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Originally Posted by lunarwtr
I'd love to see lotro offer this kind of support, but in its current form I'd suggest starting with an app that translates between tag based and the object based that we currently have to work with. Preferably an app that translates between the skinning type tag system, that way as the API gradually exposes access, it is easier to covert over existing windowed examples into addon-land.
The idea I've been toying with is a "visual basic"-like lua addon, for dragging / dropping controls on blank window pane while in game and editing the properties. Lua language coupled with the lotro controls give all the necessary support to make this happen. Since the designer addon is in game, you get all of the sizing, etc.. correct w/o a bunch of reloads.
I'd love to see the UI go more tag based. Much easier to lay stuff out that way (at least easier for my brain to visually lay it out that way).
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I too would love to see the skinning system and plugins become the same system - as I think that both systems would benefit a lot from the other.
For a brief time I was playing around with a plugin that would do something similar (although I was going for more of a Flash authoring method than Form Designer). In this case, the actual Lua code would be displayed in a window, where the user could copy/paste it into their own lua file.
Unfortunately after realizing I was getting into way too many projects at once, I had to cut back, leaving the small amount of work I did accomplish to gather dust. Another reason, is that it seems I end up coming up with ideas that do get finished, in the process of actually writing plugins - such as the DUInterface library, which was written in the process of creating the options panel for Palantir,
Palantir will again be the reason for another idea - this one. After noticing how much space was being taken up by UI related code, and contemplating the support of bar skins, it seems like the best way to go - provided I can pull it off. At this point, I think I'm going to stick with <Element> tags, just to at least mimic the existing skinning system, with the ID attribute, of course, being the unique identifier for that element. It will also include a "type" attribute, which will contain the class of the element. So, perhaps something like so:
Code:
<Element ID="mywindow" Type="Turbine.UI.Window" X=10 Y=10 width="200" height="200"/>
of course other properties would be available, depending on exactly which element type you're using.