Chili:Tutorial Command and Build Commands

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Commands and Build bar

Preparation

We are stepping it up a notch. We can all agree that the stock GUI for commands and building isn't really all that great. Good thing is we can improve on this. Following is not a perfect sollution since it doesn't handle pagination, but it will get you a long way getting you started for advanced stuff. For this tutorial you will only need one lua script but it will have quite a bit of content. 

 
- LuaUI\widgets\gui_chili_commandwindow.lua

File header

You open up with the regular info and imports that you are going to use thru the script. 

function widget:GetInfo()
	return {
		name		= "command list window",
		desc		= "ChiliUi window that contains all the commands a unit has",
		author		= "Sunspot",
		date		= "2011-06-15",
		license     = "GNU GPL v2",
		layer		= math.huge,
		enabled   	= true,
		handler		= true,
	}
end
-- INCLUDES
VFS.Include("LuaRules/Gadgets/Includes/utilities.lua")

-- CONSTANTS
local MAXBUTTONSONROW = 4
local COMMANDSTOEXCLUDE = {"TimeWait","DeathWait","SquadWait","GatherWait","Load units"}
local Chili

-- MEMBERS
local x
local y
local commandWindow
local stateCommandWindow
local buildCommandWindow
local updateRequired = true

-- CONTROLS
local spGetActiveCommand 	= Spring.GetActiveCommand
local spGetActiveCmdDesc 	= Spring.GetActiveCmdDesc
local spGetSelectedUnits    = Spring.GetSelectedUnits
local spSendCommands        = Spring.SendCommands

You'll notice a lot of variables and controls. They will all get a place during the further script design and explained in detail. Notice as well that this widgets GetInfo has an extra option (handler = true). This is needed so Spring.SendCommands can execute. It's a common mistake to omit that option with all consequences and frustrations that follow.

initializing the widget

What we are going to do, is remove the stock command bar and build bar ui together with the left bottom tooltip. Next we are going to define 3 simple Chili Controls to seperate the command, status command and build commands in. To keep those controls nicely together we merge them in one window. Following code will do this. I'll explain it more in detail since it has a few important parts. 


local function CleanStockUi()
	widgetHandler:ConfigLayoutHandler(DummyHandler)
	Spring.ForceLayoutUpdate()
	spSendCommands({"tooltip 0"})
	spSendCommands("resbar 0")
	spSendCommands({"console 0"})
	spSendCommands({"clock 0"})
	spSendCommands({"fps 0"})
	spSendCommands({"info 0"})
	spSendCommands({"speed 0"})
end

function widget:Initialize()
	CleanStockUi()
	
	if (not WG.Chili) then
		widgetHandler:RemoveWidget()
		return
	end

	Chili = WG.Chili
	local screen0 = Chili.Screen0
		
	commandWindow = Chili.Control:New{
		x = 0,
		y = 0,
		width = "100%",
		height = "40%",
		xstep = 1,
		ystep = 1,
		draggable = false,
		resizable = false,
		dragUseGrip = false,		
		children = {},
	}

	stateCommandWindow = Chili.Control:New{
		x = 0,
		y = "40%",
		width = "100%",
		height = "20%",
		xstep = 1,
		ystep = 1,
		draggable = false,
		resizable = false,
		dragUseGrip = false,		
		children = {},
	}	

	buildCommandWindow = Chili.Control:New{
		x = 0,
		y = "60%",
		width = "100%",
		height = "40%",
		xstep = 1,
		ystep = 1,
		draggable = false,
		resizable = false,
		dragUseGrip = false,		
		children = {},
	}		
	
	window0 = Chili.Window:New{
		x = '50%',
		y = '15%',	
		dockable = true,
		parent = screen0,
		caption = "",
		draggable = true,
		resizable = true,
		dragUseGrip = true,
		clientWidth = 400,
		clientHeight = 200,
		backgroundColor = {0,0,0,1},
		skinName  = "DarkGlass",		
		children = {commandWindow,stateCommandWindow,buildCommandWindow},
	}
	
end

function widget:Shutdown()
  widgetHandler:ConfigLayoutHandler(nil)
  Spring.ForceLayoutUpdate()
  spSendCommands({"tooltip 1"})
  spSendCommands("resbar 1")
  spSendCommands({"console 1"})
  spSendCommands({"clock 1"})
  spSendCommands({"fps 1"})
  spSendCommands({"info 1"})
  spSendCommands({"speed 1"})
end

You'll find on top here the CleanStockUi() local function. This is a helper function I made to clean up nearly all of the stock ui delivered with spring. The DummyLayout is a handler that can be found in layouts.lua delivered with spring. You'll notice in a lot of mods that people write their own LayoutHandler, I did so to at first. But after some discover work I found the DummyLayout written by the spring devs and it's clearly better to use theirs. I got rid of most stock stuff, except the minimap, that seems to serve a special function or the command is unknown to me to get rid of.

