Updates on add-ons and some music

Thought I’d just update you on what’s going on and the coming plans.

Nametag Overload I feel is in a good state, so I doubt I’ll do much more to that until I managed to finish other more pressing tasks.

One of those tasks being a final release of Deck Manager version 1.3.0. A few things that still needs to happen with that, but it’s next big thing on the list.

A minor update to Topbar Information Overload might see the light of day soon. The biggest change is some added functionality for developers to take advantage of.

I want to make an update for Castbar Relocator, primarily changing the look of the bars (as an option) and further enhance them. They will fit better with Nametag Overload, to give you an idea of where I’m heading with it. However I doubt this is something that will happen until after the gear manager add-on.

And speaking of the gear manager add-on; that is indeed next on the list right after I finish up the final release of Deck Manager version 1.3.0. I must admit that I’m not really eager to start making it, seeing as it’s not a very fun project. It’s mostly just boring code with no real interesting problems to try and solve. Never the less it needs to be done and so it will be. 🙂

Resource HUD also needs a few things tweaked and I hope to get around to that fairly soon as well (probably during the development of the gear manager I could imagine).

And lastly, as some of you might already know, I dabble in making music as well (or noises really, because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing :P). Anyway I’m making progress on a track I’ve started and quite happy with how it’s coming along. So if you’re interested in hearing it, feel free to do so below. 🙂

It’s called “Reload” and that there is the intro segment, at least what I have of it so far. It’s of the trance variety. 🙂

Random news about things

Hey! I haven’t had all that much energy and time the past few days to work on add-ons, but there’s a few things coming at least.

Fixing some issues with Nametag Overload is first on the list.

• The anchor point not getting properly saved and updated has been fixed.
• I want to sort out being able to hide pet nametags, which should be fairly easy.
• Some optimisations are going in and I should be able to also reduce the number of graphical layers in the healthbar by 1 more.
• Healthbars not always showing the correct length (it fills up or disappears) should be much improved.
• More work on the positioning of different items.
• Might throw in some other options for things, but we’ll see about that.

Then there’s a pretty annoying issue with the current pre-release of Deck Manager where the group dropdown in add/edit deck isn’t working properly. I’m likely to fix this while pushing for a final release, which will include options, a few minor features added, in-game help and update to how the windows are generated and such.

I’m also toying a little bit with Castbar Relocator, creating new graphics for the bars and such. But I’m not expecting this to be done until after the gear manager add-on that I really should get started on soon (I know you want it!).
I’ll develop a few things for the gear manager add-on that will end up in other add-ons as well, mostly related to giving a nice control of some options that I want to do.

Topbar Information Overload will also see a bit of development, but this should mostly be on the add-on developer side of things, giving other developers a bit more options for their slotted icon.

So yeah, this is stuff that’s coming hopefully soon depending on time and energy. Need to get that gear manager add-on done, right? 😉

Just a small status update with a look to the future

I’m currently being tormented by sickness, so I’m not really able to do any developing currently which is annoying, because I’d rather be productive than wasting time being sick and being unable to do anything because my head is MIA. Hopefully I’ll be back on my feet with a working head again soon. On the plus side I’m getting a lot of sleep though! 😛

One thing I’ve started slowly to think about (and will do more once the gear manager add-on is done) is sort of a more complete HUD for dealing with health, states, resources, cooldowns and so on. It’s likely going to be separate add-ons, to keep with my ideology of people being able to pick and choose exactly what they want instead of forcing things they might not need on them by making it a single package. But it’s likely they might be able to talk to each other in various ways to improve the overall usability when they’re combined.
I want to do something that’s minimal and reactive – giving you the information you need, when you need it, and not clutter up the screen with a bunch of stuff that you have to keep monitoring. So a lot of thought will go into how I can do this best in relation to TSW’s combat and I’m looking forward to trying out whatever approaches I come up with once the time comes. 🙂

But that’s still “a few days” away as the current focus is to finish the update for Deck Manager. After that I’ll do a few minor updates to fix some stuff in other add-ons and then work on the gear manager add-on will begin.

However during the development of the gear manager I’m likely to shoot off in a few different directions and put out some minor add-ons during the development that I already have bouncing around in my head. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. 🙂

The future! What to do?

