Shadowbane Interface Skin Editing Tool?

[nothingxs]

Does such a thing exist for the devs? If so, could it ostensibly be retooled and "locked" (if necessary) and released for users to make skins with?

Otherwise, is there some form of tutorial or something of the sort that exists to help people who want to make their own interfaces? I say this because I get an error with MadSageUltimate ("The skin that was selected is incompatible. Continuing to use the current skin.") and I'd like to either fix that skin, or make my own.

Thanks.

[Avarix]

There is no tool, its straight up coding.

[nothingxs]

If you look at the file structure in the GUI files, you can see that it's very likely that some sort of tool was used to enter all the information manually as opposed to having to manually tweak each value. It would be a nightmare to load SB everytime you did a small change to see how it looked with the small tweak -- I'm pretty sure they use a tool.

They may also be able to just load skins without having to restart Shadowbane each time, so I might just be talking out of my ***.

Seriously, though. Tool. Please. :)

[Avarix]

There is no tool, its straight up coding.
qft

[nothingxs]

Then there needs to either be a guide detailing how to mess with the skins.

That or someone interested in that kind of project should whip something up. :P

If I could code worth a damn, I'd do it. Hell, it can't be *too* difficult, given knowledge of how the files work, right?

[coder1024]

I've often thought this might be a fun project, but have never gotten past the initial design day-dreaming phase. It would be cool. There's not a lot of documentation that I could find on the internals of how it worked though. Any skin experts out there? Perhaps we could put our heads together and come up with something.

[BenSBG]

Highly unlikely SBG will develop one for release.

[coder1024]

Highly unlikely SBG will develop one for release.
would SBG be willing to provide docs to aid the creation of a community-developed (unsupported by SBG of course) skin editor?

[Avarix]

I believe they did release some info, as well as the coding language they used for the files. Its the same used in the SCREENGAME files as well as the UI packs.

[Jibbity]

Highly unlikely SBG will develop one for release.
what happened to making the interface XML?

[Avarix]

what happened to making the interface XML?

There was too much work invloved to redo the entire interface.

[coder1024]

given that there's probably no chance of the UI code being redone in XML, I wonder what sort of interest there would be in a community developed editor? doesn't sound like a trivial task, but then again, it can't be impossible...

[BenSBG]

Marker (code3)

[BratsCankill]

OEH NOES! The dreaded code 3! *hides*

[coder1024]

no worries; at least its not as bad as code 4.5. _that_ would be a problem.

[Avarix]

given that there's probably no chance of the UI code being redone in XML, I wonder what sort of interest there would be in a community developed editor? doesn't sound like a trivial task, but then again, it can't be impossible...

Well if we re-did the 400+ UI elements for SB we might just be able to convince them to take it into consideration, but i highly highly doubt it. I know the ground work for an XML interface was started.

[coder1024]

Well if we re-did the 400+ UI elements for SB we might just be able to convince them to take it into consideration, but i highly highly doubt it. I know the ground work for an XML interface was started.
Having the UI in XML isn't necessary for the creation of a skin editor tool. XML would be nice and would make things easier, but since it isn't in XML and there's not really a good chance of them converting everything over to XML, the only reasonable option for a skin editor would be to just work with the existing UI format. i.e., a skin editor would need to read and write the current format. The question is whether or not there's sufficient interest and contribution from those who really know the skin formats from having created skins and/or demand for such a thing and/or the possibility of at least getting some help/docs from SBG.

[Avarix]

From the way i remember it when i used to mess around with skins it would be easier for people to simply learn the format and language instead of doing that then building an app to edit it. It would take a few people longer to build the app then a bunch of people just looking over the files and figuring it out.

An easy way to get a handle on what is what is to make characters and close every UI element except for one, then check out the SCREENGAME file and see whats there.

I think i'll mess around with it again and see what i can dig up.