Now with the stock ui gone we create 3 chili controls and group them in one seperate window. We also make sure the 3 controls resize together with the group window by using relative Y coordinates. Put resize on false except the group window. Last we put the shutdown method to clean up everything we have done incase something goes wrong.

On unit selection ... load the commands

Once you select one or more units the commands in the controls need to be refreshed, following code will do this for you. 

function widget:CommandsChanged()
	if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("commandChanged called") end
	updateRequired = true
end

function widget:DrawScreen()
    if updateRequired then
        updateRequired = false
		loadPanel()
    end
end

These widget commands serve to detect if commands are changed and if they are they will flag that on the next redraw the panel (being the 3 controls in our case) needs to be redrawn. I'm told this is the standard way of doing things and quite frankly it works , so this is once again just copy paste code you'll find in most chili scripts. 

function loadPanel()
	resetWindow(commandWindow)
	resetWindow(stateCommandWindow)
	resetWindow(buildCommandWindow)
	local commands = Spring.GetActiveCmdDescs()
	commands = filterUnwanted(commands)
	table.sort(commands,function(x,y) return x.action < y.action end)
	for cmdid, cmd in pairs(commands) do
		rowcount = createMyButton(commands[cmdid]) 
	end
end

function resetWindow(container)
	container:ClearChildren()
	container.xstep = 1
	container.ystep = 1
end

function filterUnwanted(commands)
	local uniqueList = {}
	if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("Total commands ", #commands) end
	if not(#commands == 0)then
		j = 1
		for _, cmd in ipairs(commands) do
			if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("Adding command ", cmd.action) end
			if not table.contains(COMMANDSTOEXCLUDE,cmd.action) then
				uniqueList[j] = cmd
				j = j + 1
			end
		end
	end
	return uniqueList
end

We start of by resetting the old contents of the controls. Each control has also an x and y variable to keep track where the next object will come, since we removed everything well we reset these as well.

you'll notice an array COMMANDSTOEXCLUDE that we initialised at the start of the script. We use this to remove commands , that are not appropriate for the mod you are making. You will also see a method table.contains, this is a method I created myself and is contained in utilities.lua. It has following code, I'm not sure if it's really performant or if there is a better way but it works. 

function table.contains(table, element)   
	for i=1, #table do     
		if table[i] == element then       
			return true     
		end   
	end   
	return false 
end

With Spring.GetActiveCmdDescs() 

we grab all the commands that are currently active in the selection.  Then we filter the unwanted commands out of that list and we sort them by actionname.  This to keep most of the commands on the same place when we select multiple units with different commands.  This not to confuse the players who are going to use your gui.  It's just sane design.  Following we loop over the commands and create buttons for them in all the windows.  The real juicy part of the script

Forging the buttons

You could do several things with buttons, put images on them, let them cycle images for state commands or just plain old text. For this tutorial I'll show you how to put text buttons for state and regular commands. And put images on build commands. We can put most of this code in one method. 

function createMyButton(cmd)
	if(type(cmd) == 'table')then
		buttontext, container, isState, isBuild, texture = findButtonData(cmd)

		local result = container.xstep % MAXBUTTONSONROW
		container.xstep = container.xstep + 1
		local increaseRow = false
		if(result==0)then
			result = MAXBUTTONSONROW
			increaseRow = true
		end	

		
		local color = {0,0,0,1}
		local button = Chili.Button:New {
			parent = container,
			x = 80 * (result-1),
			y = 38 * (container.ystep-1),
			padding = {5, 5, 5, 5},
			margin = {0, 0, 0, 0},
			minWidth = 40,
			minHeight = 40,
			caption = buttontext,
			isDisabled = false,
			cmdid = cmd.id,
			OnMouseDown = {ClickFunc},
		}
		
		if texture then
			if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("texture",texture) end
			button:Resize(80,80)
			image= Chili.Image:New {
				width="100%";
				height="90%";
				y="6%";
				keepAspect = true,	--isState;
				file = texture;
				parent = button;
			}		
		end
		
		if(increaseRow)then
			container.ystep = container.ystep+1
		end		
	end
end

The button creation method , recieves a cmd from the cmd array we filtered earlier. Now for some reason the last command isn't an array but just a number so we'll have to write a check for that, not to crash our script. next we will need information from the given command. We have to determine if it's a regular command, state command or build command. It is also important to know what the content of the button will be, for state commands we want to know the text of the state we are in, for build icons we want buildpics. The buildpic to use is basicly the name of the unit file with a #- in front. You can see in the findButtonData we concatanate this and put it in the texture var. We return all that info back to the createbutton method.

