I noticed this for mainhud.map- i named a file inventory.map and when i opened it worked almost exactly the same as the map, and wasn't hardcoded or anything. it opened mainhud.map as well. funny stuff.

anyways

Some of the modders here at EQ2 including myself use much code to change their window with things such as “onpress”. For example on my inventory window I have 6 Different inventory mods built into one window, and at the top left corner there is a button to go through each inventory mode. The problem is, since it won’t save each “state of being”, I have to make like 6 or so files (and save them each with a different “state of being”) so that when EQ2 starts it won’t reset the file back to what it was when i saved it.

Another example is gm9’s resizing of the effect’s window in his profit ui control center in profitreborn. Yes it resizes the icons (makes them smaller/bigger) with the slider but when you restart eq2 it goes back to how it was when he saved the file.

My question is, can we have some sort of command or automated script so that we can save the “sate of being” without having to make whole new files?

The issue with the window names is that they all get consolidated into a virtual hierarchy (root._HUD) during runtime so you will get two windows copied into the same node if they have the same name. You can do some creative modding with that without touching the original file, but I never liked to do it that way. ;)

On the sizing I agree it would be nice to be able to save more states. There is currently a solution to this though, Drago. You know that page size, page position and page visible state are saved to uisettings.ini. Just work with that. The only issue is that the user needs to make those changes, you cannot do them via a script or they won't be saved. I got creative a while back and created a _ProfitUI_IconSizer.xml that is a collection of user-resizeable pages made to look like sliderbars (basically instead of pulling a slider you are resizing a window without knowing it). Via Minimum and MaximumSize you can give constraints on the "sliderbar" you need. Still clunky to use, and only works with icons sizes or volumepage sizes really since those use x,y format anyway.

Oh, all I could do if I could split a simple X from a Y. :p

If we had access to the raw XML of the selected file while in the UI builder it would be great! I know this is a lot to ask because of having to parse on the fly so if you can pull it off Your rock even more, if not I totally understand.

gm9: /bonk Just say yea, let it save object states.. *devil*

Roth, great news. You are truely a rockstar. I'll look for the Persona changes on Beta :)

Now if you want to level up to the next title, you'll find a way to implement the following:

1) ColorStyle - Globally defined colors that can be referenced into any of the various color properties.

2) Make every DynamicData in game now actually work. The majority of Group DDs have never worked and the recently added Maintained.AmountRemaining does not work. Yes, even on Beta.

3) Copy/Paste between UIBuilder Instances where all references can be resolved would be great.

4) Make apostrophies entered in script commands actually translate properly when referencing a spell/item name. Example:
doesn't trigger the apropriate spell due to the apos.

5) Split() function - The inability to get comma seperated values independently is a HUGE limitation.

6) Int() function. Similarly the inability to convert numbers with float (always a result of any math) to an Int (required by many controls) is HUGE.

All good stuff Zonx. Some comments though:

I posted a week ago that they appear to have been fixed (someone must have read my despearate /bug that I decided to do once more). Did not yet test all of them though (not the effects for example).

Unless they changed something only the visibility portion of it does not work and that can be worked around (they should still fix that of course).

I suppose you know how to do it:

useabilityonplayer Parent.Target "Nature's Elixir"

If you missed it we discussed a work around for the AmountRemaining bug here:
http://www.eq2interface.com/forums/s...ad.php?p=63535

I wrote Zoltaroth about the bug a couple weeks ago and he said he would have to find out who added that. It might not be a priority since it doesn't affect the default UI and everyone is really busy with the beta and the chaos from the fires.

Wow, this is all great news. I can't wait for it to be released :nana:

It does appear that some work has been done to enable the busted group DDs. I can confirm Archetype is working but there do appear to be some minor issues still with some DDs. The Name DD is not properly coloring for out of zone and group leader in some cases. Archetype lists Warriors as Fighters. And as noted, there's the visibility bug with Maintained.AmountRemaining. Haven't checked all DDs so there could be more issues.

Last I checked, using the ' entity also does not solve the problem of scripting spell casts with apostrophies in the name. At any rate, that doesn't solve the problem of users typing "Nature's Elixir" into an in-game custom textbox that feeds a useability script. Can't really expect the average user to use entities. Works fine in the Macro window but not when processed by script.