Assuming Joel isn’t right and the world lives on past the 21st, I present to you a sort of roadmap of what I’m thinking of doing next – hell, you even have some say in it. 🙂

Currently I’m looking at finishing the Resource HUD add-on, meaning building the options for it. From what I can tell the add-on so far is working without issues so it’s just a matter of doing the options and that will pretty much close the book on it (I have however gotten an idea for an extra feature of it – will see how viable it is when making the options).

After that I will do some work on Friends List Sync and They Come And Go. Just some minor stuff that shouldn’t take too long and should also mean they’re finished then.

Now here’s where I’m not sure what to do and you can help decide. Either I finish the Deck Manager UI update, which will include ability to put decks into groups, adding tags, search feature, better overview of what weapons it’s tied to, colouring and what not.
Or I could make the gear manager (I will call it something else) add-on that will work together with Deck Manager. What this means is that it will be a separate add-on, like Deck Manager just for handling gear setups. So you can save different gear setups in the same fashion as decks. The interesting thing of course will be that you can then link decks from Deck Manager to gear setups and it will switch to the specified gear setup when you change deck. So if you change one gear setup it will automatically be updated for all decks that link to it, making it easier to deal with everything.

So vote below and tell me what you’d like me to do first:

After those two (Deck Manager UI update and the gear manager) are done I have various other ideas I want to look at (they might even pop in somewhere between doing the other things).

I want to give the states display the same treatment as Resource HUD allowing them to be moved, scaled and what not. At the same time I will improve their usability in terms of how they “function” and make them tie into decks from Deck Manager.
This could potentially happen much sooner as it’s likely just going to be a bunch of copy/paste work from Resource HUD.

I want to tweak the nametag health display (and disable the tooltips for the resources and states). There’s just some things about the nameplates that I’m not satisfied with and should be fairly quick to fix that.

I want to do a cooldown notification add-on sort of thing (similar to one I did for World of Warcraft way back when). Not sure how relevant it is, due to the limited amount of abilities, but we’ll see. It might tie into something else I want to do, which is…

Remove the ability bar completely. Quite simply remove the need to have it constantly displayed and instead provide other means of getting the needed information.

Make better player and target health and buff/debuff display with the options needed for such a thing.

I also want to improve Topbar Information Overload allowing for full placement of any item in it for instance and a few other things, but it’s not super high on the priority list.

Thinking of also including different “styles” for Castbar Relocator so people can choose whichever one they like the most.

After that… Who knows? 😛

But yeah, that’s how it looks right now and as you can see there’s plenty of stuff to do. There’s also more things I’d like to do, but they are way down the list and I’ll cross that bridge when the above things are sorted.

Feel free to chime in with things you’d like to see or missing features from current add-ons that you’d benefit from and I’ll throw it in the pile. 🙂

Resource HUD and Deck Manager – one got a time-out

Just a small update regarding the state of things.

Resource HUD and I got into a bit of a fight and are taking a few days away from each other. So in the meantime I’m doing a “quick” update to Deck Manager to resolve some of the pressing issues.

• This means you’ll get a proper UI that fits TSW and a scroll bar, too!
• It will sort the list alphabetically now.
• Proper checking when loading a deck so it only equips abilities you actually have (should solve the problem with elites and messing up the ability to further equip elites).
• An entirely new data structure is also being used to prepare for upcoming features. Your current decks will of course get converted.

Regarding patch 1.2, which changes things a bit, I will hopefully have a version ready for when 1.2 hits that will work with the new weapon and ability slots. But since 1.2 got taken off TL again I haven’t really had the chance to properly investigate what needs to be done yet.
I do however think that it won’t be too much and the way my code is set up it should be fairly easy to expand for 1.2, but we’ll see. 😛

Not quite done…

I haven’t finished the new version of Topbar Information Overload yet. Tried a few things that didn’t pan out (and will require more investigation later), so that took a bit of time.
I also got distracted by shiny things (new toys for After Effects; Element 3D and Trapcode Mir) and other various things kind of interfered. 🙂

I still have a few things which needs to be hooked up in the add-on to make everything work splendidly and give you proper options for controlling the different aspects of dealing with the slot system for add-on icons.

As a bonus I’ve added a few extra features to Topbar Information Overload as well (nothing major though).

I would like to say that I’d get this done tomorrow, but it being my birthday and family will drop by for that event, I doubt I will get much time to finish up tomorrow.

It’s worth the wait though. I’m quite satisfied with how the overall interface has turned out and how you use it. No more quickly rushed out releases like Deck Manager with sub-par interfaces. 😛

The future after this version of Topbar Information Overload is done will be the Resource HUD add-on, which will get my full attention. After that the Deck Manager overhaul will be initiated – this I expect will take a little while to complete though, but should be really nice once done.