After we have all the info we use a bit of XY math to determine where the button will be put. I'm not going to deep into this cause I suck at math explainations. But you'll figure it out do take notice of the constant MAXBUTTONSONROW, we intitialised this at the start of the script. The following part is where we create the button. The captiontext is the text you will see on the button. There is also one more important part. OnMouseDown = {ClickFunc} , this tells what method has to be performed once you go onMouseDown on the button. Think of it as a onActionPerformed of a JAVA button. Here is the code that gets executed once you press it 

function ClickFunc(chiliButton, x, y, button, mods) 
	local index = Spring.GetCmdDescIndex(chiliButton.cmdid)
	if (index) then
		local left, right = (button == 1), (button == 3)
		local alt, ctrl, meta, shift = mods.alt, mods.ctrl, mods.meta, mods.shift

		if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("active command set to ", chiliButton.cmdid) end
		Spring.SetActiveCommand(index, button, left, right, alt, ctrl, meta, shift)
	end
end

Basicly we get the current mouseState and then decide if an alt, shift or ctrl button is pressed as well, then we decide if the left or right button is pressed and set the next active command that should occure. The command to be exectued is set on the button when we created it in cmdid. Carrying on from the createbutton method, you'll see that we check if a texture was returned from the cmd info method earlier. This would mean we have a build command, and if so you'll see we attach an image to the button. The last line is still a bit of XY math to determine if next time we'll have to switch to another row by increasing the Y on the current container, who was given to the createbutton method when we called it.

Final script

function widget:GetInfo()
	return {
		name		= "command list window",
		desc		= "ChiliUi window that contains all the commands a unit has",
		author		= "Sunspot",
		date		= "2011-06-15",
		license     = "GNU GPL v2",
		layer		= math.huge,
		enabled   	= true,
		handler		= true,
	}
end
-- INCLUDES
VFS.Include("LuaRules/Gadgets/Includes/utilities.lua")

-- CONSTANTS
local MAXBUTTONSONROW = 3
local COMMANDSTOEXCLUDE = {"timewait","deathwait","squadwait","gatherwait","loadonto","nextmenu","prevmenu"}
local Chili

-- MEMBERS
local x
local y
local imageDir = 'LuaUI/Images/commands/'
local commandWindow
local stateCommandWindow
local buildCommandWindow
local updateRequired = true

-- CONTROLS
local spGetActiveCommand 	= Spring.GetActiveCommand
local spGetActiveCmdDesc 	= Spring.GetActiveCmdDesc
local spGetSelectedUnits    = Spring.GetSelectedUnits
local spSendCommands        = Spring.SendCommands


-- SCRIPT FUNCTIONS
function LayoutHandler(xIcons, yIcons, cmdCount, commands)
	widgetHandler.commands   = commands
	widgetHandler.commands.n = cmdCount
	widgetHandler:CommandsChanged()
	local reParamsCmds = {}
	local customCmds = {}

	return "", xIcons, yIcons, {}, customCmds, {}, {}, {}, {}, reParamsCmds, {[1337]=9001}
end

function ClickFunc(chiliButton, x, y, button, mods) 
	local index = Spring.GetCmdDescIndex(chiliButton.cmdid)
	if (index) then
		local left, right = (button == 1), (button == 3)
		local alt, ctrl, meta, shift = mods.alt, mods.ctrl, mods.meta, mods.shift

		if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("active command set to ", chiliButton.cmdid) end
		Spring.SetActiveCommand(index, button, left, right, alt, ctrl, meta, shift)
	end
end

