Skinning the GUI - A Reference

[Internalfireh]

I noticed this too, the large grey out is in fact black - but it doesnt appear to be used.

[Chivana]

The Files in Archives_ep1 got a new date with patch 15.6.3 ! Anybody know what they changed?

[Graan]

...select "Extract" and specify that you want the standard (non-EP1) graphics. Finally, enter a project name and hit "Go". You'll now have an AOExtract sub-folder, and within that a further sub folder with the name you gave the project. Repeat the above but this time specify that you want the EP1 graphics. This will ensure you have all the right graphics.

When I do the plain 'extract' for the non-EP1 graphics I get an empty folder. It works fine when I check the ep1. Anyone know why I would get this? I have both the uvga and uvgi files in the folder.

Interestingly, the GUIGFX_ep1.UVGI file is only 10kb..could this be why?

Thanks

G

[Internalfireh]

Graan, the ep1 files are not big.

If you are trying your own skin using the Java extracter do this.

Copy all the GUIGFX files from default and defualt_ep1 in the textures folder into the same directory as the .jar file (including ep1)

Run the Java app and select a name.

lets say graan. Select extrack and click ok.

Change the name to graan_ep1, select extract and tick the Ep1 option. Click Ok to Go.

Go to the sub directory it creates and find the graan and graan_ep1 folders.

Copy all the ep1 pictures into the non ep1 pictures folder, over-writing any exsisting files.

When you come to archive it back up just enter graan and select archive, click Ok and your GUIGFX files for the skin will be made in the graan folder.

Copy these 2 files into the textures folder in thier own sub-folder under a name of your choice.

Select this as your skin and away you go.

[Internalfireh]

The Files in Archives_ep1 got a new date with patch 15.6.3 ! Anybody know what they changed?

Ill invesitgate when I get home, any less or more pictures when extracting ti ?

[Graan]

Thanks Internalfire! I think I forgot to grab the GUI files in "archives", I had only taken the two in archives_ep1, so that must be why I initially got the empty folder.

G

[Internalfireh]

Files in Archive_ep1 are identicle.

Nothings changed.

[Kurt]

Darkbane, there is no way to open/close chat windows from XML. Don't be to supriced if that change at some point though

Chivana, you are right about the helth/nano/XP bars. I replaced the gfx on the bars and forgot to update the code to deal with the inactive "tips" on the new bars (My excuse is that changing the look and making them moveable was the last thing I implemented for AI. At 6 o'clock in the morning after working 21 hours straight ) I will probably fix this by splitting the gfx in 3 parts. One for each tip, and one for the center-section. Thus making the code aware of the tip sizes.

Driddle, I did not remove the old (now unused) bitmaps, or combined the two archives before AI. Partly because I didn't have time, partly because it would increase the patch-size. If you don't replace all (used) bitmaps in the _ep1 archive you must include the ones you didn't replace in your custom archive.
And yes, it use the 32x32 bitmaps to gray out everything. The reason is that the new GUI tile the bitmap to fit any size of icons. For tiling to work the bitmap-size need to be a power-of-two. 16x16 would be a more optimal size so I will probably schrink it to that size pretty soon. And the latest version of the code colors the grayout-grid black to make it more noticable.

And at last a little hint for the GUI layout. Childs of a <View> element will be spaced out horizontally or vertically (depending on the view_layout value) based on each childrens minimum and maximum "preferred" size. By building a hierarchy of horizontal and vertical layout views and insert "active" components at the right spots you can position each components relative to each other. If you need to fill "gaps" in the layout you can use <VLayoutSpacer> and <HLayoutSpacer>. If view_layout is "stacked" all childrens will be made the same size as the parent and they will be stacked on top of eachother. The first children will be bottom-most. This is used in ControlCenter.xml to create multiple layers of views.

[Darkbane]

Darkbane, there is no way to open/close chat windows from XML. Don't be to supriced if that change at some point though

Look forward to it

(Oh, and if anything significant changes GUI-wise in a patch, again, feel free to drop by and let us know )

EDIT: Oh, and one request Kurt! Can we have a different graphic for the mission sliders again? Bit annoying that they now seem to use the aggdef slider background... it's 12.5% increments to the missions 10% increments...

[Internalfireh]

InternalGUI is currently available to download!

http://forums.anarchyonline.com/show....php?p=2954721

[Internalfireh]

Look forward to it

EDIT: Oh, and one request Kurt! Can we have a different graphic for the mission sliders again? Bit annoying that they now seem to use the aggdef slider background... it's 12.5% increments to the missions 10% increments...

Agg/Def graphic is also used on the Slider options in the Control panel.

[Chivana]

Darkbane, you can draw the aggdef scaling on BOTTOM_RIGHT to prevent messing up option/mission sliders. But yes, Kurt, give us different graphics for all type of sliders please.

[Darkbane]

Darkbane, you can draw the aggdef scaling on BOTTOM_RIGHT to prevent messing up option/mission sliders. But yes, Kurt, give us different graphics for all type of sliders please.

