Games and their Widgets

[zwzsg]

I always assume the user will provide his own widgets so I don't include anything beyond mod-specific widgets (stuff like keybinds).

Same conclusion, but for different reason.

I assume two cases:
- The user is a Spring veteran: He will want to use his widgets he's used to, not a mod-specific variant.
- The user is a total newb: He should use my installer, which will install useful widgets outside the mods. I mean stuff like custom formation, healthbars, advanced player list, that are almost compulsory and should have been patched into the engine already.

[Wombat]

I mean stuff like custom formation, healthbars, advanced player list, that are almost compulsory and should have been patched into the engine already.

this

[Forboding Angel]

Someone please explain to me how this is so awful?



This is the default setup of the gui in Evo after deleting the config in spring/luaui/config -- anything with Evo in it.

Also, pintle, EvoRTS is not WarEvo. WarEvo was made by optimus prime years and years ago.

[knorke]

Someone please explain to me how this is so awful?

lololchatbubbles trololol.

[pintle]

Also, pintle, EvoRTS is not WarEvo. WarEvo was made by optimus prime years and years ago.

Omg how long has it been and I *keep* doing that. Sorry!

[zwzsg]

For Kernel Panic, I tried to strike a balance between not upsetting old timers and not confusing new players, a balance between controlling the widget environnment, and harnessing the power of freedom. So I do the following:
- Kernel Panic sd7 only include widgets that would make no sense outside of it.*
- Generic widgets that I like are put in the installer.**
- KP include a whitelist widget. This widget is run once the first time KP is run, then disable itself forever. (Or until you manually re-enable it from widgetlist, or clean your LuaUI/config/) ***

*- kp_cnslcmd.lua could be used as generic external widget, except it was meant mainly for the /sos /ons etc... luarules cheats which are KP specific.
- kp_keep_morphed_selected.lua could be used as generic external widget, but I figured if another mod implement morphing, he can copy the widget as well.
- kp_mission_briefing.lua only make sense for mods using my mission system, and then I copy the widged in them as well.
- kp_buildbar.lua is customised for KP by green lines and by handling the terminal & firewall.

**- music.lua I consider external because the .ogg files are external (and they are for good reasons). Beside technically another mod installer could install its own music in /music/ or /music/modShortName/ and the same widget could be used.

***The whitelist widget also reset settings. Maybe the two function should be seperated, but I wanted to keep the widget list short, an in a sense which widgets are active is a setting.


That way, people who run Kernel Panic for the first time have all their extra widget disabled. I do that only to avoid bug. I had several report of widgets interfering with KP, making it unplayable. Like a camera control wrestling for camera control with my HOMF gamemode, like some widget managing idle builder unaware they can't assit in KP, etc... plus all that I was never told about.

However, enabling external widget in KP is as simple as opening the F11 widget list and clicking them. Your active widget list will be saved between games, and even between KP versions.

I changed the default to off so that the game doesn't start with a massive amount of unneeded widgets activated, but I'm not trying to forbid external widget. I do not believe sploits and cheats are really a concern for such a small hobby project. I encourage using external widget in KP, as long as you know what you're doing. I just don't want KP to crash or become unplayable on unsuspecting people because they forget an awfully coded widget that assumed all mods were BA.

I would like to point out how few replies had this thread: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=18586

[hoijui]

How can i find the performance bottlenecks in my Lua?
http://answers.springlobby.info/questio ... -in-my-lua

[Jazcash]

Someone please explain to me how this is so awful?

It's not awful. However, you have two chat systems to display the same things, why? Also, this is on a screen with a 1920*1200 resolution. The width of all the things at the bottom almost fills that 1920. I remember when I had my 1440 and having everything along the bottom like the screenie would have been pretty fugly.

Also the menu bar at the bottom looks a bit crammed.
Not to mention, the resource bars in the top right are tiny. Sure you can change them but the whole idea of this is giving a nooby user what they want straight away instead of having all of them have to mess bits around on first play. Also note about 90% of new players have no idea about tweak mode (Ctrl+F11).

But overall, that default setup looks a lot better than it did for me when I played for the first time in ages the other day so I'll take back some negative comments I may have spewed, although, there are still one or two things that bug me about that setup.

Is there an option in the Chilli menu to reset the widget config for the game being played? If not, would be cool if there was.

[Wombat]

whats wrong with this screen ? XD

[Forboding Angel]

Here it is at 1440x900

[CarRepairer]

Nothing useful has come from this thread.

