[MOD] Info Center

[Forleyor]

Download Link (NexusMods): https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/268

Requirements
This mod requires 2 other mods:
- SirNukes Mod Support APIs: Link
- Kuertee's UI Extensions and HUD: Link

Optional Requirement, only needed for hotkey use
- SirNukes Python Pipe Server: Link

Description
Info Center is a mod with the intention of adding more info "at a glance".

It adds a new icon to the left side bar of the map menu with a larger area to display ship info.

X4 by default displays ship orders using a small icon on the "property owned" screen but not everyone knows what all of these icons do and it also doesnt tell you what the ship is doing in detail, an example would be a trade order which will display a small icon to display a bag or something similar.

With this mod you can see not only that the ship is trading but also where they are going. The same goes for docking, you can now see your ships destination, rather than having to go into further menus to see where they are going.

To install
Place Mod Support APIs, UI Extensions and HUD and infocenter mod folders in X4 Foundations\extensions folder, if you do not have an extensions folder in your X4 Foundations game directory, simply create one.

Optional Install for hotkey use
Place X4_Python_Pipe_Server.exe from SirNukes download page in the main x4 folder (where x4.exe is) and run X4_Python_Pipe_Server.exe before starting the game.


Big Thanks and credits for current version translations to
bobchocolat - French translation

Big Thanks and credits for previous version translations to
JinBein - Russian translation
Confusedman - German translation
pflip - Italian translation

Changelog
Under changelog dropdown

[Unclejack]

Nice! I hope morbideth will see it as well.

Will check it out, looks cool!

[verl1]

Hi,

thanks for your work! I think the informations provided will be very usefull.
I wanted to ask you a couple of things:
- do you intend to show subordinate ships from factories? 'Cause in my case the informations shown only concern fleet/unassigned ships. I think it would be very interesting to show those ships too.
- do you think it would be possible to create an additional column with for example a "grand total" of tradeships? So it would be possible to see wether a tradeship is succesfull or not.

Thanks again!

[Baldamundo]

You absolute legend. Hopefully this gets incorporated into the vanilla game eventually.

[Forleyor]

Hi,

thanks for your work! I think the informations provided will be very usefull.
I wanted to ask you a couple of things:
- do you intend to show subordinate ships from factories? 'Cause in my case the informations shown only concern fleet/unassigned ships. I think it would be very interesting to show those ships too.
- do you think it would be possible to create an additional column with for example a "grand total" of tradeships? So it would be possible to see wether a tradeship is succesfull or not.

Thanks again!

I am still hoping to add the other order descriptions and anything else that is suggested that would be cool to have.

- I have ignored stations so far but can add them, most likely without too much issue.
- I could have a look at the grand total idea, But I wont promise anything just yet

You absolute legend. Hopefully this gets incorporated into the vanilla game eventually.

Thanks!

[Baldamundo]

The button's not appearing for me. I'm guessing it's a mod incompatibility - probably this one: viewtopic.php?f=181&t=411980 ?

[Forleyor]

The button's not appearing for me. I'm guessing it's a mod incompatibility - probably this one: viewtopic.php?f=181&t=411980 ?

Hmm it looks like that mod only makes a change to createPropertyRow which this mod doesnt actually touch (It uses its own custom functions to create the menu)

Just to make sure all bases are covered:

Is G_Work_Around intalled and activated?
This mod as far as I know (as well as G_Work_Around) HAS to be installed in X4 Foundations\extensions, Dont think the "My Documents" extensions folder will work for these mods (kind of the downside of having compatibility between mods changing the same menu at this point)
This mod does list G_Work_Around version 0.20 as a dependancy - if it isnt found there will be a red Exclamation mark... ! ... in the main menu and in extensions list this mod will be in red text.

I could always add another version in a subst CAT/DAT but it will mean only this map menu mod can be installed that changes the map menu.

[morbideth]

Oh, hey, you finished it. Downloaded.

Why did you use order params instead of the command and commandactions?
GetComponentData( <command entity>, and one of "aicommand", "aicommandraw", "aicommandparam", "aicommandparam2", "aicommandaction", "aicommandactionparam") would have been much easier and more versatile. It seems like you are limiting the information you can display by doing that.

I could always add another version in a subst CAT/DAT but it will mean only this map menu mod can be installed that changes the map menu.

Only the t folder needs to be in the cat. You can look at my collect deployables mod for an example of the file structure.

[Forleyor]

Hey morbideth Glad you saw this

To be fair (and as you can probably imagine) looking through 16,000 lines kind of makes things go blurry lol, I didnt even see the options you mention

At this point I just wanted to get a first version released, to be able to get feedback etc, which is exactly what you have given me so good stuff.

Also about the info to display I tried to keep it short to a point as the real estate seems kind of precious

EDIT: Also note I started coding in lua and X4 pretty much when I saw the What the hell are you doing thread, so Im far from an experienced X:R/X4 modder at this point

[taintedxodus]

The button's not appearing for me. I'm guessing it's a mod incompatibility - probably this one: viewtopic.php?f=181&t=411980 ?

Hmm it looks like that mod only makes a change to createPropertyRow which this mod doesnt actually touch (It uses its own custom functions to create the menu)

Just to make sure all bases are covered:

Is G_Work_Around intalled and activated?
This mod as far as I know (as well as G_Work_Around) HAS to be installed in X4 Foundations\extensions, Dont think the "My Documents" extensions folder will work for these mods (kind of the downside of having compatibility between mods changing the same menu at this point)
This mod does list G_Work_Around version 0.20 as a dependancy - if it isnt found there will be a red Exclamation mark... ! ... in the main menu and in extensions list this mod will be in red text.

I could always add another version in a subst CAT/DAT but it will mean only this map menu mod can be installed that changes the map menu.

