Improving ToEE's User Interface

Okay, so ... in conjunction with the soon-to-be-released updated front end and temple.dll that will hopefully end the increased incidence of CTDs in 7.9, the old 7.8 temple.dll had to be repatched with all the code changes outlined in this thread to replace fonts and adjust the dialogue window. While doing this, I endeavored to address three issues with the current AI that can't be fixed with .mes level font changes and/or new UI elements:

• the overflow text in the party pool character list UI
• the double line printing on single line problem in item creation UI
• the vertical spacing and placement problem with the console

I fixed the first two issues by painstakingly documenting which instances of the new Priory font in the .dll needed to be reverted to Arial (because a revert was the only option we had). These two elements are now good again, though players will see Arial 10 point in those instances. But OF COURSE, things are never so simple across the board.

Regarding the console, there are indeed locations in the .dll that control vertical spacing and the console font. We can patch those so that the console works like it used to again with properly spaced Arial. Yay! But this being ToEE, we can't have our cake and eat it too, as, inexplicably, we can't patch the radial menu font with Priory and have the console font and spacing work properly with Arial. The two elements are somehow bafflingly intertwined (no doubt because to the ToEE gods, this just made good solid sense :bored. Even with the patched console code, patching the radial menu instance causes the console to go back to Priory with bugged vertical spacing.

In a nutshell, we can have Priory in the radial menu, or a properly operating console. But not both. As near as I can tell. Unless maybe a different patching order would fix it. But I doubt it.

It's weird, because according to random1's instructions, one block of code appears to get patched twice. This is in fact the location where things get mixed up. But the patch for this location is not superfluous, despite outward indications, because not patching it leaves the radial menu at Arial.

So, which do we want, assuming I can't figure out how to have them both?

One solution would be to publish the patching location here for modders who wish to revert it independently so they can use the console. But aside from being a pain in the ass, regular players sometimes use the console too ...

 

Thanks guys. But we can scratch much of what I stated above. I've never been a .dll guy (it's way beyond me, and all I'm actually doing here is following directions with a minimum of experimentation), but I'm beginning to see why it's driven all real Co8 .dll modders insane.

So what I have found out now - and this may change tomorrow - is that we can have our cake and eat it too, only without cherries on top.

I was wrong or incomplete on a few of the conclusions above. It seems that the radial menu and console patches actually aren't connected (other things are, while still other things do or undo other other things), blah-blah-blah, no one really cares about the details. But the bottom line is that we can have the radial menu in Priory font and the console operating properly. In Priory font. What we can't have are two of the instances of Arial patched to Priory that random1 indicated, and the console can't be in Arial (which is kind of more functional actually for the console but meh). The rub is, I don't know what two instances of Arial aren't getting patched. They're not anything obvious, and not the radial menu font.

The reasons for this are varied and insane - e.g. patching the console font back to Arial does cause the radial menu to change to Arial as well, even though the patch location is not for the radial menu; patching one of the unknown font locations mentioned above causes the console vertical spacing patch to stuff up/be undone, even though it's not the same location either, etc. Whatever.

Here's the exact procedure to achieve everything above, for posterity:


TO PATCH THE FONTS

1. Replace all instances of first line with second line in all strings below. This will replace all instances of Arial-10 and Arial-Bold-10 with Priory-12.
   
   6A 0A 68 C8 26 29 10
   6A 0C 68 BC 26 29 10 (110 instances)
   
   6A 0A 68 D8 D7 26 10
   6A 0C 68 BC 26 29 10 (92 instances)
   
   C7 44 24 08 D8 D7 26 10
   C7 44 24 08 BC 26 29 10 (1 instance)
   
   
2. Revert instances below to original. They are exceptions for where arial needs to stay.
   
   location 1515D5 - craft wondrous items left column font
   location 1654C8 - party pool character list font
   location 1EAEFF - console font that controls vertical line spacing for some reason
   
   6A 0C 68 BC 26 29 10
   6A 0A 68 D8 D7 26 10

TO PATCH THE DIALOGUE BOXES

1. Go to locations listed below and patch as indicated, replacing first line with second.
   
   location 14C16F
   
   8B 44 24 08
   33 C0 90 90
   
   location 14C1CB
   
   8D 41 6D 83 C1 7E
   8D 41 3B 83 C1 4D

That's it.

 

You don't need to patch anything; the latest modpack has all this already.

The missing stat names is 'normal' in that we deliberately removed them. Long story short - we can't have them there with a new interface.