GUI Skin: Notum Dovvetech 4.2

[Dangerbot]

Suggestion for your new site / version deviation.

Pictures.

As far as GUI's go with the exception of the last patch I imagine my usage is the same as everyone elses. Set'n'forget. I found some of the things you mentioned to be things I'd never even heard of. Such as being able to choose between raid layouts. Would be nice to see what you mean. I'd hope I'm not the only one who has no idea there's two.

[Honorbound]

*tumbleweed*

As it stands now, 18.2.0 will contain some minor changes to the default GUI so an ndGUI update will be released once it had hit live.

There will also be a beta/preview of Notum Dovvetech v4.3 available along with the classic 4.22 build to see what you think of the changes and new features; the feedback on it (assuming there will be any ) will let me decide what should make it to the actual release and what should be rolled back, changed or improved.

[Honorbound]

Compatibility update for game version 18.2.0 available on my notum|dovvetech page.
Check the news and changelog sections for details.

I've also added a temporary page to showcase ndGUI v4.3b. Consider giving it a try and let me know here what you think about it.
It is a fully functional and feature complete build, but I did not want to roll it out right away as it contains some significant changes over the v4.2 line, and I'd like to know first if there is something you'd prefer (closer to) the "old" way before I finalize the switch to the v4.3 build.

[Kimarzt]

Thanks for taking this over Honorbound I haven't tried your new GUI, so I can't give ya feedback, can you disable the buttons next to the shortcut hotbar?

[JampeSL]

I just tried the beta and I like it. With some toons that I don't play often I like to have the numbers under the shortcut bar and had not figured out how to move them closer to the edge.

[Honorbound]

...can you disable the buttons next to the shortcut hotbar?

If you mean the "radio buttons" which are used to select the active shortcutbar when you use more than one, then no, it can't be done I'm afraid.
The shortcutbars are hardcoded into the GUI manager component, nothing about their layout or behaviour can be changed by modding the GUI files except the textures which define how they look.

[Honorbound]

Over 100 thread views a day in the past weeks, but no feedback of any sort; I kinda wonder what this means.

No one cares to try the 4.3b version, or is it acceptable as it is hence no problems, questions, suggestions?

BTW, as indicated in the News section of the notum|dovvetech GUI download page, not 18.2.1 nor 18.2.2 required a GUI update, ndGUI v4.23/18.2.0 (and also v4.3b/18.2.0) is compatible.

[JampeSL]

Over 100 thread views a day in the past weeks, but no feedback of any sort; I kinda wonder what this means

Well, I said I love it. Well, I said I like it but by now I would say I love it. The only thing I miss is shortcut to menu of perk actions and even that I only miss on one toon.

[Fulminated]

Either I'm missing something, or you are.

Downloaded your zip file, unpacked it to the anarchy online folder and there's nothing in the textures folder except the default stuff. There's a "gui" directory, but not a textures directory in your zipfile.

So there's no way for me to be able to select the gui in "settings" window...

**edit**

Well, I found it.

For ease of use, you need to package the theme that has one set of files with the core that has the other set of files required. Your installation instructions say nothing about having to downloaded the themes extra. Remember that your users probably don't think like you do, so adding extra steps either needs to be pointed out in the instructions or you should only require one file be downladed and extracted.

[Honorbound]

For ease of use, you need to package the theme that has one set of files with the core that has the other set of files required. Your installation instructions say nothing about having to downloaded the themes extra.

Khm... Yes they do.

Quote from the Download section:

ndGUI Theme packages: ...
For first time installation, you have to download and install at least one of these packages.

Quote from the Install section:

Unpack the downloaded core package, and theme package of your choice, into your Anarchy Online installation folder

I'll rephrase the related parts of the download and installation instructions; as it seems they are not obvious enough.

One thing I indeed did forget to mention that the 4.3b version also needs a theme package when you want to try it out without a v4.23 installation. That will also be added to the beta page.

[Honorbound]

The only thing I miss is shortcut to menu of perk actions and even that I only miss on one toon.

Originally I wanted to include that as an option in the SoftMenu, but due to a quirk in how those action lists (normal/attack/perk) are handled, that couldn't be done.
I assumed that since the perk actions people frequently use are most likely added to their shortcutbars for a conveniently arranged fast access, that jumbled list of all perk and LE proc actions is less preferred for regular use.

But I can move it back from the Char/Actions menu to a directly accessible separate button just like it is in the v4.2 line, with its own on/off toggle option in settings (but can't make it available at both locations).

[JampeSL]

Originally I wanted to include that as an option in the SoftMenu, but due to a quirk in how those action lists (normal/attack/perk) are handled, that couldn't be done.

I understand that. I only really miss it on one toon and I could simply just rearrange the shortcut bars to get around that.

[Moyahno]

I cant seem to get my stats bar and anything on the top right menu to show more then half way of my screen if i use notum dovvetech now, anyone else had this problem?

[Honorbound]

I cant seem to get my stats bar and anything on the top right menu to show more then half way of my screen if i use notum dovvetech now, anyone else had this problem?

Umm... Could you be a bit more accurate?

What do you mean by "stats bar"? The movable vertical HP/nano bars? The Stats window? Something else?

