CAN WE FIX: Secondary Chat Windows?

[Shenanigunner]

(Topic two of three similar.)

 

The UI used to support tear-off chat windows; I still have one in my setup, carefully preserved since they were removed. Even with four chat panes in the main layout, I find it useful to have a tear-away for "combat" text, a little larger and positioned with the combat UI elements, and holding (mostly) Team and NPC chat. Pulled into the center area and with larger text, it becomes useful in ways that having it over to one side and normal "Yes, I have time to read this long stupid post in General" size doesn't.

 

And given the game's reliance on subtitles, being able to position a larger, wide window as a "subtitle" frame would be a nice asset.

 

Not sure why the secondary chat windows were removed, especially as the window data is still preserved in windows.txt and responds erratically to editing. But...

 

• Could be get the tear-off/separate Chat window set back?

[Vanden]

The... what? I don't know what you're talking about.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Shenanigunner said:

(Topic two of three similar.)

 

The UI used to support tear-off chat windows; I still have one in my setup, carefully preserved since they were removed. Even with four chat panes in the main layout, I find it useful to have a tear-away for "combat" text, a little larger and positioned with the combat UI elements, and holding (mostly) Team and NPC chat. Pulled into the center area and with larger text, it becomes useful in ways that having it over to one side and normal "Yes, I have time to read this long stupid post in General" size doesn't.

 

And given the game's reliance on subtitles, being able to position a larger, wide window as a "subtitle" frame would be a nice asset.

 

Not sure why the secondary chat windows were removed, especially as the window data is still preserved in windows.txt and responds erratically to editing. But...

 

• Could be get the tear-off/separate Chat window set back?

So... your suggestion is to do... what?

 

Edit: Nevermind. I get it now.

Edited February 19 by Rudra

[megaericzero]

This is going to sound like a "have you tried turning it off and on again?" but...

 

Are you sure it's not that you have one of the extra chat windows (the ones that are normally mutually exclusive with stuff like Team, Supergroup, Email, etc.) unlinked? Similar to how you can unlink other things like the Inspirations window so you can have it off to the side and not be closed by Enhancements or Powers.

[Shenanigunner]

4 minutes ago, megaericzero said:

This is going to sound like a "have you tried turning it off and on again?" but...

 

Are you sure it's not that you have one of the extra chat windows (the ones that are normally mutually exclusive with stuff like Team, Supergroup, Email, etc.) unlinked? Similar to how you can unlink other things like the Inspirations window so you can have it off to the side and not be closed by Enhancements or Powers.

 

Nope. Until maybe Issue 25, you could open tear-off chat windows the same way you can tear off power trays. The only one available now is the main chat, which is chat or chat0 in the various commands and lists. But the remnants are still there: see chat1 through chat4 in the windows file, or "Fade Chat 1" etc. in options, etc.

 

For whatever reason, the extra window I had open has persisted through UI edits, and I can make it come and go with changes to the windows file (just not changes that make any sense).

 

I don't know why this feature was disabled, but I'd like to see it returned to function.

[Vanden]

You're not just talking about these buttons here, are you?

 

It sounds like you do know about them, but they do exactly what you're saying was removed.

Edited February 19 by Vanden

[Greycat]

You mean like this?

 

(UI's a little goofy since this is on my lower-resolution laptop screen... but that's still doable.))

[Shenanigunner]

Ditto — see below — but the controls for these windows are no longer accessible and getting that extra window is a file hack. I also can't get a second tearoff to appear.

 

[megaericzero]

Huh. I was unaware tearoff trays and chats were a thing.

 

Again, not to sound like a butt but...

Is the game not just automatically using the 1-4 extra chat tabs?

 

Since the screenshot isn't your full game view, I can't see if more chat windows are hidden outside of the image but the fact that the 1 and 2 are green tells me those windows are currently active/displayed, and the two in your screenshot - Game (as unlinked) and Help/General (linked as one split tab) - match the headcount.

 

(I'm not in a place where I can access the game at the moment so I can't just pop in and check for myself.)

Edited February 19 by megaericzero

[Greycat]

What are you looking at for controls? Doesn't sound like I'm the only other one confused by that.

 

You say you have one preserved - can you throw a screenshot of *that* up to compare?

[Shenanigunner]

It's simple: until some fair time into the HC era, you could open secondary Chat windows, like the one both GC and I show. Up to five, total, counting the main chat window with up to four panes in it.

