Post by Moongaze on May 29, 2007 6:02:10 GMT -5
I figure that it was time for a list of the 8 stages of the testing, and what each stage will have content wise. This list is not set in stone, and some things might be moved around, but at least I'll have something I can look at and be able to stay on track.
Also important to note is that this list is the features I'm planning to implement by the end of that stage. Meaning, I might say "Feature C will be in Stage 3" but it might appear on the first release of Stage 3, or later down the road, near the end of Stage 3.
Stage 1: The Sphere
Stage 7: Pre-Public Release (Part 1)
Stage 7: Pre-Public Release (Part 2)
*wipes brow* I'm sure I'm mess this up some, but there ya go!
Also important to note is that this list is the features I'm planning to implement by the end of that stage. Meaning, I might say "Feature C will be in Stage 3" but it might appear on the first release of Stage 3, or later down the road, near the end of Stage 3.
Stage 1: The Sphere
- Have a sphere that appears with two gauges that circle around it. Each gauge can show events such as your current health, mana, rage, energy, combo points, the 5 second rule, your experience, and reputation.
- Have a text object that appears on the center section of the sphere that can display whatever setting you choose from: current health, mana, rage, energy, combo points, 5 second rule, experience, and reputation. User may display a darkened text background, if the text is hard to read.
- Gauges can be set to show no marks, 5 marks (20% per mark), 10 marks (10% per mark), and 20 marks (5% per mark). These will help give an estimate to where you are, percentage wise on the gauge. Users can also make the marks darker, if they are hard to see (Might add white marks at a later time).
- Ability to hide or show the inner gauge
- Ability to change the color of the sphere and the two gauges
- Ability to change the scale of the sphere
- Ability to hide or show the sphere's "shine"
- Ability to set the sphere's image to your player portrait
- 10 Buttons will circle around the sphere, hidden until the user picks up an item, spell, or macro. Doing so will make the hidden buttons appear and let the user drop the action onto them. Buttons with actions assigned to them already will always show
- Buttons will save their settings per character, so you don't need to set them up every time you log on.
- Buttons will accept left, middle, and right-click assignments of actions
- Buttons will behave similar to the original action bar buttons in World of Warcraft. If you cast a spell, the cooldown will appear on the button. If the button can't be used, it will be colored appropriately to tell the reason why. Colors are red for out-of-range, blue for out-of-mana, and darkened if it cannot be used (not enough reagents, on a cooldown, on a flight path, shapeshifted to a form that won't let you use that ability, etc).
- Buttons can only be modified out-of-combat. When the player is in "combat lockdown," a red glow will appear around the sphere.
- The 10 main buttons can be converted into menu buttons. A menu button will have 10 child buttons that attach to it. These buttons can also be assigned any actions.
- Menu buttons will show their children, or hide their children, when clicked.
- Buttons can be deleted by holding CTRL and RIGHT-CLICKING (Might be changed to just hovering over the button and hitting the delete key, we'll see). If a user deletes a menu button, all children of that button will also be deleted.
- Buttons can be modified with a "Button Settings" dialog window that appears when you hold ALT and click any mouse button on the button you wish to edit. This mode will allow you to see and assign left, middle, and right click actions. More features will be added later during another stage.
- If an item is assigned to a button, a count will appear for items that are stackable or would normally want a count. Mounts, hearthstones, most unique items, armor and weapons will not show a count.
- If the player no longer has the item, spell, macro, or ability that the button was originally assigned, it will be darkened out. Exceptions will be macros. If they are not found on load-up, the button will be deleted.
- More tabs will be added to the sphere settings window (Reagents, Inventory, Speech, and Misc)
- Reagents tab: This will focus on reagent purchasing. Users will be able to drag whatever reagent they want onto the list of reagents and LunarSphere will track it.
- Reagents tab: Tracked reagents will be purchased at a vendor if the player's inventory is lower than the set level. So, if you want to make sure you always have 20 Sacred Candles, set the count to 20 and LunarSphere will purchase as many as it takes to reach that count. If you're a tailor or leatherworker, throw in some thread. If you're a rogue, throw in some of your reagents. Whatever you like.