By "top right menu" you mean you are using the top/right control center setup (where the menubar is on the top of the screen and the menu buttons on it are aligned to the right) or the Rollup Panel (a vertical "strip" along the right edge of the screen where you dock windows under one another and can scroll the whole strip of windows up and down together) & Mini Toolbar (10 buttons in the top right corner of the screen) which are enabled through Options?

Also, which version; v4.23 or v4.3b?

[Misat0]

Thanks Honorbound continuing development on the notum skins to keep them available to the community!

Also I very much like what I see in your ndGUI modification. I personally like the soft menu idea!

[Xaijen]

With 18.3 nearing, decided I should probably getting around to transferring to the new and flashy ndGUI. It all went smooth and the instructions on your site are very clear, so thanks for that.

I installed the ndGUI stable version which seemed fine, but I'm running the beta at the moment.

Just some things I don't like so far about the beta:

InfoView windows have a "logo" showing the name of the GUI at the bottom of the window. I think it's a bad place to put this, and removed it by replacing:

			<BorderView view_layout="horizontal" layout_borders="Rect(2,2,5,2)">
				<HLayoutSpacer/>
				<TextView layout_borders="Rect(5,2,5,3)" value="&lt;font color=CCInfoText&gt;notum|dovvetech GUI v4.3b&lt;/font&gt;"/>
				<HLayoutSpacer/>
			</BorderView>

In " cd_image/gui/ndGUIbeta/Views/InfoView.xml" with

			<HLayoutSpacer/>

I REALLY liked how the beta has put smaller text into the infoview window. That was possible with notum dovvetech a few years ago, but seemed incompatible recently, so thanks for figuring that out and adding it.

But I didn't like how the credits/NCU and Agg/Def slider now move around with the menu according to what "ControlCenter.xml" you choose. Previous to 4.3, I had the Credits/NCU and Agg/def slider in the bottom left as they always have been, and the Menu in the top right. Here's a screenshot that might help illustrating what I mean. You can see the gap in the lower right where the Agg/Def and Creds/NCU should be.

Is there anyway to get the icons back on the menus? Beta seems to have made it use text instead of icons, which does nothing but increase the amount of space the GUI occupies IMO.

Also the loading screen is still being chopped off, but this problem has been around for years.

The aqua colours for the InfoView text are a tad too similar IMO.

I'm probably going to change back to the stable version of ndGUI with a modified InfoView.xml, but despite some of the changes in the beta version I think it's a really awesome adaption of Misat0's work

[Honorbound]

Thanks for the feedback, although it's kinda late at this point, as 4.3 will (most likely) be rolled out for today's game update to 18.3.0.
I may consider keeping the 4.2 line alive too as it is, providing compatibility updates only, but that would be causing a bit of a mess with the separate versions/lines on the long run, so I'll see.

It's nice to hear that the instructions are useful.

About the version text in the InfoView; what's wrong with it?
First I tried to rework that window into a different layout where the content would extend to that bottom strip of the window too, kinda as if the back/forward buttons were only an overlay placed on a full text display box, but I couldn't do it.
So eventually I recycled that otherwise empty and unused space into the version box.

You have a valid point with the Agg/Def and Creds bars moving around, although it's not quite consistent in the 4.2 line either.
But it never really made sense to me that only the menu buttons themselves were moved to different spots on the screen, taken out of their context/background defined by the menu background bar and the aggdef/creds bars, which remained where they were. It sort of felt like as if in Windows you'd only be able to rip the "Start" button off of the tray and drag it to somewhere else, while the rest of the tray stays where it was; which in my opinion would be a rather pointless/useless thing to do as it's not that single button which takes up the space somewhere you don't like it to do so, but the whole tray with all of it's parts so everything should move together (just as it does).
So in 4.3, the whole menu is truly being moved, including all the elements that it consists of, not just the buttons themselves. Different design philosophies, I guess.

There are only a limited number of icons available to choose from, and since they are now used in the SoftMenu, there was none left to be used for the three main menu buttons (otherwise you'd have ended up with buttons with the same icon doing different things), hence the text on them instead.
I agree, it's a sub-optimal choice which I tried to get around somehow for a while, but eventually a trade off had to be made.

The issue with the loading screen is odd, never seen it mentioned anywhere. Does it only happen with the custom loading screen, but not with the original one? Also, are you using some exotic screen resolution (16:9 instead of 4:3, that's where such problems usually surface)? EDIT: Well, you obviously do, seeing how that screenshot is 1920x1080 px in size. I'm 99% sure that's the reason, and the default loading screen is also off center for you, except it doesn't get visibly chopped like this since there's nothing in the top third of that image.
At any rate, since the image dimensions are the same as that of the default loading screen, I'd still be guessing it's a scaling issue in the client at some certain (probably uncommon) screen resolution.

[Honorbound]

On a different note, welcome back, Misat0!

Planning to return to working on the GUI, or just stopped by to see what's been up lately?

[Honorbound]

Compatibility update for game version 18.3.0 and a number of changes, available on the notum|dovvetech download page.
Check the News and Changelog sections for details.

Because of the extent of the changes in this update, you need to perform a GUI cleanup, then install this new version as described in the Installation section.

There is also an "ndGUI Classic" version available, which is the previous v4.23 updated for game version 18.3.0.
You don't need to perform a clean install for this one, just overwrite your current v4.23 installation.

[Azamaa]

Thank you very much for your hard work.
I would not play AO if this GUI was not available.

Cheers!