I can't stress enough how major the addition of ColorStyles would be to the modding community. Currently, if I want to issue a green theme for my set, I have to replace every color def in every file of the UI, then maintain feature parity between the sets going forward. Its a MAJOR hassel. With global ColorStyles, I could reskin the entire set with 1 XML file and a handfull of images. ColorStyle = a multitude of themes in short order with virtually no maintanence overhead ;)

Yes, saw the issue you had with the color. Also last time I checked the .Window DD did not work.

That would be correct though, unless you meant Class.

I had confirmation from a number of users that use it successfully, guess I'll have to check it myself then.

Exactly.

Something I would like to see the UIBuilder do is save the programs layout properties. Every time I open UI Builder, I have to move the view panel over and resize it to fight my screen (resolution of 1280x1024).
It's just a big pet peeve because I can't view all the tabs each time I open the program. And I usually like to resize the window anyhow.

The uibuilder docs mention cursors, and cursorsets.. Details on how to implement a custom cursor set would be wonderful :D

I second Zonx's request for colorstyles and split() command.

Being able to seperate the (#,#) pairs and manipulate strings would be a godsend.

In addition, please make it so windows save their location, size, visible state, etc.. when manipulated by xml scripts.

I would rather see them implement Top, Left, Height, Width properties then a so called split function.

that's even better.. something that is commonly used and more familiar :)

You can end your crusade, I'm already working on it. :) I laid most of the groundwork for it last night, but it will take me a couple more days to finish it off since I'm doing it in my spare time.

Agreed, but I don't like the tabs, I'd prefer to see them replaced with a dropdown box or something like that. What do you guys think?

Dropdown sounds good too me, i don't like the tabs.

Oh and for a request...when deleting, copying, etc. objects in a page can you add the function to highlight more than one object (via ctrl+click)...it gets kind of annoying to copy or delete 1 object at a time.

thanks
drago.

Just have it like an IDE where when you click on a file in the project view it opens it in it's own edit window.

Have the edit windows grouped in tabs like VC++, Delphi, Notepad++ etc does. that way you can flick between windows/files you are editing. Also I would like to see the option to view as window or source.

Another thing that needs to be address is Object events being fired even if you don't have the run switch clicked.

Oh yea, and add properties Top, Left, Height, Width pretty please:) You could still use it in direct relation with the current location and size properties for backwards compatibility.

Ok now back to my own project:/

As long as we retain the possibility to show several modules at once like we currently can I don't mind whether they are tabs or dropdowns or whatever. But like Landiin said, double-clicking the module should bring up the view automatically.

And drago: You can already select and copy multiple objects at once (currently ctrl+shift+click, with the update ctrl+click).

True but you can not delete, cut, copy or paste the selected objects. The operation is just preformed on the last selected object. (in the version I am using any ways)

You can copy and paste if you make sure that the cursor does not sit in the text entry field of one of the elements. Otherwise it will indeed only copy the single element having cursor focus (it's a bug).

You should zip your copy up and sell it, because mine doesn't do that.

After testing a bit I found; if you have more the one object selected from the project pane it will not copy any thing.

From MainHud I selected Death and Contest. From the main menu I did Edit->Copy. I then selected the MainHud node and did Edit-> Hmm Paste is grayed out. So I selected the same windows again and did a CTRL+C then selected the MainHud node again and did CTRL+V; Yup nothing was pasted. I then selected only Death and did Edit->Copy, then selected the MainHud node and did Edit->Paste and it did paste a copy of Death to Node 0 of MainHud. I then tried the multi selection again and this time paste was active but it always pasted Death (the last single node I copied).

I took special care to only select the file icon beside the window names in the project list so not to get input focus on the text.

Edit:
Ok after further testing I found if you select more then one object and click on Edit in the main menu, paste will be active no matter if you have ever copied any thing or not. It does not behave like that if only one file is selected. Yes I did try to paste, but nothing happens. How ever if you did a Edit->Copy with more then one object selected the paste will be inactive unless you copy just one object.

What the heck am I doing.. almost 1am and I'm setting here playing with the UIBuilder.. I think I need a life! >.<

And it wasn't so much that I couldn't see the tabs, it's that I couldn't scroll the tabs over, cause the scroller was off the screen upon opening each eq2ui.xml file.

You can already do this in the new version, you just don't have it yet. :)

Ok, I've added Top, Left, Width and Height, but I don't want them to saved out with the XML because that will just bloat the files even more with duplicate data. So I'm thinking about removing them from the property list. This means they won't actually show up in UI builder but should still be accessible to Get/Set with script. Another option would be for me to implement a list of properties that don't get saved with the XML, but I'm not sure how often this would get used since most of the time if you set a property, you want it saved.

