Centhena

I apologize upfront at my tendency to ramble on and my horrible lack of gramatic correction.

I would like to make a request of all of you to submit a feedback (NOT a petition) in reguards to the augment sealer code being placed in the container window. If this request has already been made then please ignore this post I've been out of the scene for a couple months due to injury.

This window was already recognized as the most difficult one to mod by many. The addition of the augment sealer code to this particular window in my view is the work of a true sadist. Hehe. It makes this already trying window a coding nightmare. where once there were many beautiful container mods to choose from they are now few and far between. the older ones that managed to conform have had their graphics stretched as a sacrifice or else people like myself who are not satisfied with such a disgrace to a hard worked window have had to spend hours and hours trying to redo and remap graphics and recode the window so that it will display as something fitting not a messy stretched out version of our intention.

What I would like to see as a result of this post is that everyone submit a feedback in game on this window and demand that SoE place the code for the augment sealer in it's own seperate window. I am well aware that most of you will not do this but to me it's worh asking. It has been proven before that if we yell at them loud enough, meaning that enough of us complain, that they will comply. I know that many of you are not effected by this as either you don't care or you don't have this problem because your borders look the same stretched as they do mapped but for we who use any type of filigre or anything at all with any detail have to fight tooth and nail with static animations to get them to even begin to look normal I humbly ask for you all to do us all a favor and demand them to change it.

In all honesty I don't like making posts like this I feel like I sound so bossy and demanding when I re read them. I'd just like to say that that is totally not my intention. I don't want everyone running around thinking that I think i'm someone special to run around demanding things from the masses. I simply posted this as a request for help for all of us who are struggling with the obserdity in laziness that went in to the addition of this particular piece of coding to an already difficult window.

Agree with me, ignore me, rant at me if you like I just felt compelled to ask.

Thanks,
Cen

danny91643

Agreed.... and the feedback has been sent. Two reasons:
1. Because I agree.
2. Out of respect for your request.
I have a great many issues with how things have gone with EQ with these last few patches. The last one cost me Several hours to find just why a crash problem arose with ONE spell effect. I finally gave up and turned off the spell effects all together.
I hope our united front can bring back some sanity to the Modder's relm.

__________________

Centhena

Thank You Together we shall lead a two man army to the gates of hell *giggle* j/k in all seriousness thank you every feedback helps

Yeckly

I have had the problem of the Augment Sealer as well. . .however, it is very easily fixed.

I use a custom Container and had the problem of not being able to combine augs in my UI and was forced to switch to Default to use the sealer. I got fed up with this and decided to take a look at the code.

What I found was the augment code is just added onto the container code. All you have to do to fix the augment code on your modified container is the following:

1. Open your default container code
2. Search for this line: <Label item ="Augment_Label">
3. Copy all of the code from that line (include it) to the line before this line: <Screen item = "ContainerWindow"> The last line copied should be </button>
4. Open your custom container
5. Search for this line: <Screen item = "ContainerWindow">
6. Paste what you copied before this line.
7. Go back to Default container
8. Search for this line: <Pieces>AugmentList</Pieces>
9. Copy the code from this line (include it) to the line before this line: </Screen>
10. Go back to your Custom container
11. Go to the bottom of the file and paste what you just copied before the line </Screen>


That's it

Yeckly

Oh, forgot to mention this.

The augment sealer information is in addition to the container info. If you are moding the default file, just ignore the Augment Sealer info, and it's just like moding the old container file

Centhena

that only works if you have a traditional border around your window that does not have any detail in the graphic. the main problem with this window is that it has become all but impossible to lay static animations on. keeping the border as a border in the windowdraw section simply stretches out the top and bottom making it ugly and deformed looking. with static animations we can lay down our borders exactly the way we want them but with this window has become difficult due to the fact that the window changes size. Before it was difficult due to the fact that it extended the y axis when you opened the different 2,4,6,8, & 10 slots but it was fixable with a combination of border and static animation for those of us that wanted detail. now we have the added problem of the x axis being lengthened as well. This makes things altogether different. if you use a standard border as i said before it stretches it out. if your border is a line then this is no big deal but if it's say a wavy line or something more complicated it won't look right as it will be stretched as it is all the way accross the top and bottom. If you use static animations for this window you can map out exactly what you want it to look like on the x axis fairly easily on the top but the bottom of this window, because it is an undeterminable place, isn't as easy. In fact I haven't figured out how to get the bottom on my windows yet. Nothing I've tried worked. It's just a complete nightmare of frustrations. Life would be easier for we picky people if they could just put the stupid augment sealer in it's own window.

Cen

Fyste

It also plays havoc with the "borderless" containers. I used to use them as default, before the tradeskill containers came in because they're almost impossible to move accidentally. Unfortunately in order to create a borderless container you have to play some games with placement of items, and make some assumptions ( like you can lock the container slot boxes to the left & right edges of the window ). As soon as you change the rules and allow the window to be resized, then the assumptions are no longer valid, and the pieces warp all over the box. Just pasting the changed code into the borderless container XML file will still leave it unusable, just in a new and uglier way.

I spent about 3 hours trying to figure out how to get the container to function like it used to, with no borders at all. My conclusion is is can't be done with the changes they made for the augment sealer.

I haven't had a chance to put my /feedback in, but believe me I'm going to. I don't use the boderless bags anymore, but there's something inherently wrong with breaking one set of functionality ( and a LOT of mods ) just to add new functionality.

Especially when what they did is painfully obvious to a software engineer... someone looked at the problem and decided they had a "slick" solution by changing the container window to do double duty. No other window in the EQ interface does that kind of double-duty, acting as one thing in one circumstance and something completely different in another. Even the tradeskill modified "container" doesn't use the container window, it's a whole new XML file.

"Slick" does not imply "Right", especially when it causes a myriad of problems and actually removes functionality.

__________________

( My Interfaces ) ( RETIRED )

Yeckly

Ok, wow. . .I didn't understand what exactly the problem was. I had just come from playing with the UI that I use that has Prim / Secondary / Ranged / Ammo slots in the bags and my Aug sealer just opened to a 2-slot container. My borders are just lines, so I didn't know about the stretching thing.

Now I do, I'm still kinda learning things.

Sylphan

I generally agree with this thread. The tradeskill window proves that it's possible to click on an object and have something besides a container window pop up. So I doubt it was done this way because they had no choice.

Fyste, if you want 'borderless bags' you should look at the Stayput containers in downloads-interfacepieces-containers. They seem to work.

There are three versions of Stayput with different button positions. There's also a 'small stayput' (with a few bugs) and a version of the T. King container (with the top and bottom graphics stretched). I don't know about any others that have been updated.

====

Centhena, you could consider putting the static graphics in a stretchy subwindow.

Suppose the static graphics item you want to put along the bottom is named BottomBorder, with a size of around 300 by 20. First, change BottomBorder so it's at location 0,0. Then create a subwindow for it something like this:

Screen item = "bottomborderholder"
ScreenID = bborderholder
RelativePosition = true
AutoStretch = true
LeftAnchorOffset = 0
TopAnchorOffset = 20
RightAnchorOffset = 0
BottomAnchorOffset = 0
TopAnchorToTop = false
BottomAnchorToTop = false
RightAnchorToLeft = false
LeftAnchorToLeft = true
DrawTemplate = WDT_Inner
Style_Titlebar = false
Style_Border = false
Style_Sizable = false
Pieces = BottomBorder

This screen item stretches itself to fit along the bottom, and its contents don't stretch. Since its borders are turned off, only its contents are visible.

Centhena

thanks i'll give it a try and let you know if it worked

Cen