eq2ui_mainhud_welcome.xml
 

I have been working on test copy updating Profit for gu58 and noticed that my mod of the welcome screen is no longer working. Has anyone else experienced this? No changes to this file seem to be reflected in game.

Silat

I haven't tried the fix yet but will this weekend or early this week as I am on test a lot. Would be happy to test out anything you need as well just shoot me a pm.

Maozem

I have had a few posts on the soe forums confirming it now as well. Just thought I'd update the post.

hmm do I since a little hard coding to defeat the hide window hack?

I'd say yes, but my first guess would be: It was unintentional. How convenient ;)

Yes, I noticed this a few days or so ago and have tried all kinds of things to get it to work with the Fetish ui piece I am using, but with no luck. Maybe it is related with the test/testcopy server crashing these past few days..

Eshaac

I just did a test on Test-Copy, I deleted all eq2ui_mainhud_welcome.xml files from both default UI folders and custom UI folders, deleted reference from eq2ui_mainhud.xml and the welcome screen is still displayed at login. I guess now it's hard coded, unable to skin and impossible to disable.

It seems we are only allowed to modify the UI as long as SC is not affected...

Or it could be an exploit, or potential exploit, that they're combatting by forcing the window from the server. Let's give SOE credit for not hating their customers. :p I'm amazed at the vitriol they've gotten for this on the official forums.

It is not an exploit. They want the window to open. They removed the option to hide it via the command they established and then they removed the ability to mod it to achieve the same goal. If it was an exploit removing the command would not have happened first.

Silat

Yea SC will not effect EQ2Live, We don't have to see it if we chose not to. LOL Guess they scrapped that. The welcome screen it self don't bother its the fact that they are blocking it from being modded.

Actually for me it's the other way around: I don't mind the welcome window, I don't even mind that it can't be modded (I'd rather it could be, but I can live with it unmodded), what annoys me is that it can't be stopped from displaying. I know about the marketplace items, I know about the news items, I know about everything that's on it already. I just want to get logged in and get to the raid without having to keep clicking to close windows that have nothing to do with logging in and getting to the raid. The more annoyances like this, the more likely I am to find a game like Rifts (when it comes out) more fun and less annoying than EQ2.

Strictly speaking, it was an exploit: SOE intentionally removed the ability to disable the welcome screen, so what we did after GU57 was against the developers' intent.

The said thing is that SOE removed a feature which was asked by players at the introduction of welcome screen because the welcome screen was always almost useless. They knew many of us don't want this window and now it's forced. First they only simply removed the command but now they spent even more developer resources on this issue to build-in and hard-code this windows. SC itself is not game breaking for me, but this attitude is.

What I find strange seeing this discussion is that Rothgar did not come here and simply state that this window should not be modded and instead leaves you guys to waste time trying to find out what's going on.

On the other hand, since there's no official ban I suppose I can give you a hint how you can still auto-hide such a window. Remember the client keeps two copies of the UI in memory, the copy of the XML version and the working copy of all windows that have already been loaded. Now to disable (edit: or mod) the welcome screen simply modify the memory copy of the XML version via UI scripting when the interface loads. When the client then loads the welcome screen it will load the version you modified.

In case that wasn't clear enough take a look at ProfitUI's startup code, it already works with both UI copies so you should be able to figure it out from there. ;)

He has not reponded to the thread on the official forums either.

Silat

I guess he could only say that "they" have no choice, like at the SC button on XP bar. Which would be a weak excuse because "they" are SOE in my view.

Personally I don't want to fight with SOE, I'll rather stop giving them $30 per month.

I can skin it now. I can hide it now. Thanks for the tip gm9.

Quick Question:
How do I encapsulate line breaks/new line (
) so that it will be in the code it is placed in and not on the current line. I have tried several different ways I thought would work but they don't.

ie.
OnPress="MainHUD.Welcome.OnShow='visible=hide
hide=true'"

I am guessing that it is rendering the new line here instead of at the onshow event.

Silat

I'm curious how important it is for SOE. When will they "fix" it again?