I like everyone's ideas of making UI Builder work more like Visual Studio. A Multiple Document Interface with source view would be really slick, but would require quite a bit of work. For now I'll probably stick with smaller changes that have high productivity gains.

I'll start a new thread to better organize UI Builder feature requests and bugs.

Hehe, since we get the new versions soon anyway I doubt there'd be much of a market. It does work though. The current bug is that you have to click Ctrl+Shift to multiple select. However, Shift is also the shortcut key for starting editing. Try moving the multiple selected windows around in the preview pane, easiest way to clear the edit cursor. You can then multiple copy/paste then. The other possibility is to select multiple items by Shift-Clicking in the preview pane, this allows you to copy them right away.

Sweet, this opens up so many possibilities!

I would LOVE this. Saves me manually removing all those redundant auto-generated properties such as LocalText, LocalTooltip, ScrollExtent, basically everything on childs of volume pages, etc. - there is so much redundant data that is being saved, would be great if that could be disabled.

I wasn't thinking in terms of exposing the list to users, but keeping it internally.

We might be able to implement rules specific to certain properties like, don't output ScrollExtent if the value is the same as the size.

I talked to Silverfrost today about removing LocalText and LocalTooltip completely, so this might happen after the expansion.

Overall I don't think the file sizes are much of an issue though. They compress well and still load fast. I just don't like the idea of having location and size as well as left, top, width and height for every widget.

You'll probably have to keep them in the game code though because the Text/Tooltip have the asset tags which get removed during runtime when it's copied into the LocalText/Tooltip elements.

Why not keep Top, Left, Height and Width as real properties and use the location and size property as the alias? After all Top, Left, Height and Width are standard properties for Visual Objects other then VC++. But this is you guys app, so do as you all feel is best.

I totally understand Rothgar.

Yep, it appears that when the Text and Tooltip properties are set, translation occurs and the translated text is stored in LocalText and LocalTooltip. Rendering most likely grabs the text from the localized version so translation only has to happen once when the property is set instead of every time the property is read.

However, we should be able to remove Localtext and Localtooltip from the XML files since these properties values are rebuilt when the file is loaded.

I believe PackLocationProp and PackSizeProp work the same way. They should be generated on load from the PackLocation and PackSize properties, so they shouldn't be necessary in the XML files.

Yea, I never use Localtext, Localtooltip, PackLocationProp, PackSizeProp as they seem to get changed a runtime anyway so never seen the need to include them in my XML files. However they are the goto property in scripts as they seem to be the property that gets data filled by gamedata.

I think that is currently true. A while ago for proportional PackLocation properties the XML would take precendence but that was a bug and should be fixed by now.

And Landiin, the non-local properties also get filled by GameData. If some aren't that would be a bug.

Not saying it isn't now but when I first started doing EQ2 UI mods that wasn't the case, else I would of never used any of the local* properties.

I've been asking for this for over 2 years, a few more days wont hurt ;)

AWSOME!

Please note this will be only marginally usefull if the fields don't accept float since currently there is no way to convert a number with float to an int and any math generates float. This relates to my earlier request for some kind of Int() function.

Am I the only one who caught this? ;) Was that a Freudian slip that expresses your TRUE feelings about the W3C, Landiin?? :D

(If they introduced the .orc TLD, I'd SO buy one!)

Sorry, back to your regularly scheduled conversation...

Was wondering when the new Persona window would go into test because we're about 2 weeks till the release of the expansion, I'm getting anxious, and we should have enough time to mod it, plus i want to see it bad since I'm not in beta ;)


drago.

Believe he said it was on Beta, dunno about test though.

Agreed Drago, this should long be on test.

Or at least just list the new gamedata for us, we don't need to see it to mod it.

well when the cloak and new earing slot came out they gave us it early (but we couldnt use them), so we could mod the windows.

Rothgar, were you going to put a newer UIBuilder on the patch server?

I was just trying to look at some new things and it looks like the eq2ui_mainhud_persona.xml window (version 2.0.0 dated 11/2/2007) completely breaks it. This happens with the UIBuilder version 1.3.0.0 from 11/18/2005 and version 1.3.0.0 from 9/26/2007.

I think the XML parser breaks on line 98 from the strings like &#xD;&#xA;