- Inventory tab: This will focus on tasks to do with your inventory. Options for auto-repair, auto-vender, mail, and some AH tasks.
- Inventory tab: Auto-repair can be turned on or off. It will have an option of displaying your last bill, and storing a list of bills up to a configurable amount (Might cap it at 20), for those who want to see how much you're spending on your adventures.
- Inventroy tab: Auto-vender of items. Users will have the option of automatically vendoring all gray (poor quality) items. Can also turn on a display that will say how much that trip to the vendor brought in. Another option of automatically vendoring armor and weapons that are white (common quality) that you can't use. This would take items that are lower than your weapon or armor equipped, that are common, and junk them. It will also take common armor and weapons that you don't have the skill to equip and automatically junk them. All non-equipable items will be spared.
- Speech tab: This will be empty. It's just there to tease you. I'm cruel.
- Misc tab: This will have a bunch of options that don't really fit anywhere else. There will be options for hiding the gryphons on the side of your screen, hiding your original player frame, hiding the experience bar and/or reputation bar, hiding the action bar, bag bar, hiding your cat, any other segment of that entire bottom section of your screen. Adding a "total auction price" and "total bids" section to your auction window, in case you want to know how much money you COULD make from your auctions, as well as how much money is sitting on any bids you placed. Hiding the day/night display on the minimap. Defining a start-up message/reminder (If you need to do something soon, write the note here, and every time you log in, there will be a pop-up window that tells you this message. Great for people who need reminders to pick up their kids from school, instead of going to run an instance =).
- Item Recognition: Due to different locales having localized spell names (which the user never sees and is called internally and was, in my option, a waste of time to localize on Blizzard's part), I have re-done the item spell recognition engine. It will now populate its data upon the first login with the new system, and any spell not found and saved will be checked when the user picks up an item that uses this spell. Once all spells are identified (about 10 of them) the spell name engine will no longer be needed and removed from memory internally (to save an extra 2-5k of memory)
- Item Recognition: All recognized conjured items for food/drink/potion types now take higher priority when button types of "Use strongest water/food/potion/etc" are used. This means that if you have low level conjured water and high level vendor water, the conjured water WILL be used first. Once all conjured items are consumed, normal items will take priority again.
- Item Recognition: Healthstone, Mana Agate, and Underspore Pods are now recognized as healing potions, mana potions, and food/drink (respectively). Due to these being conjured items, they will be used first before normal items.
- New Tab: Skinning. This tab will have several options for customizing the look of LunarSphere
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to set the sphere color from the Skinning Tab.
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to apply a generic "shine" to the sphere, to make it look more shiny or 3D.
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to set the sphere graphic from the Skinning Tab. Images include the standard sphere, 4 other images, all class icons, the player's 2D and 3D portrait, any spell/item/macro icon that can be dragged onto the icon box, as well as custom imported images. The images will be displayed in a list for easy viewing before applying the skin.
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to import a graphic that was copied into the LunarSphere/Art/CustomArt folder. Clicking on the import button will provide a prompt for the user to type in the name of the file. LunarSphere will check for that file in the CustomArt folder, and if found, add it to its internal list of images so that the user will always have access to the image in the future, on any character they use. Also on this prompt will be a few options for what type of image to import. Options include: "Sphere image," "Button Image (Circle)," and "Button Image (Square)."
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to set the non-menu buttons' color from the Skinning Tab.
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to set the menu buttons' color from the Skinning Tab.
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to set the graphic to be used for all buttons around the sphere. The images will be displayed in a list for easy viewing before applying the skin.
- Skinning Tab: Users will be able to apply a generic "shine" to the buttons, to make them look more shiny or 3D.
