UI Controls

Posted By: JayG

UI Controls - 09/11/03 05:41

Hi,

I have written a lot of custom UI controls and have been toying with the idea of seeing if I can get things like list boxes, combo boxes, buttons, scroll bars, etc to work with 3DGS.

What I would like to achieve is kind of a dialog/forms interface that could be used for user input.

I am not sure if it is possible from the SDK or not, I can not remember how easy it is to capture mouse events and keyboard events from a plug in.

I recently wrote several new custom controls from scratch and it got me thinking about porting them to a plug in for 3DGS. If I do this is there any interest ?
Posted By: bupaje

Re: UI Controls - 09/11/03 05:47

I note that something like this is lisited in the forecast as low priority. I would think it is a good idea. My only suggestion is if you do make these then consider doing so in a way that the fonts/images or whatever for the UI elements are all editable so that the user could easily alter the style. In other words having checkboxes that looked like windows checkboxes might not be as appealing as if I could make them look like wood, steel etc by changing a graphic.

Good luck.
Posted By: JayG

Re: UI Controls - 09/12/03 02:59

I saw that it was low in the forecast but they are things that I think help polish a game. From the lack of response I can see why Conitec has them on low priority
Posted By: bupaje

Re: UI Controls - 09/12/03 03:40

Activity on the forums is a little lighter but I don't think that means the UI components are not of interest. -makes sense to me as most game have some sort of interface if only for the settings and so on. Maybe you can use the 'SourceForge concept' and create a thread in Teamwork , propose a series of controls, post whatever you have and invite people to modify, improve or build controls and post code in that thread. If there was any significant involvement from the more knowledgeable -even if only to point out small improvements you might eventually end up with a nice library of stuff. Of course this might be a lot of work if there isn't enough interest.
Posted By: JimFox

Re: UI Controls - 09/12/03 12:43

Things do seem to be a bit slow on the forum. But it seems to me that a nice UI with dialogue boxes would be a big hit. I think most people need that for the startup phase of the game, if for no other reason.
Are you thinking of using the SDK to make a plugin, or use a script or what?
Anyway, I would encourage you to continue, JayG.
Posted By: JayG

Re: UI Controls - 09/12/03 23:16

For the types of things I am thinking about it would have to be through the SDK. I am going to do some testing next week to see if I can get the events that I need.
Posted By: Nems

Re: UI Controls - 09/13/03 08:04

Very interested JayG, sounds like an idea that would go down well once users understood what this will do for them.
Cheers.
Posted By: MadMark

Re: UI Controls - 10/06/03 03:01

JayG, Go for it. I hate doing things the hard way, and that is all that is available with this engine at the moment. Tools like the Virtual Panel Maker are true sanity savers, and what you are discribing would be awesome. I would appreciate it, and put you on my growing list of "peeps to send a cheer out to".

Don't let the lack of response slow you down. Folks are all at different stages of development, and so often we see "Hey who wants <insert gee-whiz item here>?" Only to spend weeks, months and in some cases years helping, encouraging, hoping, before it comes to light that what was planned was just too hard, large or time consuming to come to fruition. (I think some AI [not mythic] efforts and TUSC serve as good examples) It can be demoralizing, and nibbles at one's online confidence...

It is often better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt, so to say.

Mark
Posted By: Pappenheimer

Re: UI Controls - 10/06/03 08:11

The lack of response depends also on the difficulty to imagine what 'UI controls' could be like. Me as a german for example I even don't no what are 'UI controls' at all.
Posted By: JayG

Re: UI Controls - 10/06/03 23:36

Quote:

It is often better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt, so to say



I guess it is too late for me then.

I have proceeded to work on it and things have gone very well. I can now dynamically create a new canvas with controls on it or read it in from a file. I am in the process of hooking up an event system so that c-script can react to a button being clicked or a new item in the list box being selected. It is kind of fun having a draggable dialog inside of GameStudio.

Thanks for the encouragement.

pappenheimer --

A better verbal description

I am creating a set of GUI controls for use with 3D GameStudio. If anyone has used a windows Dialog or the Torque GUI system you should be familiar with what I am creating. I am curious what people think about something like this

The idea is to create a Canvas/Dialog and then place controls on it, (button, list box, and labels, border, picture, check box, radio button, menu). Control placement and settings are defined from a definition file.

Each control can have one of 9 different border types, a background image, a starting and stopping gradient color to draw the background in. All colors have an alpha component so controls that range from opaque to transparent are easily created by adjusting the alpha value.


Here are a couple of older screen shots so you can visually see what I mean.

Here are some images from my very first test with a couple controls. The first one is completely opaque and the second one is partially transparent





Posted By: CrownStem

Re: UI Controls - 10/07/03 00:33

Jay,

If you create a .dll that gives me access to Windows UI elements, if it is stable, I would pay retail (for me, anywhere from $29 to $59) to purchase a copy of it. Also, if you ever put together something that would allow me to communicate between clients via TCP/IP, the same applies. We are using A6 professional, but I don't want to mess with the overhead of Conitec's Client/Server paradigm. The system I'm creating is in a controlled environment, and would benefit greatly from having the 25 clients being able to receive some "control" information from a facilitator's machine.