 

At some point, I25 I think, this capability was removed. There are no visible controls to create these secondary windows now.

 

But if you look at the various menus and in the windows file and so forth, and in outdated command and option list, you'll find duplicate commands for [Chat|Chat0], which is the main tray everyone has, and [Chat1] through [Chat4], which are NOT the various panes of Chat1 or the selectors on it, but four largely no-longer-accessible separate chat windows.

 

I don't know why the feature was removed. I don't know why some of us retained one semi-functional tray. (GC, go ahead and try to scale that tray, for example...) I don't know what the horrible downside of bringing back the feature would be, but I'se astin'.

[Number Six]

That's... still a thing, we didn't touch it. My main UI setup has 2 or 3 different chat windows on different parts of the screen.

 

Just click 1, 2, 3, and/or 4 next to where it says "Tab", then click the little filled circle in the corner to undock it and move it elsewhere.

 

[Fade]

Sorry Shenanigunner, I think this one might be on your end.

 

I have no issues creating new chat windows, disconnecting them from the main chat window, resizing the new chat windows, creating new tabs, dragging and dropping them into the chat window, or even creating the halfway split chat window like I see in your image.

 

If the issue is being able to create these windows with slash commands, I have to admit I've never tried doing that and wouldn't know how to go about it.

[Greycat]

I'm ... still confused. You say windows "like the ones GC (me) and (you) show," but... I can, and regularly do, still create them. The character I took those screenshots from was post-I25.  I mean, I can create a character *right now* and do that.

 

(don't mind th emouse bouncing up and down... kept hitting the background fraps window.)

 

Just created him and I'm doing what I *think* you're talking about missing...

 

[Shenanigunner]

Okay. Let me experiment some more with #6's comments.

 

I know, unless I have slipped into an alternate reality, that there was a point when some well-honed UI control binds stopped working, and I lost the windows they controlled, and it is still/now impossible to control the one tearoff I have left with things like open, close and scale commands.

 

I may be a little off track here, but the windows are not the same as they once were — under Live and the early HC days.

 

Back to this soon.

[Shenanigunner]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

I'm ... still confused. You say windows "like the ones GC (me) and (you) show," but... I can, and regularly do, still create them. The character I took those screenshots from was post-I25.  I mean, I can create a character *right now* and do that.

 

Can you control those windows with slash command? Because at some past point, I sure could. 🙂

 

Anyway, let me run a sanity check here. Back when it fails. 🙂

[Greycat]

OK. So it's not "I can't create the windows," which is what I (and apparently others) kept interpreting what you were saying as, but that /command "chat2" etc. (whatever those commands might be) aren't working. You used to (say) be able to set up a macro to - I don't know, hide that third tearoff window or make it reappear - and now you can't?

[Shenanigunner]

Ohhhkayyyy. This is me, standing before you as evidence that you can get too old and senile to play (around with) this game.

 

To my credit, there was a change, in that some of the slash commands stopped working with the extra chat windows; I know that for certain because (1) my well-polished binds stopped working and (2) I am pretty sure I started a bug discussion of it at the time.

 

But all else... I lack an explanation except that the Devs clearly singled me out for the all-time greatest shen in City of Spandex history. Good one, guys.

 

Since my secondary window control went wonky (see above) I have screwed with commands and settings and stuff at intervals, never quite figuring out the obvious monkey-puzzle of simply detaching the trays. But I am fairly certain that I have rung the changes of show/windowhide/windowscale on my one "leftover" tray many times without it having effect. I don't know why; maybe my system had a glitch because I was hanging out in the wind when the change (see above) came along.

 

In any case, show and windowhide work just fine. Calling up and tearing off up to four windows works just fine. You are all no doubt surprised.

 

BUT — those loose windows can't be scaled separately any more, not with windowscale or via window file editing, which is a bug/break/change from around I25. The only way to scale them is the rather clumsy method of re-pinning them, scaling chat, unpinning them, then scaling chat back to whatever I wanted it to be. Note that editing the windows file does not effect any change on these windows, either. So some connecting rod or belt or cable has indeed fallen off back there in the machinery, and if it could get fixed, it would be nice. Although not critical/essential, obviously.

 

Wow. It's going to be tough to remember to duck through all my doorways for the rest of the evening so as not to knock off the well-earned dunce hat. (Despite the tiny crumb of validation.)

 

Oy.

 

Edited February 20 by Shenanigunner