- Button Settings Window: Multiple new click-types can be selected for a click event, besides "None," "Open Menu," and "Spell/Item/Macro." New catagories for food, drink, potions, mounts, bags, menu icons, and more can be selected. Consumable actions (drink menu, food menu, potion menu, etc) will have a "use weakest" and "use strongest" feature, so you can have the best of that type assigned to a button click.
- Inventory Tab: Users may now select "Skip vendor gossip" so that the flight master, banker, battlegrounds keepers, and vendors who want to tell you their life story before you click the "Show me your &$%#ing goods, man!" option ... will automatically be skipped for you. This does not apply to trainers (since they have multiple options) or inn keepers.
- Inventory Tab: Auctions section has been made smaller. The "show all bids" and "show all auctions" options have been combined to "show all bids/auctions." If you had any of the two option turned on while this feature is added, it will default to "on" automatically. Otherwise, it will stay off until turned on.
- Debug Tab: "Use Debug Tooltip." To help with some debugging information from testers, I have added a special option in the Debug tab. If this option is turned on, any item or spell you mouse over, or item link you click, will present the original tooltip data, as well as a few extra lines with some debug information that will be useful for me for future issues.
- Button Settings Window: New design, to incorporate new elements of a button.
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to set the buttons up to recognize stances. With the option turned on, users will be able to assign actions they would like displayed on the button while they are shapeshifted to a particular stance.
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to set the angle at which the menu buttons open up their submenus. Angle 0 is straight up, while the rest move clockwise.
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to set the button setting "Detach from sphere." This will allow the button to be dragged anywhere around the screen. Turning this option off will re-attach the button to the sphere.
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to select which click action cooldown they want to display on the button (defaults to the left-click action)
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to select which item count they want to display on the button (defaults to the left-click item), if an item exists.
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to select which action icon they want to display on the button (defaults to the left-click action).
- Button Settings Window: Users will now be able to instruct the 10 main buttons when they should become visible. These settings are also applied to the submenu buttons of that main button. Options include "Hide in combat," "Show in combat," "Hide out-of-combat," "Show out-of-combat," and "Hide menu on mouseout"
- Other Tab: The "Hide Default UI" section has been updated. The options will include: "Player frame," "Party frame," "Minimap: Time of Day," "Minimap: Zoom Buttons," "Bottom Bar: Action Bar," "Bottom Bar: Non-Action Bar Buttons," "Bottom Bar Art," "Entire Bottom Bar," "Gryphons."
- Sphere Tab: New options for "Lock/Unlock Sphere," "Lock/Unlock Buttons," and "Show/Hide Empty Buttons" will be listed.
- Sphere Tab: Users will now have the ability to assign a left-middle-right click event to the sphere, much like a button. The "Open menu" and "Use last submenu action" commands will be disabled (for obvious reasons)
- Sphere: Holding ALT and clicking the sphere will present a small dropdown list that will have the options: "Settings Window," "Lock/Unlock Sphere," "Lock/Unlock buttons," and "Show/Hide Empty Buttons"
- The Speech/Script tab will now be populated with details for assigning speeches to spells and importing/exporting/editing speech scripts.
- The script database will come pre-populated with speeches taken from Necrosis, Cryolysis, and Serenity. There will be 10 scripts for sheeping, shackle undead, mounting, and a few others. There will be a list of about 20-30 resurrecting scripts built in that will work for all classes, pulled from the massive collection in Serenity. Via the "import" feature, users can import script files and save them to their saved variables for that character or to the global saved variables for all characters. The pros of importing to the character is that if you're using a character without the ability to resurrect someone, the scripts for resurrection won't take up an extra 3-8k of memory.
- Users will be able to create and edit "Script Libraries" which will be the name of a collection of speech scripts. An example would be the "Mount Library" which would hold all of your mounting messages, and you might make a "Charge Library" that your character will pull from whenever they charge into battle as a warrior.
- Script libraries can be assigned to one or more spell/item/macro combinations. Simply drag whatever spell you want to use the script library into the "Assigned Actions" box and the list will populate with your new entry. Dragging a mount, health potion, mana potion, drink, food, bandage, energy drink, or rage drink into the list will generically assign ALL mounts, health potions, etc. that message.
