Bringing a window to the front

mother9987 · #1 06-19-2006, 01:28 PM

Is there a way to do it without hiding and re-showing the window?

I've tried everything I can think of, but it seems that without actualy clicking on the window, there's no way to bring it to the front of another window.

Move, resize, activate, focus, enable, set and unset AlwaysOnTop. No luck.

Anyone got any ideas what else I can attempt?

**Zonx** · #2 06-20-2006, 01:38 AM

Did you try Press=true ?

/shrug doubt it will work. There are tons of things the client does that we can't simulate with scripting. I was just pointing out to SOE how Input fields set to Integer=true don't ditch float when passed via script. Currently not possible to use math to manipulate integer only controls since the math always generates float and there's no way to ditch it.

**Landiin** · #3 06-20-2006, 12:05 PM

Yes the scripting language is very lacking in functionality and documentation. The basic set up of the UI system is good; it's just the scripting language that falls short. I don't know why they didn't use an already established scripting language. They could of gave us API's to use and control what they wanted and didn't want done through them but then I/we don't see the big pitcher so /shrug. * hi-jack off *

I know this isn't what you wanted to do but maybe try this in what ever part of the script you are using.

hide_window <window>
show_window <window>

I've found in EQ2's UI system you have to jump through hoops to get things the way you want. Hoops any one?

mother9987 · #4 06-20-2006, 01:20 PM

Yeah, I verified that hiding and reshowing the window brings it to the front, but some of the windows (especially the mail window) reset when you hide them.

Oh well, it was just a little diversion project. I have modified the start button to look like the task bar in windows and as different windows loaded up, they'd have a thing on the task bar. I was hoping to be able to click on them in the tasbar and bring the window to the front and give it focus, minimize windows and have them disappear completely but then click on them to restore them.

Just messing about, not sure if it ever would have reached usefulness even if I hadn't hit this block.

mother9987 · #5 06-21-2006, 09:49 AM

Ah well, it was a good try. But I've used every window property, however unlikely looking. I even ran a string extractor on the everquest2 executable and tried everything remotely close to anything i recognized as a window property. It seems you cannot float a window to the top without clicking on it or hiding and reshowing it.

I attached a screenshot of how far I had gotten, but it appears I'm done. Writing a window manager in eq2 xml is just not possible

**gm9** · #6 06-21-2006, 09:52 AM

Nice idea with the taskbar.

Have you tried what happens if you do:

<window>.visible=false
show_window <window>

This won't reset the window, but it might not make it visible again.

Otherwise: Is it an option for you to work around some windows resetting by copying their data/setup to a temporary data object before doing /hide_window and then restoring it when doing /show_window?

Setting the taskbar up as a TabPane is another idea, but probably not what you want to do. Also, I suppose you'd have to place that TabPane in eq2ui_mainhud.xml or higher and I'm not even sure if that works.

EDIT: Ah, you posted while I was typing. Looks good your screenshot. I should do a button design like that!

mother9987 · #7 06-21-2006, 10:18 AM

Yeah, I've considered trying to save and then restore the data...

But some things aren't savable - like what you have attached to a mail. And there's the window show and hide sounds that are hard-coded and can't be cleared.

I picked exactly the wrong two windows to drop the onshow and onhide code into that make the taskbar work for my initial tests, lol. If I'd started with the persona and guild windows or something, I'd probably be all happy and coding away.

I may decide that the problems are small enough to ignore and go back to work on this. But, today, I'm annoyed that I can't make the game do what I want.

Edit: Oh, and I tried just .visible=false, .visible=true. still resets. Didn't try mixing .visible and /show, but it seems the window just resets when it redraws itself. I also thought I had scored when I found this property "HideCallsClose" right near the "AlwaysOnTop" in the EQ exe but it doesn't appear to do anything.