-- Returns the caption, parent container and commandtype of the button	
function findButtonData(cmd)
	local isState = (cmd.type == CMDTYPE.ICON_MODE and #cmd.params > 1)
	local isBuild = (cmd.id < 0)	
	local buttontext = ""
	local container
	local texture = nil
	if not isState and not isBuild then
		buttontext = cmd.name
		container = commandWindow
	elseif isState then
		local indexChoice = cmd.params[1] + 2
		buttontext = cmd.params[indexChoice]
		container = stateCommandWindow
	else
		container = buildCommandWindow
		texture = '#'..-cmd.id
	end
	return buttontext, container, isState, isBuild, texture	
end

function createMyButton(cmd)
	if(type(cmd) == 'table')then
		buttontext, container, isState, isBuild, texture = findButtonData(cmd)

		local result = container.xstep % MAXBUTTONSONROW
		container.xstep = container.xstep + 1
		local increaseRow = false
		if(result==0)then
			result = MAXBUTTONSONROW
			increaseRow = true
		end	

		
		local color = {0,0,0,1}
		local button = Chili.Button:New {
			parent = container,
			x = 80 * (result-1),
			y = 38 * (container.ystep-1),
			padding = {5, 5, 5, 5},
			margin = {0, 0, 0, 0},
			minWidth = 40,
			minHeight = 40,
			caption = buttontext,
			isDisabled = false,
			cmdid = cmd.id,
			OnMouseDown = {ClickFunc},
		}
		
		if texture then
			if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("texture",texture) end
			button:Resize(80,80)
			image= Chili.Image:New {
				width="100%";
				height="90%";
				y="6%";
				keepAspect = true,	--isState;
				file = texture;
				parent = button;
			}		
		end
		
		if(increaseRow)then
			container.ystep = container.ystep+1
		end		
	end
end

function filterUnwanted(commands)
	local uniqueList = {}
	if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("Total commands ", #commands) end
	if not(#commands == 0)then
		j = 1
		for _, cmd in ipairs(commands) do
			if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("Adding command ", cmd.action) end
			if not table.contains(COMMANDSTOEXCLUDE,cmd.action) then
				uniqueList[j] = cmd
				j = j + 1
			end
		end
	end
	return uniqueList
end

function resetWindow(container)
	container:ClearChildren()
	container.xstep = 1
	container.ystep = 1
end

function loadPanel()
	resetWindow(commandWindow)
	resetWindow(stateCommandWindow)
	resetWindow(buildCommandWindow)
	local commands = Spring.GetActiveCmdDescs()
	commands = filterUnwanted(commands)
	table.sort(commands,function(x,y) return x.action < y.action end)
	for cmdid, cmd in pairs(commands) do
		rowcount = createMyButton(commands[cmdid]) 
	end
end

-- WIDGET CODE
function widget:Initialize()
	widgetHandler:ConfigLayoutHandler(LayoutHandler)
	Spring.ForceLayoutUpdate()
	spSendCommands({"tooltip 0"})
	
	if (not WG.Chili) then
		widgetHandler:RemoveWidget()
		return
	end

	Chili = WG.Chili
	local screen0 = Chili.Screen0
		
	commandWindow = Chili.Control:New{
		x = 0,
		y = 0,
		width = "100%",
		height = "40%",
		xstep = 1,
		ystep = 1,
		draggable = false,
		resizable = false,
		dragUseGrip = false,		
		children = {},
	}

	stateCommandWindow = Chili.Control:New{
		x = 0,
		y = "40%",
		width = "100%",
		height = "20%",
		xstep = 1,
		ystep = 1,
		draggable = false,
		resizable = false,
		dragUseGrip = false,		
		children = {},
	}	

	buildCommandWindow = Chili.Control:New{
		x = 0,
		y = "60%",
		width = "100%",
		height = "40%",
		xstep = 1,
		ystep = 1,
		draggable = false,
		resizable = false,
		dragUseGrip = false,		
		children = {},
	}		
	
	window0 = Chili.Window:New{
		x = '50%',
		y = '15%',	
		dockable = true,
		parent = screen0,
		caption = "",
		draggable = true,
		resizable = true,
		dragUseGrip = true,
		clientWidth = 400,
		clientHeight = 200,
		backgroundColor = {0,0,0,1},
		skinName  = "DarkGlass",		
		children = {commandWindow,stateCommandWindow,buildCommandWindow},
	}
	
end

function widget:CommandsChanged()
	if DEBUG then Spring.Echo("commandChanged called") end
	updateRequired = true
end

function widget:DrawScreen()
    if updateRequired then
        updateRequired = false
		loadPanel()
    end
end

function widget:Shutdown()
  widgetHandler:ConfigLayoutHandler(nil)
  Spring.ForceLayoutUpdate()
  spSendCommands({"tooltip 1"})
end

There we have it, maybe a bit complicated but it's completly possible to remove the nasty stock ui and build your own fancy chili UI. I hope these last 3 tutorials where usefull and you will build some very fine chili gui's

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