Total newbie help, hopefully a simple question
 

Hi all. I'm hoping this is a trivial question that someone will chime in about. I'm currently looking through threads but not seeing such a basic answer (and in fact see much more complex stuff being discussed), so I'm self-qualifying myself as "clueless". So I'm looking for a clue. :)

I don't like the new gigantic crafting window that came with the update. I like to keep it open, along with inventory, so that I can see the items, the progress etc., all with the ability to move my character around. The new window blocks my character view completely. I'd actually be fine with the original window more than a fancy bigger one or the new one. So I'm trying to figure out how to change it myself, and I think I just about have the idea, but I'm missing one important part:

How do you know what to place, and where? I've looked at some downloads and the crafting designs range from minimal to huge. 700 lines, one of them was! There's no way I'm going to figure out the meanings of 700 lines (even 100 would be too much) and then determine by trial and error all of the correct X and Y coords. But every time I search for an "xml viewer" no such thing seems to exist (I don't need an "xml editor" -- I have that), so I guess it isn't just about designing forms for UIs. I'm guessing it's more about storing generic values instead, and my lack of sureness on this point indicates I really am clueless.

How do you guys totally create a new layout of a window? Seems like a massive chore, and I'd as soon tolerate the new one :( before doing so much work. Heck, I just want a crafting window that's narrow enough so I can see my character at 1280. It can even be full height if it must.

ironicly you want something simple but even a simple layout gets very complex very quickly, what i have done in the past is to start off creating the window size you want (that is the part you are most conserned with after all since it is what takes up all the space) then just a matter of possitioning each element individualy in that window untill you are done. I have not modified xml directly since i work with lua as my primary medium in LOTRO but that is how i build my windows, just create the basic window load up your plugin/skin and see how you like it, but it is very teadious, one thing i have been known to do is give each element a diffrent back ground color so you can see how much space it takes up.

I wish you the best on your project and hope you dont drop the whole thing because of how much work it might take.

So my fears we correct: it is that tedious. :rolleyes:

I think making the background first is probably the right approach though; I'm assuming I can use image coords in photoshop to determine X,Y of the elements (if I can figure all of those out).

Thanks for the encouragement, I'll see what I can come up with.

Actually, I do have another noob question: the starting point. So far I've considered working from others' releases. Taking their xml file for a given window and working from there. But since the release just happened, there's not a lot up to date.

I assume I'll find this eventually too -- is there somewhere I can download Turbine's UI files? Or were they reverse engineered by this community? Even so, where do they reside, or do you all start typing lines from scratch? :eek:

Closest thing I've found so far to helping me start out is Enfield's Panel Viewer. It looks like the crafting window before the recent update. However of course the format of the HTML is different from XML so I can't just grab his code and drop it into my UI file. It's a start, but I really wonder if there is a "base default file" from Turbine out there that I'm not finding yet.

As far as I know you cannot simply use the old definitions since many IDs were changed with the recent release (just a guess, but my self made crafting panel doesn't work with the November update). Turbine in person of Frosty usually releases the current sources when necessary. He's quite helpful with sources although he doesn't spend much time here.