Thanks,

CrownStem
Posted By: JayG

Re: UI Controls - 10/07/03 01:02

The dll I am creating is mimicing windows UI elements. I can not create and show actual windows controls, at least not since DirectX 7.

What I am doing is working on creating the same look and feel of Windows elements and drawing them with DirectX. I grab the current Windows Color Scheme and then draw the controls the same way windows does. So Visually they should be very close to what the user is used to seeing. The controls also offer a lot of customization so you can modify the look and feel.

I should have something for people to try out in a couple of weeks.

As far as the TCP/IP. Communication is pretty simple until you get Firewalls and the other security measures in place. A TCP connection for one machine to another is pretty easy to set up. The hard part about doing this for games is keeping the data moving efficiently so that all of the clients are kept in synch taking into account lag and bandwidth issues. It really depends on how much "control" information you want to send.

It is something I can think about once I have the UI system polished.
Posted By: Locoweed

Re: UI Controls - 10/07/03 14:29

I think it is a great idea. I would be interested in it.

Loco
Posted By: Bopete

Re: UI Controls - 10/17/04 05:59

I agree, this is a great idea, and also would be interested in it.
Posted By: Cellulaer

Re: UI Controls - 10/17/04 08:13

Quote:

Also, if you ever put together something that would allow me to communicate between clients via TCP/IP, the same applies. We are using A6 professional, but I don't want to mess with the overhead of Conitec's Client/Server paradigm.



CrownStem, I don't want to hijack this thread but you should take a look at my GSPython plugin for 3DGS. It should give you the tcp/ip functionality you're looking for. You can find out more about Python here.

---

@JayG: I think visual UI controls would be a godsend for 3DGS. Implimenting them with panels manually is such a headache right now
Posted By: qwerty823

Re: UI Controls - 10/17/04 09:54

Quote:

@JayG: I think visual UI controls would be a godsend for 3DGS. Implimenting them with panels manually is such a headache right now



Ill second that, and i've looked at JayG's UI controls dll that he has now. It is pretty nice. The thing I dont really like about it is that clicks to the UI go through to the engine, and you cant really mix panels with the gui (unless you have some magic layering handling).
Posted By: CrownStem

Re: UI Controls - 10/20/04 04:17

Cellulaer,

I'm glad I was over in this neck of the forum or I'd never have seen your response. It's been a year since the first post; I wouldn't worry about hijacking the thread I'm glad you spoke up. I'm just now at the point where it's time to get serious about passing control packets from a "facilitator" machine to the students' boxes. I'll check out GSPython...Thanks.

@Qwerty823: I must have missed a link- Where did you find JayG's UI controls?

CrownStem
Posted By: qwerty823

Re: UI Controls - 10/20/04 04:47

I have this url, but it doesnt appear to work anymore. Maybe JayG can say where its moved.

http://home.earthlink.net/~jgiganti/
Posted By: Nadester

Re: UI Controls - 10/20/04 05:33

If JayG doesnt get back within a week, I'll upload and repost his plugin. I also have the sourcecode for it, but that's up to him when he wants to release it (if ever). I did talk with him a few months back, and he mentioned that he would like to eventually do more work on it if he had the time.
Posted By: Bopete

Re: UI Controls - 10/28/04 23:18

I'm eager to hear more about this UI Control project, or perhaps obtain a copy of the .dll somewhere?
Posted By: Peter Churness

Re: UI Controls - 11/18/04 06:34

Has anyone been able to locate the .dll? I'd be interested in a copy.
Posted By: Cellulaer

Re: UI Controls - 11/19/04 09:42


No, but I did find a third party GUI system called Crazy Eddie's GUI. It looks like it would only take one line of code using the SDK to intergrate it into 3DGS A6.31+ (DirectX9).

If anyone is interested in having this done I would need someone that has A6.31+ to test the DLL if I put it togather. Anyone with basic C++ knowledge should be able to do it though.

http://crayzedsgui.sourceforge.net/
Posted By: JayG

Re: UI Controls - 08/17/05 02:22

Sorry to take so long getting back. I located the code on an old backup that I ran across.

I currently do not have a web site but if you email me at

[Email]jgiganti@hotmail.com [/Email]

I can send you 3 zip files with code for the plugins I used with it.

If someone with web space wants to then put them out there for everyone that would be fine with me.

They are in a starting stage and will hopefully help people out.

Jay
Posted By: Nadester

Re: UI Controls - 08/17/05 02:30

Jay, you're still allive man You sent me the source a while back, I think I lost it though. If you email it to me at eric@bbrocket.com, I can host it. I can also host any documentation/feature/readme pages if you need that as well.
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