I know... but if I want to have 10% tick on the mission sliders and 12.5% ticks on aggdef and something different on options... yeah... seperate graphics please

[Driddle]

Released a new version of Symbskin-0.D.
It's mosty a technical update with rewritten XML's and reorganized menues.
It feels much faster though and I managed to reduce alot of mouse lag that was plauging the 2.0-beta.

Although, the graying out "issue" becomes apparant here. Since I have added an "X" to an unavailable action in shortcut bar, when you use a nano stim for example from inventory, you can see how the GUI uses several small 32x32 grayout's to cover the 48x48 squares and several "X's" appear. I expect to get lots of emails about this even though I explained it in my FAQ hehe .

One last thing, this is for Kurt really. I shrunk the GUI file to some 117kb, over 100% smaller then before. Does this impact the GUI speed in anyway or is all loaded at startup to reside in memory until shutdown?

And I lied, that was not the last thing. The Equip screen. The description text for each slot overlaps the item graphics. I know alot of people have complained about it. Also left and right wrist dosnt say Lwrist/Rwrist but just wrist.

Now the final thing. The quickbar, it overlaps the target HP bars. It didnt use to do this and its also rather annoying when you want to "stack" your targets. You cant see what mob is also being hit as you are fighting a second one if you keep your quickbar at the top as it will hide the hp bar (as you can see in the picture for Symbskin-0.D).

Done

Thanks for stopping by!!

[tentonhammer]

Now the final thing. The quickbar, it overlaps the target HP bars. It didnt use to do this and its also rather annoying when you want to "stack" your targets. You cant see what mob is also being hit as you are fighting a second one if you keep your quickbar at the top as it will hide the hp bar (as you can see in the picture for Symbskin-0.D).

You prolly know this, but an org mate of mine didn't (after 2 years ), so here goes:

You can move the quick bar AND you can make it vertical by clicking the caption.

Sample

[Internalfireh]

I think he was refring to the Top Right quickbar (shortcuts 1-0)

If the target HP bar is too large it overlaps.

[Iminay]

Kurt, I have a couple questions for you.

We all noticed you changed the size of the icons of our shorcut bars, and presized "boxes", is there any way to resize them back to how they were? be it by customizing the gui files or maybee from FC's side?

Also I dont realy want to be a critic, but somehow the new menu options (team window mostly) seem to have been kindof a rush job, with a font change (why? ) and the open spots in the team still showing a sliver of red and blue for hp

but what Im wondering the most, is it possible to mod a gui to remove the evil evil overlay in white on our equipment window (with the HUD1-HEAD-FEET etc) which kindof makes it all looks worse. Is it moddable to remove it? or maybee add an option in the gui to switch it on and off?

[Internalfireh]

We cant change the white text on the HUD.

Infact the background already has nice labels for slots already, dont see the point of the White Text.

[Kurt]

Driddle, try to replace the 32x32 grayout bitmap with a 64x64 bitmap. No icons are larger than 48x48 pixels so that should prevent it from tiling. Will use a bit more texture memory though. And no, I don't think schrinking the size of the archive will have any impact on the GUI speed. It might slightly reduce the startup time but will not make any difference after that.

Iminay, there is no way to modify the icon-size in the shortcut bar from the GUI files. The new GUI split most bitmaps into 16x16 squares (for optimization reasons) and some gfx cards mess up when scaling the splitted 48x48 icons to 32x32 (you got transparent lines in the splits). A seemingly good workaround was to scale it to 30x30 rather than 32x32. This left each of the 9 sub-bitmaps 10x10 rather than 10.67x10.x67 pixels in size and seemed to work on all gfx cards. Might have to look more into this again at some point though.

Internalfire, there is no labels in the background. You are probably looking at the bitmaps that was used by the old GUI (they have not been removed from the bitmap archive yet). Now all text is rendered at runtime. The new GUI use a single border bitmap that is rendered at each of the wear slots, then it render the icon, and finaly the label. I have noticed that many yould like to have the text rendered below the icon rather than above though.

[Iminay]

Iminay, there is no way to modify the icon-size in the shortcut bar from the GUI files. The new GUI split most bitmaps into 16x16 squares (for optimization reasons) and some gfx cards mess up when scaling the splitted 48x48 icons to 32x32 (you got transparent lines in the splits). A seemingly good workaround was to scale it to 30x30 rather than 32x32. This left each of the 9 sub-bitmaps 10x10 rather than 10.67x10.x67 pixels in size and seemed to work on all gfx cards. Might have to look more into this again at some point though.

well they kindof look warped a bit and the quality of the icons is pretty bad now that they are forced resized it seems

Internalfire, there is no labels in the background. You are probably looking at the bitmaps that was used by the old GUI (they have not been removed from the bitmap archive yet). Now all text is rendered at runtime. The new GUI use a single border bitmap that is rendered at each of the wear slots, then it render the icon, and finaly the label. I have noticed that many yould like to have the text rendered below the icon rather than above though.

yea it would look alot better to have the text below it instead of the overlay