[WIP] ToEE Front-End X 5.0 Progress Report

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

Yep, agreed, then that's the plan - I'll keep updating the prerelease test builds here as more things get implemented and more issues, if any, get fixed - feel free to integrate the latest build from here into the upcoming Co8 modpack as things have pretty much stabilized by now.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

UPDATE: Updated to Gold Release. All the releases marked as "gold" are considered stable and are no longer beta/prerelease. Unless any changes will be suggested/necessary before the release of Co8 Modpack v7.9.0, this is the version that will go into the next modpack. If any major changes are made before it happens, the "gold" branch of the Front-End will be kept clean of any experimental/untested modifications until they are fully tested and considered stable as well, after which they will be integrated into the next "gold" build. Changes in the current gold release compared to the previous prerelease build mostly consist of some final documentation changes and some minor source code cleanup.

NOTE: Everyone currently using one of the beta/release candidate/prerelease builds of TFE-X v4.0 previously posted in this thread are highly encouraged to update to the gold release. If you post a bug report, I'm assuming that you're posting a bug which you've encountered in the gold release. If you're not using the gold release and are encountering issues, please confirm that the issues you are reporting still exist in the gold build before filing a bug report.

NOTE 2: If you are using ToEE Front-End X v3.0e (the version that shipped with the Circle of Eight Modpack v7.8.0) and would like to try out the new front-end, it is generally considered safe to do so now. Make sure you understand the installation procedure - download the ZIP archive from the first post of this thread and unpack it into the root game folder, overwriting the old front-end. Game reinstallation is not necessary, you can keep using your current game setup with your current player characters and saved games. As always with any new software, you are advised to make backups of anything you believe is critical (e.g. saved games).

IMPORTANT: Please read the documentation (especially the FAQ) before using the front-end as it explains some common problems that may arise and answers some common questions about using (and potentially misusing) ToEE Front-End X! The documentation is available in the "doc" folder of the front-end archive.

Now that v4.0 is generally stabilized and is ready for integration into the Co8 modpack, I'm open to suggestions for the future builds of the front-end (v4.1, v4.2, etc., and even some major ones for the major revision such as v5.0). Please note that the features may be of almost any magnitude, as future revisions of TFE-X will no longer have to be fully backwards compatible with TFE-X v3 series (but they will have to be fully compatible with TFE-X v4.0, so any deeply structural changes involving the change of used file formats may be impossible or at least highly unwelcome).

If you like the new ToEE Front-End X, enjoy using it, and would like to help its continued development and support, please consider donating unless you have already done so - please see my signature. Thank you very much.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ gazra_1971: Thanks a lot for your feedback! Regarding your suggestions:

1) The speed -> yes, the new front-end engine performs differently from the previous one, it may be faster on some systems and slower on some other systems (or around the same performance on yet other systems). Further optimizations may be possible in the future, but currently it's about as fast as it gets, sorry if it performs a bit slower on your particular system. Hopefully the updated responsive interface compensates for that.

2) The default maximum number of player characters in the party -> it hasn't changed from the previous defaults and it is indeed 5. I just tried TFE-X gold on a clean ToEE installation and it correctly reported five player characters immediately after deployment. Can you please elaborate as to what problem exactly you're having here? Are you sure 3 wasn't an option carried over from your previous front-end setup? Even if you are, can you please try again on a brand new clean ToEE patch 2 installation and see if you're still getting 3 as a default value? Anyhow, can't reproduce this yet, the new front-end is programmed to use 5 as a default value and it seems to do it correctly for me...

3) The default value for Delayed Blast Fireball -> this is entirely mod-dependent and has no default value whatsoever in TFE-X, nor did it ever have one in the previous front-ends. The front-end merely loads the value set inside the module (if any - remember, a module doesn't have to support Delayed Blast Fireball, and e.g. vanilla game doesn't) and then shows it to you as the first (default) value you see once you install the modpack. If you believe having 1 as the default value is an issue, please report this in the Circle of Eight Modpack v7 discussion thread for consideration, there's nothing I can do on the TFE-X side to change that.

4) The borders in the interface -> thanks for the tip, this is being worked on and I'll upload an updated release later today which will feature some extra space around the borders of the text elements on the main interface screen. I agree it will look better that way!

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

It's OK, no worries! We have to investigate all sorts of strange things that might be up, glad there was nothing critical or nothing that demanded immediate fixing in the current TFE-X codebase! Hope you enjoy your experience with using TFE-X! Keep an eye open for that updated build with text borders - it should be coming to the boards in about 3-4 hours from now!

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

UPDATE: Updated the Gold Build to v2. Some minor interface changes affecting how the text is aligned inside the module description box and the module selection table. No functional changes.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

UPDATE: Updated the Gold Build to v2a. Synchronized the source code in the package with the latest codebase.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ Gehennis: No, it's absolutely fully OK to drop the incremental update on top of the previous edition - as long as you correctly overwrite the previous TFE-X with the new one, yo should be golden.

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

Hey Ag, sorry if I'm having a senior moment here but after looking at the latest interface, I see we still have the set level cap, modify max number of players in party, and set delayed blast fireball options all using popup windows. Weren't we going to make all those pushover/dropdown menus?

My only real angle with that is consistency - players get used to doing things a certain way with an app, so if we mix it up it may be vaguely unsettling to them. I think pushover/dropdowns are preferable to popups.

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ Gaear: Oh, I thought that by dropdown selections you meant the dropdown selections in the popup windows, not dropdown menus. Sure, I can switch over to that, though I honestly don't know what the level cap dropdown menu will look like - I mean, a drop-down menu with 21 elements in it (1 - 20 + 0) is not something you see every day, it might as well go outside the boundary of the main interface, and if it does, it'll require a bigger screen than the current requirements (which means no netbook resolutions like 1024x600, not sure if anybody plays ToEE on netbooks, but still ). I'll play around with it all and see if it looks good enough - if so, I'll post a new build within the next day or two!

- Agetian

 

Re: [WIP] ToEE Front-End X 4.0 Progress Report

@ sirchet: I'll have to look into that, but it seems like 20 or 21 options might just be within the limits of the screen anyway, so it might not be necessary.

@ everyone: Anyhow, I'm having a bit of a designer's block here related to the drop-down menu selections... In particular, the level cap is a bit tricky to implement. The way it currently works is - there is a separate option to enable or disable the level cap, and a separate option to set the value of the cap. So, the default in TFE-X 3.0e and below was to set the value to 10 and at the same time disable the level cap enforcement. Considering that setting the level cap value to 20 and disabling the level cap completely seem to be functionally equivalent (unless I'm missing something), I kind of want to get rid of this duplication of functionality and consolidate the two things into one - so, there won't be any option to enable/disable the cap but there will be an option to choose the level cap from a drop-down menu, with values between 1 and 20, the maximum value (20) being the equivalent of disabling the cap. There are, however, two issues with it:

1) if we're to do it this way, what should be the default setup when TFE-X is deployed? Should it be 10 per the official vanilla requirements or should it be bumped to 20 (pretty much like TFE-X 3.0e did by disabling the cap)?
2) If the answer for the first question is 10, then how are we to work the Co8 modpack requirements into it? I have an idea of adding an extra option to the lockout file which will specify the default cap to reset to (so, the Co8 modpack could specify that it should set the level cap to 20 upon activation), I think it might be the best option in this case.

Alternatively, if you think the idea is bad, I can just leave the "enable/disable level cap" functionality as it is and just implement the drop-down menu with 10 being the default value for the (disabled) level cap. Let me know what you think, guys!

- Agetian