selected automatic messages fit within the current capacity pass.
If there are too many automatic messages, WFP tries to re-aggregate them into suitable destination-group messages. This can replace several individual destinations with one broader group message when the group is active, covers the same destinations, and would not create misleading directional guidance.
If the sign type allows flexible capacity, WFP may repeat the planning pass with a larger capacity value. Each pass may produce a different grouping choice because the planner re-checks disclosure, group candidates, and message retention against the new capacity.
If the last allowed pass still has too many automatic messages, the lower-retention messages become overflow messages. Overflow messages stay available for review in schedules and inspectors, but their display selection flag is off.
For Fingerpost signs, WFP first applies the per-direction capacity to each virtual face. It then applies the whole-sign capacity across all directions and moves any remaining lower-retention automatic messages to overflow without rerunning disclosure.