- Script creation/deletion/editing can take place in this tab. Certain scripts (which are built into LS) cannot be edited or deleted and will not be accessable in this area. However, any scripts imported or created can be.
- Scripts will have special letter combinations set aside to replace text within the script when it is printed to chat. Combinations will include <m> (mount being used) <t> (targetted unit) and <p> (player's pet name). More will appear in the future (probably target level, HP percentage, stuff like that)
- Script exporting will create/change the file in your global saved variables called "LunarSphereExportScripts.LUA" This can be read by any character on your computer and can be imported to their scripts. If you rename the file as "LunarSphereImportScripts.LUA" it can be placed into the LunarSphere folder and will be recognized for importing if you want to import it. This will make it easier for players to share their scripts with other users via download from websites.
Stage 7: Pre-Public Release (Part 1)
- New feature added to the Debug Tab: "Save sphere template" This will save everything that is assigned to the sphere into a template catagory inside the global saved variables file "LunarSphereExport.lua"
- Users will use the template creation feature to design a sphere that has EVERY spell and ability that class might use already setup. To accomplish this feat (and to save people from having to spend gold) I would prefer users who have level 70 characters to log into a PTR server. Once there, simply assign all the spells you currently have to the sphere and setup some menus. Maybe make the sphere similar in layout to Necrosis (for Warlocks), Serenity (for Priests), Venantes (for Hunters), etc. Then, respec your character and go ALL one talent tree branch. Assign any new spells you gained from that. Respec and go to another talent tree and dump all points into it. Repeat, repeat, until all spells are assigned. You will notice that there wil be grayed out spells and abilities in your sphere (because you don't have it currently). Try to keep those spells as submenu buttons (not main buttons).
- After templates are made, I would like for everyone who made a template to email them to me. I will create a very messy database of all these templates for a temporary test for Part 2.
- New tab released: Tooltip. This tab will handle various tooltip tasks such as what to show on the LunarSphere buttons, setting a position for the tooltip (if desired), and more.
- More gauge events to track
- More sphere text events to track
- Random stuff I haven't decided on yet.
- A cat scratch post
Stage 7: Pre-Public Release (Part 2)
- New tab will be introduced "Templates" Here, users will be able to create templates and select saved templates and load them onto their sphere.
- Template Tab: There will be an option for wiping all submenu buttons clean (deleting them).
- Template Tab: There will be an option for wiping all buttons clean (deleting them).
- Template Tab: There will be an option for wiping all actions and settings from the sphere (resetting it to default)
- Template Tab: There will be an option for restoring all of LunarSphere to default configuration (wiping all buttons, events, etc). Speech scripts will NOT be touched. Only sphere settings.
- Several submitted templates for the classes will be included. I'd like everyone to try all the templates for their class and make sure they are fully loaded and has all the spells loaded up. Users will be able to vote for which template they like best, and that template will be hard-coded into LunarSphere for that class as the default (Of course, people can import templates as much as they like as well)
- New tab: Memory. This tab will have various options for users to tweak their LunarSphere settings so it will load or not load certain sections of the addon. This will hopefully offer up to 200k of memory to be turned off with everything but the essentials turned off.
- Autoapply Template: If a user logs in with a default sphere (i.e, it was wiped with the "Restore Sphere to default" or it is the first time using LunarSphere), a popup window will ask the use if they want to apply the class template for their class. Selecting yes will automatically load the template for their class, while no will skip it and modify LunarSphere to notify that the user declined the template (so it doesn't ask them again when they log in, if they haven't made any changes)
- Localization. Since most or all of the interface for LunarSphere is complete, I will begin contacting people who have said they could help with the localization of LS into their locale. LunarSphere will function in ALL locales, but some text will be in English until translated. I will also be verifying if I can call upon these people in the future, if I need more localization help.
- Localization built-in.
- ... massive Credits screen will be revealed.
*wipes brow* I'm sure I'm mess this up some, but there ya go!