If you don't like the widget that makes chat bubbles, don't say Chili sucks because of that. That widget uses Chili, but that's all. If you don't like the size of the resource bars in Evo or the crammed menu in some other mod, don't bash Chili. The modder can choose a default size and they made their choice. It's not Chili that makes the choice. If some widget (like my cursor tooltip) causes a drop in FPS, that's not Chili's fault, it's my widget's fault. And even if it's my widget's fault, I'm always looking to get feedback to try and improve it (so I don't understand all the rage from pintle in this thread - have I ever been hostile to you?).

You're spreading misinformation so please stop. If IceUI had a bubbles widget, would you say all of IceUI is bad?

I will repeat that there's a setting that allows you to use local widgets in ZK. We want it to be accessible as possible to new people without being broken. That and that alone is the reason for the widget lock-out. Not because of "cheats" or some advantages you can get. ZK is designed so that widgets can't break the gameplay. However those widgets can break the interface and ruin the game, which is why they are locked out by default!

[knorke]

bitches dont know about crtl f11.
also noobs dont.
and ehm, while it does not look horribly, you have stuff overlapping in your demo screenshot...?

[Jazcash]

If you don't like the widget that makes chat bubbles, don't say Chili sucks because of that.

I haven't said Chilli sucks once in this thread, or for a long time as a matter a fact. I'm saying every user has their own opinions and one of mine is that I prefer Ice UI over Chilli. There's nothing wrong with that opinion and I have multiple reasons to justify it.

You're spreading misinformation so please stop. If IceUI had a bubbles widget, would you say all of IceUI is bad?

Again, I didn't say all of Chilli is bad and I have many reasons why I dislike it, chat bubbles is just a minor issue as it can be disabled.

I will repeat that there's a setting that allows you to use local widgets in ZK. We want it to be accessible as possible to new people without being broken. That and that alone is the reason for the widget lock-out. Not because of "cheats" or some advantages you can get. ZK is designed so that widgets can't break the gameplay. However those widgets can break the interface and ruin the game, which is why they are locked out by default!

What? I already said CA/ZK is good because it provides the option to use local widgets. I just said CA/ZK has too many widgets. You haven't locked out widgets that break the game, you've locked out every other widget that isn't in the game already, most of which, work fine with CA/ZK.

[pintle]

Car you have never been hostile to me.

Chilli (a UI overhaul in general) is not inherently flawed, or necessarily a bad thing. I dont code, I dont know exactly what in Chilli owns fps, but something, or some coincidental thinig in every mod that uses Chilli (and goes away when i turn it all off in lua menus) causes massive lag. This ruins the game, and I really dislike having this thrust upon me. I really dislike the way certain CA staff ineracted with me over this issue.

I'm very aware how negative and critical complaining about UI eating fps issues (or quirks of new pathing impeding micro) can be, and how detrimental they are to motivation. It is progress, and anybody investing time to improve spring is good.

[Pxtl]

It could be something completely obscure that only affects certain graphic chipsets. There used to be a selectionhalo widget in CA that would absolutely bugger my old onboard chip. I've picked up a Geforce somethingorother since then, but it used to be that I'd have to disable that widget every time.

I assume there's some drawing function in either Chili or a commonly-shared widget (anybody using Chili is probably using a lot of other CA content) that makes some graphics cards crawl.

[zwzsg]

Yes, it's maybe not Chili itself but a widget using Chili. Maybe it only affect certain board. But either way, it gives Chili a bad press so should be looked up seriously and squashed. So that all can bath in the glory that is Chili.

[Forboding Angel]

Course, the lot of you could do the rest of the world a favor and stop trying tovplay games with advances graphics on integrated chipsets and buy some half ass decent hardware for a change. It's like these idiots playing starcraft2 on lowest settings... I have 3 year old hardware and play at ultra with 120 fps. Notice that in Evo I'm getting 115.

But no. Every time anyone has shit fps on shit hardware it is suddenly the gamedevs fault.

[knorke]

clearly anything worse than a quadcore is just too slow to render a colored chat history.

[Pxtl]

Course, the lot of you could do the rest of the world a favor and stop trying tovplay games with advances graphics on integrated chipsets and buy some half ass decent hardware for a change. It's like these idiots playing starcraft2 on lowest settings... I have 3 year old hardware and play at ultra with 120 fps. Notice that in Evo I'm getting 115.

But no. Every time anyone has shit fps on shit hardware it is suddenly the gamedevs fault.

Dude, the example I was giving was the *selection halos* killing my FPS. Not the landscape, or the special effects. Selection. Halos. That ain't right.

[zwzsg]

The software get slower faster than the hardware gets faster. Precisely because of idiotic thinking like that.