Screen too cluttered, use game menu screen?

[Quaggan]

My gripe about some addons is that they use precious screen-estate to display their thing when their thing really does NOT need to be seen on screen all the time. For example, addons that display :
- Mount upgrade timer
- Research timer
- Fence/launder count
- Button to open whatever window an addon has
Really do not need to be seen on the screen all the time.

So my question is, is it possible for addons to display things only on the menu screen when pressing ESC?

[Werewolf Finds Dragon]

I actually made myself a little addon for this. I called it ClearView. I can't really share it because it's tied into what addons I personally use. But it cleverly handleds stuff like SmartBags, Srendarr, and so on to show only when I want them. Frankly, I like to shut everything but the compass, reticle, and target name (not health bar) off while out of combat for what might be called "immersion."

I don't like having lots of things on my screen that stop me from looking at the pretty things. Maybe anothercoder who has more time, inclination, and talent could take this idea and run with it, though. See, my ClearView also shows certain frames on entering/exiting combat, it also shows certain frames when entering/exiting UI.

SmartBags, for example, shows up on two conditionals.

- The inventory, bank, or a vendor frame is open.
- The bag is full.

What I'm thinking is that someone talented enough could turn this into something with a LibAddonMenu panel, perhaps where you could tie functions and events to showing or hiding windows. And then you could have another section for frames which are shown/hidden when a toggle key is used.

I'm sure some smart alec might point out that one could just hide the GUI. This is certainly true, yes. But ultimately it serves no purpose outside of screenshots as you lose your compass (very handy in almost all circumstances) and it hides all UI frames (like crafting, inventory, and so on). That's why I made my own version of hiding the UI with things that contextually show up as I want them.

It's essentially taking what ESO does by default and taking it a step further.

I happily give anyone who wants to take the notion of ClearView and run with it my consent. But if it is to be done properly, then it really needs to handle the following:

- This function (or this function called with these vars) hides a frame.
- This function (or this function called with these vars) shows a frame.
- This event (or this event called with these vars) hides a frame.
- This event (or this event called with these vars) shows a frame.
- A toggle key to toggle a list of frames provided by the user.

Then you have to make sure that nothing steps on the foot of anything else. Absolute, top-level control should be given to the toggle. The toggle overrides function/event considerations. However, the moment things are toggled hidden, event/function considerations come back into play.

I suppose it's easy to do, but I have a panic condition and... frankly, I don't want to deal with it. The attention the first mod I uploaded drew was enough to have me flee in terror. I wanted to share, not become the centre of attention. Hooray for being an autistic, neurotic introvert. Still, I'm sure someone could put this together for you, if you asked them nicely.

Edit: The more I think about it, though, considering the complexity of hooks and things... maybe it'd be better if a modular version was created with support for different addons. I don't know. I might do this. I might not. We'll see. I'm just very nervous about releasing addons. I may share what I have and let people have at it. It's a mess, though. What I create for my own work doesn't need to be pretty.

[Werewolf Finds Dragon]

I actually went ahead and threw a quick thing together. I'm nice like that. I'm not sure if I'll upload it as an actual addon, though. I may, but I'm hoping the community will be gentle with requests. Keep in mind that the code is atrocious, even though it works quite diligently at what it's supposed to do.

Anyway.

http://wikisend.com/download/249858/ClearView-001.7z

Things to keep in mind.

I have made plugins for the following:

* S'rendarr
* SmartBags
* MountFeedTimer
* ResearchTimer

(I hope I picked the right mods. I used the ones of the same name, MountFeedTimer and ResearchTimer respectively. I couldn't find any others.)

Those were all I had the time for right now. I'll look into the other tomorrow, it'll be a bit trickier as I don't PvP. Well, possibly. I just didn't feel up to doing more than two tonight. If it's what you're looking for, I'll just make the other plugins. If people like it, I'll upload it and make more plugins.

Like I said, I made this for me, I'm sharing because I want to help but I can get overwhelmed easy.

Edit: It'll still work if you don't have those mods, by the way. And I just updated it so that, hey, if you want you can delete the plugin files of the mods you don't have and even remove their relevant lines from the more clearly understood new plugins load file. I know some people like doing that.

http://www.wikisend.com/download/547...earView-002.7z

Edit 2:

I just had a 'poop' moment when I realised that I forgot to merge in some SmartBags stuff. To have it show/hide at inventory, bank, crafting, et cetera. This was because I pulled some stuff out of my originally much, much messier ClearView.lua to sort into plugin files. Whoops.

Not a seirous bug, it just wouldn't have shown up when those frames were open, as I intended.

http://www.wikisend.com/download/959...earView-004.7z

Let me know if you like this and you want me to work that last mod in.

Edit 3:

Forgot some checks on the imported SmartBags plugin code. Whoops. Stupid me. I really need to go to bed.

http://www.wikisend.com/download/876...earView-005.7z

But yes, that should be functional for all the things involved, now. Even if you don't have them. And you can delete the plugin files/lines as you want.

[Ayantir]

So my question is, is it possible for addons to display things only on the menu screen when pressing ESC?

Of course, there is a SCENE_MANAGER ingame wich tells you on which scene you're curretly on. It could be "hud" or "hudui" when nothing is displayed, or something else. Addons should look at this before displaying.

They're also plenty of functions to hide show, get scenes names, etc.

Garkin did a little tutorial on it's page http://www.esoui.com/portal.php?&id=27&pageid=12

[Werewolf Finds Dragon]

So I decided to upload ClearView.

What's changed?

• I fixed the code that would break on entering/leaving combat. It was vestigial from when ClearVieew was all one file rather than modular;
• It was such a horrible, awful mess that I decided to just rewrite it be less of a horrible awful mess;
• I've added the fence count addon;
• I stopped being a lazy buttface and made it properly modular, explained in the description;
• I completely rebuilt the way that the S'rendarr plugin works, I gave that addon a good look and decided that there was perhaps a better way to handle hiding/showing;
• Since I'm uploading it, I tested it with every addon it supports and I found no bugs.

Overall, it's now something I could almost be pleased with. Almost. Possibly. I don't know. Well, it's there and it exists.

Please forward any comments/suggestions to the commets on the page. Thanks.