Editing windows Pieces1
 

I am at a total loss here. I have edited the window_pieces1.tga and everything but the window borders work properly. changed the coins and buttons and other icons and all works.

Now for some reason when I place something in the location of the side bars for windows all it does is overlay over the fancy curly brackets on the corners. when I go into equi animations I change the width and all I get is 2 side by side overlayed curly brackets

also when I do put something on top of the rounded edges for the top of a window I get the generic x and o showing through for close and open and on top of that my new buttons for open and close.

what am I missing here as far as how this is set up?
I even went into my default ui directory and renamed the window_pieces1.tga file so the only one it is reading is in my custom ui folder yet for some reason it still grabbing the fancy curly brackets

I am confused can anyone help with this?

first off renaming anything in default is a waste of time...when you load it will replace the file you just renamed with the original name. Second if you have the file in your custom folder it will not pull from the default. Now to your problem. there are 2 different files you have to deal with to change your window appearance. Animations.xml And templates.xml. First thing i did was to go into templates and change all the fancy ones to mimick the WDT_RoundedNoTitle. so no matter what sonys windows call for it looks like that one. That way i dont have to have every single window im my default ui and it will still look the way I want. So long story short declare the windows pieces in your animations file then make sure whatever wdt you are declaring in your xml matches...so open the templates file and make sure that the wdt you chose is refrencing the windows pieces you are wanting.



Clear as mud??



HAL

Clear to me!

From my work with windows and borders, I have learned that there are a few sets of borders defined in the windows_pieces01. What you need to do is find out, for each window you want to change the look for, exactly which border pieces it is using.

Step 1: Look inside the .xml of the screen you want to change the look for. Find the tag that says DrawTemplate and note the name. It will be found inside the Screen tag near the bottom of the .xml. Using EQUI_PlayerWindow.xml as an example, we find that the DrawTemplate for this window is WDT_RoundedNoTitle.

Step 2: Next open up the EQUI_Templates.xml file. Find the tag with the name you noted in the window file; in this case WDT_RoundedNoTitle. Within that tag you find sections defining most parts of a window, close button, minimize buton, etc. There is also a section for border. In that tag, you then find definitions for each part of the border like Top, TopLeft, LeftTop. In that tag you will find a name of an animation that will construct that border piece. Note this name. In our example, for the Top, the name is A_RoundedFrameTop.

Step 3: Now open up the EQUI_Animations.xml find, and search for that animation name. It will be inside of a UI2DAnimation tag. Here is where it defines exactly how to construct that border piece, as well as where to get the graphics for it. In this tag, you will find a Texture tag, which tells which .tga to find the graphics (ours is windows_pieces01.tga, which we already knew). Then it show additional tags for Location and size. For this piece, we find that the location is 200,161 and the size is 8,2. When you go into your .tga editor and locate the pixels at the location with that size, you will find that border piece. Modify those specific pixels, save, then reload your UI and you will see the new graphics.


Remember, not all windows use the same defined border pieces, there are more than one in window_pieces01. Also, if you want to change the size/location within the .tga that the graphics come from, or even change what file that piece gets it graphics from, you will need a copy of at least EQUI_Animations in your custom folder (well, you can define the new animation within your window piece, but that is another discussion :) ).

What Hal is saying is that when the UI loads, there is a standard set of xml files that gets loaded. For each file, EQ looks first if you have a version of that file in your custom folder. If it doesn't find one then it loads the file from default. Default is always refreshed every time you patch, so changing anything in default is a waste.

There is a lot more to it, but that should get you going.

thanks for the help...
that is the odd thing I do change it in window pieces 1 and it is being referenced in animations and such I am not setting anything new and all the window pieces work all except the fancy curly brackets. with those I place a new graphic on top of them and save it and it for some reason masks them and so the color and such comes through but its still a curly bracket not my new one.

does this make sense?

You changed the Alpha Channel right?

ok ima noob nope did not change the alpha now it makes sense

thank you!