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Unread 03-31-2011, 03:45 AM
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An idea for a new way of doing plugins

HTML, .Net, Actionscript (more specifically Flex Actionscript) and WoW add-ons. What do all of these have in common? They all use some form of markup to display visual elements, while letting the code handle the logic.

It's something I think LotRO plugins is missing - perhaps it wouldn't add anything functional to the API, but I feel it would improve organization of code, as well as making UI creation a bit easier. Unfortunately, I don't have direct access to the API source code, and can't "hard wire" support for some kind of markup...but, it may be possible to do the next best thing.

If such markup can't be done outside of Lua; but, in theory, it should be possible to pull off an equivalent within it. Now, such markup would have to be written as a Lua string, but a combination of some form of markup parser/navigator class, in addition to a class designed to "translate" the markup into API code, should be able to do the job well enough.

Now, like I said - this is in theory, based off of what I know of Lua and the API. As soon as I get a reliable internet connection back (looking like the 8th), my first project is going to be testing the feasibility of this idea, with the hope that I'll be able to use such a setup with Palantir v2 - as the number of visual elements in that plugin - makes it a perfect guinea pig for the concept.

That being said, I'm interested in what you guys think about this idea - such as whether or not you think this would be an easier way of creating/laying out plugin UI elements than the existing way - or if you've seen some other method you think is better. If anybody is interested in such a method, let me know - and I'll go ahead and post my progress in this thread. If not, I'll just go ahead and play with it myself, and if it turns out to be acceptable, I'll probably just go ahead with it for my own projects, and leave it at that.
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Unread 03-31-2011, 09:15 AM
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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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Unread 04-14-2011, 11:51 AM
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Quote:
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).
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.
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Unread 04-14-2011, 01:35 PM
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I too suffer from TMSPS (too many side project syndrome). I have a feeling the interface forums needs to form a support group for us.

Suggestion I have regarding, would be to look into the addon authoring of some of the major IDE. There are many out there that already handle xml editing, syntax highlighting, and completion (if you include dtd or xsd support for your xml structure). The addon portion would then simply be a translation component for "export" or a preview type panel. I'd been looking at writing simple lotro api context support library for Eclipse, but got bogged down in TMSPS yet again.
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Unread 04-14-2011, 02:33 PM
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My training is in HTML and visual basic. I'd like to try making plugins but don't know lua and to be honest the UiBuilder is about the limit of my skill ATM but would love something that would make it easier for me to learn/adapt from my skills.
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Unread 04-16-2011, 04:32 AM
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I'm finally going to be able to get around to testing this idea out, later today. The first test is going to be pretty simple - working out an easy way of importing/storing the markup, importing it and parsing it into something that can be easily worked with inside Lua.

The second test will be building off of the first, to create a proof-of-concept. This will basically be a demonstration of how it will work - importing the document, parsing it, and generating the UI it describes.

I will continue to update this thread with any (significant) progress I make throughout the weekend - and beyond. If this does turn out to be feasible, I will release a beta version of the library as soon as I at least have all the base LotRO API implemented. External UI libraries will be supported as well, although DUInterface will have priority - as it contains UI elements that are necessary for the main purpose of this project (Palantir).

Quote:
Originally Posted by lunarwtr
I too suffer from TMSPS (too many side project syndrome). I have a feeling the interface forums needs to form a support group for us.

Suggestion I have regarding, would be to look into the addon authoring of some of the major IDE. There are many out there that already handle xml editing, syntax highlighting, and completion (if you include dtd or xsd support for your xml structure). The addon portion would then simply be a translation component for "export" or a preview type panel. I'd been looking at writing simple lotro api context support library for Eclipse, but got bogged down in TMSPS yet again.
Funny that you should mention that, because I did release a LotRO API syntax highlighting pack for UltraEdit, Notepad++, and PSPad. I haven't gotten into doing stuff with IDEs yet - mostly because I save IDE work for compiled languages(C# is what I know the best, but I've done a bit of J2ME as well), and use UltraEdit for any scripting (Lua, PHP, JavaScript etc)

Still, it would be a good idea - I've noticed that there are those who prefer using an IDE for nearly everything, so I'm sure it would be useful. As far as previewing it, I don't think there's really a good way to integrate LotRO with any external apps - at least in that regard. I mean ideally, it would start up lotro, and load the plugin to test, in order to show it, but automatically logging in and selecting a character would be a headache - if not impossible, and you really can't send commands to the chat window externally.

What would be nice is a LotRO plugin emulator that would use LotRO's Lua library - or at the very least - a reproduction of it, so you could at least see the result of what you were writing (regardless of markup support), without having to jump through all the hoops to do so. Unfortunately, even if the library is accessible via the Win32 API, this is way out of my league. The best I'd be able to do is translate the Lua code in C#, and attempt to simulate the result - which is really a very ugly way of going about it.

As far as TMSPS goes, I'm pretty sure LI having a support forum for it would be akin to a bar holding an AA meeting Besides, even if such a forum existed, we'd all find something that would improve the program, and start another side project to do so lol

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Old One
My training is in HTML and visual basic. I'd like to try making plugins but don't know lua and to be honest the UiBuilder is about the limit of my skill ATM but would love something that would make it easier for me to learn/adapt from my skills.
Ideally it would work very similar to how JavaScript/HTML works - with something similar to the skinning system, instead of HTML tags. But the general idea would be the same - the layout would be taken care of by the tags, and Lua would be used to get an element, and do something with it.

I mean, plugins in LotRO are really no different in complexity than creating a web app - so if it works for the web, why not do it with LotRO?
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