Playing with Deadlands...

[Doswelk]

Been trying things out to customise Deadlands a little more...

Not sure about it yet.

[dr_venture]

Oooo - the newspaper title for the shat window is very nice. Dammit, you're going to make me go back and **** around with my theme again!!

[RKBrumbelow]

I think the wood should be more distressed. Right now it looks like it just came out of a european guild run shop, not like it is hanging in a saloon.

[Doswelk]

Being no real artist I usually just nick textures and images from the pdf to create the theme, but the wood was a pain I had to lighten it to make the text readable.

But you are right the wood looked to nice.

How's this?

[RKBrumbelow]

Thats a lot closer certainly , not certain if I would go slightly darker to simulate smoke and grime or lighter to simulate bleaching by desert air and sunlight.

[Zeus]

Here's a mock up of some visuals I thought might help the window 'pop out' from the background visuals Doswelk. Just as a suggestion.

https://farm7.static.flickr.com/6148/5918113226_5ee154ff91.jpg (https://farm7.static.flickr.com/6148/5918113226_c339f07733_o.jpg)

All I did was:

- bevelled (chiseled) the outside wooden frame
- added a wooden grain texture to the outside wooden frame
- embossed (chiseled) the inside wooden panel
- added some bullet holes to the inside wooden panel
- added an inner shadow to the inside wooden panel
- added a gold gilt edge to the story banner
- added a soft drop shadow to window, turn and new controls
- desaturated the wooden patterns to help give an older feel.

[RKBrumbelow]

Nice, I would normally be picky and suggest some more changes, but it is 98% there and it is 4:45 am on the anniversary of my sister's death and who knows how long it will be before the next flashback

[phantomwhale]

Bit worried the text is getting lost on that wooden panel. Perhaps a wooden board with a clearer poster-style splash (similar to the Character picker) might keep the wooden effect, but gain a cleaner, readable centre panel ?

[Doswelk]

Bit more tweaking...

The wood panel is still a bit dark.

[dr_venture]

Doswelk,

I'm trying to play with the chat window for my old west theme, but it's got some really weird scaling & overlapping going on - I can't get a good "headline" like you have here. I notice that the chat frame PNG is about 525 pixels wide, while the chat window itself is only displayed at 390 pixels. I've looked around for any code that controls the chat box but haven't been able to find it. Can you give me any hints?

Also, did you mess with the chat box code to prevent the text from scrolling up and over your headline?

[Doswelk]

Doswelk,

I'm trying to play with the chat window for my old west theme, but it's got some really weird scaling & overlapping going on - I can't get a good "headline" like you have here. I notice that the chat frame PNG is about 525 pixels wide, while the chat window itself is only displayed at 390 pixels. I've looked around for any code that controls the chat box but haven't been able to find it. Can you give me any hints?

Maybe the SW chatbox is easier heres the code I add to the extension.xml:


<framedef name="chatbox">
framedef name="chatbox"
bitmap file="frames/chatbox.png"
topleft rect="0,0,0,0"
top rect="0,0,0,0"
topright rect="0,0,0,0"
left rect="0,0,0,0"
middle rect="0,0,441,565"
right rect="0,0,0,0"
bottomleft rect="0,0,0,0"
bottom rect="0,0,0,0"
bottomright rect="0,0,0,0"
framedef<bitmap file="frames/chatbox.png"><topleft rect="0,0,0,0"><top rect="0,0,0,0"><topright rect="0,0,0,0"><left rect="0,0,0,0"><middle rect="0,0,441,565"><right rect="0,0,0,0"><bottomleft rect="0,0,0,0"><bottom rect="0,0,0,0"><bottomright rect="0,0,0,0">
</bottomright></bottom></bottomleft></right></middle></left></topright></top></topleft></bitmap></framedef>
* not I had to remove all the '<' & '/>' for this to display :confused:
<framedef name="chatbox"></framedef>
Also, did you mess with the chat box code to prevent the text from scrolling up and over your headline?
Actually no (not used it yet so did not think about that). :o

Well my solution will be to wait and see if Phantomwhale wants to take any of this and add it to the official Deadlands extension and hope he hacks a way round the problem. :p:D

[CAPryde]

I think it looks pretty cool, DW.

[phantomwhale]

Well my solution will be to wait and see if Phantomwhale wants to take any of this and add it to the official Deadlands extension and hope he hacks a way round the problem. :p:D

I like it - think defining the Chat Box area isn't too hard (it's a number, somewhere).

There is always a trade off of stylised graphics verses clear, large readable areas in GUI design - e.g. that Tombstone Epitah bar is going to chew up one or two lines of the Chat Box - but happy to take people's thoughts and preferences on this.

I had always thought DL:R could do with a tiny bit more graphical improvement, but it's not my strongest area, so I'm really pleased Doswelk, Dr Venture and others are coming out with extra ideas in this area. I've already integrated a couple of new bits into the core extension for next release (which will mainly be a SWEX v3.2 compatibility release) any dare say I'll take quite a few bits from this thread as well. (for instance, despite my above point about lost text space, I do quite like the Tombstone Epitaph chatbox !)

In a nutshell, extension development is 50% dictatorship, 50% democracy for me :D So feel free to vote on what to include :) And revolt when I disagree :mad:

Cheers,
-PW-

[dr_venture]

I like it - think defining the Chat Box area isn't too hard (it's a number, somewhere).

Yeah, I suspected it was, just couldn't find it at first. It's in "desktop_classes.xml" in the first windowclass definition. So I gots my chat window lookin' fine. Thanks all.

[Doswelk]

Yeah, I suspected it was, just couldn't find it at first. It's in "desktop_classes.xml" in the first windowclass definition. So I gots my chat window lookin' fine. Thanks all.
Ooh you got the top not being overwritten?

If so and you're modifying my old d20 modern ruleset, can you paste up the chatwindow entry please (then I can hack around with it) :D

[dr_venture]

I'm happy to, but I'm not sure what yer looking for. Just look in the "desktop_classes.xml" file - the first entry is for the chat window. There are three sets of 4 number coordinates - you want to tweak the 3rd number of either the first or the last sets (the 2nd set is for chat hilight, which isn't what you want, whatever it is). I *think* you want the set of numbers at the bottom... but just play with them and you'll figure it out.

If you still want me to post something up here, I'm very happy to do it. Did you want the whole XML entry for the chat window?