Patch 1.1, something exciting and slash commands

Patch 1.1 hits tomorrow and this will hopefully help solve a lot of “support” issues. Why? Well, us add-on developers can now package our entire add-on into one single directory that you just place inside \Customized\Flash\.

That means this directory will contain all .xml and .swf files and you no longer have to manually edit XML files to get add-ons working together. This also makes uninstalling a breeze, as you just have to remove the directory and it’s all gone.

One “but” though is that .swf files that overwrite default modules will still have to be located in the root of \Customized\Flash\, but this should be managable. The most important thing is that we’re done with the XML file mess, saving users a lot of trouble and in the end should reduce the “support” us add-on developers have to do due to incorrect changes to the XML files.

For instance for Topbar Information Overload you would then have a \Customized\Flash\Viper_TopbarInformationOverload\ directory contaning the two XML files and Viper_TopbarInformationOverload.swf.
MainMenuWindow.swf would still be located in \Customized\Flash\ as this overwrite a default module.

No more XML files in \Customized\ needed. Yay!

 

Speaking of Topbar Information Overload… I have something exciting (well, not really THAT exciting, but interesting at least) in my head that I want to try and see if I can push out tomorrow. If all goes according to plan it should be a great help for add-on developers and end-users alike.

 

And lastly I might have come up with an idea on how to do slash commands, although only basic stuff. My initial idea is to simply allow for settings windows to be accessible through a slash command as well, as I’m not sure I can send in arguments through this method as well. However it’s another thing I might look into tomorrow.

 

So there’s a bit of work to be done tomorrow. I don’t know how much I can get done (it all depends on how well it goes, how much time I end up having available and such), but I will at least try and get the Topbar Information Overload stuff done, which should include a fix for the loading troubles some people seem to be having.

Update to Topbar Information Overload

I just made a minor update to Topbar Information Overload to fix currency not always updating. While at it I also made the headers in the settings window bold – w00t!
You can get version 1.1.3 the following places (Curse and SecretUI needs to approve the file first, the forum has a direct link to it):

The Secret World Forum
Curse
SecretUI

There will be another update to Castbar Relocator before I move on to the Resource HUD add-on. It’s a nice little feature I’m sure some of you will appriciate. 🙂 I hope to have it out some time tomorrow. The functionality is done I just need to make the settings interface for it, which I, as you might know, hate with a passion. Never the less I will endure for all of you and provide a pretty interface for dealing with this new feature. 😛

My current approach to developing add-ons

Just thought I’d outline what my approach is at this point.

Basically my focus is on getting functionality out there and not try and change the overall look of the game. I know a lot of people like how the UI looks, so I don’t see any point in spending time trying to change that right now. Especially not when functionality is so much more important at this stage (and where the UI is currently lacking).

This means that I’ll likely tweak graphics a bit, but not do anything major in terms of how it looks – basically just keep it in line with the look of the default UI.

At one point I might start changing it up completely, but this is far down the line as it looks right now – at least there’s plenty of functionality I want to add/change before it comes to that.

The state of things right now

I’ve sort of finished Topbar Information Overload – at least it’s in a state where I’m happy with it.
I still want to add inventory status and possibly dimension name (currently it seems it can’t be done reliably, but I will investigate further at a later time), but it’s not top priority right now.

My current focus is a new version of Castbar Relocator.
I’ve already tweaked the colours of the bars and overall made them a bit more clear (the target castbar especially).
Then I want to add the ability to place them anywhere you like, which should make a lot of you happy. 🙂
I will also add individual controls for each bar to set its scale and text size.
When that is done I think I will leave it at that as it then has the basic functionality needed to appeal to most everyone.

Then I will move on to the Resource HUD (or whatever its final name will be) add-on, which will be a freely movable version of the resource indicators in one element. I will likely add some extra functionality and tweak the graphics as well. Scaling will of course be an option. I know a lot of you are waiting for this one. 🙂

When that is completed I will move back to Deck Manager, giving it a serious kick in the ass. Basically overhauling the UI of it, making it look more like part of TSW’s UI, and introducing way better organisation options for storing and finding decks. I feel this is highly needed for the add-on to make it easier for users to deal with their decks. Other minor tweaks and such are likely to come as well, but the main focus will be on increasing its usability.