It's likley he is using more than one mod that depends on G_Work_Around. Just need to make sure the delays in each mods md/InfoCenter.xml and such is different.

[morbideth]

One more issue I noted,

The button's not appearing for me. I'm guessing it's a mod incompatibility - probably this one: viewtopic.php?f=181&t=411980 ?

@Forleyor you left out a break in the if menu.name == "MapMenu" then, which is causing your menu to take a long time to load, tieing up the _G work around script. changing your md script from using open menu to <signal_cue_instantly cue="md.G_Work_Around.Signal" param="'.\\extensions\\InfoCenter\\InfoCenter.lua'"/> may also help.

At this point I just wanted to get a first version released, to be able to get feedback etc, which is exactly what you have given me so good stuff.

EDIT: Also note I started coding in lua and X4 pretty much when I saw the What the hell are you doing thread, so Im far from an experienced X:R/X4 modder at this point

The thing about the command/command actions is they be anything (a string, a ship, a station, a ware, etc). It would allow mods to pass info to user in an easy way. Right now that is very hard to do.
There's 31 commands, 12 with params, and 18 commandactions, 5 with params. None of the commands use param2, aka GetComponentData( <command entity>, "aicommandparam2") What you could do is use the normal command param and then reserve param2 for modders to pass a string to display a custom message. Maybe as a future feature if you wish to support modders using this in that manner. As for the normal params, I would just write a single function that converts them to a string. i.e. GetComponentData with "name" or "uiname", or maybe GetComponentName would work better since it allows formatting. Possible throw in some IsComponentClass checks to keep invalid data from being passed.

[Forleyor]

@morbideth, Damn your right, I had the break in all through dev/testing I cleaned some stuff up before release it must have been removed by accident thanks for letting me know.

Totally makes sense on the other stuff, thanks

Also not sure if you noticed I sent you a PM if you have some free time I would really appreciate you checking it out?

EDIT: Just added both of those edits to the files on Nexus, Feel free to let me know if it helps/doesnt help etc

[taintedxodus]

Those edits fixed the issue.

[Confusedman]

@Forleyor: if you like, here is the german translation for this outstanding mod!

For some reason i cannot append the xml-file

Cheers,
Confusedman

german translation for version 1.0

Show

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<language>

<page id="9814072" title="Info Center" voice="no">
<t id="1">Info Center</t>
<t id="2">Modus: Schiffe</t> <!-- Plunder mode: 0 -->
<t id="3">Modus: Schiffe/Stationen</t> <!-- Plunder mode: 1 -->
<t id="4">Modus: Stationen</t> <!-- Plunder mode: 2 -->
<t id="2000">greift an: </t>
<t id="2001">dockt an: </t>
<t id="2002">dockt an und wartet: </t>
<t id="2003">kauft: </t>
<t id="2004">verkauft: </t>
<t id="2005">sucht nach Handelsmöglichkeiten...</t>
<t id="2006">eskortiert: </t>
<t id="2007">schützt Position: </t>
<t id="2008">erkundet: </t>
<t id="2009">dockt ab...</t>
<t id="2010">schützt Schiff: </t>
<t id="2011">Bergbau: versorgt Stationen</t>
<t id="2012">wartet: Andocken erlaubt: %s, Feuer einstellen: %s</t>
<t id="2013">flüchtet!</t>
<t id="2014">geht an Bord: </t>
<t id="2015">bewegt und wartet: </t>
<t id="2016">bewegt zu Objekt: </t>
<t id="2017">sammelt: </t>
<t id="2018">folgt: </t>
<t id="2019">sammelt [%s]: %s %s</t>
<t id="2020">sammelt [%s Radius]: %s</t>
<t id="2021">plündert [%s]: %s</t>
<t id="2022">schützt Station: </t>
<t id="2023">legt aufstellbares ab: %s</t>
<t id="2024">Bergbau: %s</t>
<t id="2025">wartet auf Signal...</t>
<t id="2026">ruft Untergebene zurück</t>
</page>
</language>

[snorrewb]

This is pretty nice, but it has a flaw which means I cannot use it
When I scroll down the list, it goes back to the top after a few seconds.

The list includes my stations without managers as entries at the top of the "Unassigned Ships" segment, is this intentional?

[DIox]

Great mod but I have the same issue as snorrewb, when I scroll down the list, it goes back to the top after a few seconds. Hope You will be able to fix it Great job anyway. This should be built in game from start

[Romz]

Great mod but I have the same issue as snorrewb, when I scroll down the list, it goes back to the top after a few seconds. Hope You will be able to fix it Great job anyway. This should be built in game from start

Same things.

[Forleyor]

Hey all, Just got home after having wisdom teeth removed.

The stations in unassigned shouldnt show up, I also need to look into the menu refreshing thing, now im back home Im free to look though

[verl1]

thanks buddy and get well soon.

[pzelazek]

@ Forleyor

Hey, really nice job and exactly this kind of MOD I'd go with preference, name it QOL (Quality OF Life) as oppose to any "cheating mods" which manipulates content by "balancing" "overpowering" "extending range" "making you rich" "uncovering satellites" "speeding up things" and so on. I personally hate this since it spoils all the fun out of the game and as such should be prohibited by international X-Series law I hope you all agree with that.

Now my note of the functionality - when you attempt to rescale UI (in game settings tab), the mod button on the map is dissappearing.
Tested it several times with 1.50 and 1.51beta, I believe it won't be any easy to fix it tho.

In general this is fantastic "proof of concept" which should be seriously considered by Egosoft to get implemented within standard UI

I gues everyone agree on that, so THANK YOU for showing / explaining / demonstrating this UI feature. Alternatively they would officially document UI code and lua classess/methods to make your work easier.

Thanks for this great job!

Peter