Way to go, tell them how to defeat my work-around! You bastage! lol

You can't, You have to build the script the way EQ2 executes it, top to bottom right to left. So if you put OnPress="MainHud.Welcome.OnShow='hide=True Visible=Hide'" would be the same as the way your doing it with the line beak.

I should read the documentation more ;)
I have been learning what I am doing by traversing the code in Profit lol.

At any rate that restores everything. Thanks for the help guys.

Silat

lol, yeah, I was fairly certain the experienced modders would be using it already and keeping it quiet, haha. But I have at least 2 more ideas how to get around whatever they might do so I figured I'd join in here and see what develops. :D

One unncessary step in that. Do:

MainHUD.Welcome.OnShow='Visible=false OnShow=" "'

You can also use line breaks:

Script="CODE
CODE
CODE" OnPress="MainHUD.Welcome.OnShow=Script"

I guess I'm still kinda new to UI scripting EQ2 stuff, as i don't know about this "saved memory" thing. I managed to make some nice little mods here and there but the saved memory thing is beyond me. You talking about the contents of the cache folder? o.o

No, this:

Hi
Would it be possible to upload this fix for the window? I have neither an idea how to implement it nor profit ui.

I sent you a link for a cleaned up version of this mod. Will work for semi-dfault/eq2maps UI.

This isn't on the patcher for Profit yet & I'm not sure how this is supposed to be done, (IE modded in the file somewhere or ran as a script in PCC).

Am I missing something?

It's on profit's updater. If you don't want it to show on first load you have to edit a file in the profitui directory named _ProfitUI_ShowWelcomeSetting.txt. Change true to false.

Silat

any chance of a stand alone for the welcome screen not showing

I'm uploading one now. Details will be included.

Cheers.

*edit* now available: http://www.eq2interface.com/download...deWelcome.html

Thanks Drums, I tried the one in Profit (with both settings in the txt file), but I run a modified profit and must have replaced a pre-req file. Will give that a try.

awesome man thanks Drums keep up the great work

Drums version closed as described, unfortunately it makes the window useless if someone tries to open it from the menu....
When I load the vanilla Profit it works just as I like.

TalTal, might you be willing to advise what files the Welcome code is reliant on in Profit? It seems to be more then the ones in the Zip you attached in the Profit GU58 post...as I copied all those to my custom Profit and it still doesn't fix the Welcome window issue for me.

PM or post is fine =)

Thanks in Advance

My code uses an internal timer. So you may be opening it too quickly after logging in. Rather than use complex code to see if it "successfully" closed itself at least once, I just used a timer, and I compensated for anyone that may load slower than others.

I did little experimentation however and simply coded it up in about 5 minutes :)
However, it should work as intended!

I have cleaned up profits version for a default UI (or EQ2Maps).

Two different versions one with XP bar PRE-GU57 and one for the Current Default XP bar.

However I tried to upload and it wanted a picture and since this doesn't change anything I have no pic. So not sure if I can direct link or not

Works fine for me closes after a second or 2 and i can re-open it anytime after

I guess when I am testing UI pieces I am too impatient =)
If it is timer related that would make sense why I was seeing the same issue as I was not sitting there but seeing if it would open after the initial close (within 1 minute or so).

I also found what file I was missing in Profit UI, I use a custom XP window which had an OnShow for the ControlCenter which I did update, so I should have it now =)

One thing I've seen happen is that the welcome window won't show while it's trying to load something via HTTP. Some of the information (news articles, apparently the mission information) comes in that way, and if the servers are slow the window kind of stalls waiting for it. I've seen inconsistent behavior, sometimes the welcome window'll open quickly when I open it from the menu and sometimes it'll take several moments to open, and when it does open sometimes it takes several moments for various bits to be populated with anything. The only explanation I can think of for the inconsistencies is trouble with slow HTTP requests.

Interesting. Probably another good reason I used the timer on it I suppose. Again, it could probably be cleaner, but it seems to get the job done.

Part of what I've done is set its viability to false, add flag=false to the window so I know this has happen. I attempt to activate the close_window script by checking the welcome windows flag and visible properties. If both are false then I close the window and get it out of memory, other wise the user has reopened the window and I don't attempt to close it.

Now one day I'll update eXtreme to match what I have locally :P