[Millenia]

Are we all talking about the same thing? An editor for the interface saved in the SCREEN_GAME files wouldn't be that difficult a task to take on, as these are all in plain text and fairly simple to figure out. An edit for the skin itself (i.e. the graphics for a chat window, status bar, etc) would be more complex. At least, I'd expect so, but I haven't really fiddled with skins; the default skin has been tweakable enough for my needs.

[coder1024]

Are we all talking about the same thing? An editor for the interface saved in the SCREEN_GAME files wouldn't be that difficult a task to take on, as these are all in plain text and fairly simple to figure out. An edit for the skin itself (i.e. the graphics for a chat window, status bar, etc) would be more complex. At least, I'd expect so, but I haven't really fiddled with skins; the default skin has been tweakable enough for my needs.
I thought we were talking about editing skins, not just the screen game files. screen game files are fairly straightforward and you can set them up yourself just using the SB client, i.e. move things around where you want and set it up the way you want, then just copy-and-paste that file.

creating new skins/editing skins requires a bit of work mapping IDs to visual elements, etc. (from what I remember from digging around in them some time ago), etc. Not impossible, but certainly not trivial.

From the way i remember it when i used to mess around with skins it would be easier for people to simply learn the format and language instead of doing that then building an app to edit it. It would take a few people longer to build the app then a bunch of people just looking over the files and figuring it out.
I'm not so sure about that. There aren't exactly a large proliferation of available skins for SB. There have been some, maybe a handfull? If there was an easy tool to just design skins, chances are you'd get a lot of skin creators who would be willing to use that, but not willing to dig around the files and figure things out. Those are my "off the top of my head" thoughts anyway. who knows.

[Jeln_FC]

Forgive a naive questions.

What transpired to make the made sage skin and its variants unuseable? I recall reading the skin itself assisted greatly with performance - true or not I've no iea.

[Gankaku]

I just spent a few minutes working with the current default skin and Ashen's old Minimal/PKChu skin, and was able to get it working (somewhat). I'll see what I can do to get a complete working skin together.

Screenie #1 (http://aratike.homestead.com/files/skins/minimal_new1.jpg)
Screenie #2 (http://aratike.homestead.com/files/skins/minimal_new2.jpg)

MadSage was a ***** to work with a while back, when I attempted to make it work with the latest SB client. If I have decent luck with the Minimal/PKChu skin, perhaps I'll give MadSage another go.


Dear SBG,

Send some documentation our way plz.

kthxbye,
Gank

[Gankaku]

Forgive a naive questions.

What transpired to make the made sage skin and its variants unuseable? I recall reading the skin itself assisted greatly with performance - true or not I've no iea.

As the game client changed, the configuration files in the skins needed changes as well. Windows were added, existing windows were changed, etc. - none of which exist in the old skins. Unfortunately, due to people leaving the game, losing interest in the skin, lack of time, etc., the alternative skins were never kept current.

[nothingxs]

The minimal skin actually looks quite nice. I will have to give it a try.

The idea behind an interface skin editor would be a sort of GUI implementation that allowed you to manually place the graphics together that each window that the interface requires and then create the proper data (S_G) file for that window. It would, for example, allow you to load the existing UI and allow you to change it around. It could also be able to load the graphics themselves for viewing and, if anything, import from / export to GIF, BMP or PNG (where you can edit them in your favorite editor).

[nothingxs]

Bumping. Anything happen with the Minimal skin fix?

[Gankaku]

Bumping. Anything happen with the Minimal skin fix?

Time has been a little tight as of late, but I'm still looking at it. :D

[nothingxs]

Let me know, then, I'm willing to try it on / use it if and when you're done.

[nothingxs]

I'll bump this one more time -- drop me a line on AIM (nothingxs) if and when you finish with Minimal, in the meantime I'm consulting with a friend of mine to see if a tool can be made (time being the important factor).

[nothingxs]

Okay, so I lied, and I'm bumping this again -- particularly since Halethrain's released that new skin of his.