[New Plugin] SequenceBars

[Thurallor]

Hello,

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a new plugin called SequenceBars. It lets you make a sequence of skills, and moves them under your cursor so you can click them in order without moving the mouse. In action, it looks like this:




This might come in handy if you want to do a long sequence of skills or emotes, without having to remember it all. You can also export a sequence and e-mail it to your friends, to share your favorite skill rotations.

Another way this plugin can be useful is as a gear-swapper. So, for example, you can have one sequence for equipping your DPS items, and another sequence for equipping your tanking items. You can configure the bars to interact with each other: when one sequence finishes, you can make that bar close and another bar open. This is demonstrated in the following brief video:



I will be uploading the first official release of this new plugin shortly on lotrointerface. I will post a follow-up here when the plugin is available for download.

Best regards,
Thurallor

[Thurallor]

Well, here it is: http://www.lotrointerface.com/downlo...nfo.php?id=896

[Thurallor]

I made a longer video to explain how to configure SequenceBars for gear-swapping. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCZrBZGRh5A

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

This looks and sounds like a fantastic plugin and replacement for Build Swapper.

I used to use Build Swapper but then I found out it caused lots of client crash to desktop problems. Sadly, I had to stop using it. It was PERFECT for my guardian being able to swap between DPS and Tanking gear easily but whenever I'd try to /plugins unload or exit the client (which forces a plugin unload) the client would just crash to desktop.

Everything I've seen in the video here appears to give all the same functionality but in a better interface and hopefully it won't crash on me.

Will try it out tonight! Thanks so much for creating it.

Edit: Oh.. you put a comment on the LOTROInterface site that explains about the bug that affects this and also Build Swapper. I'll be switching to this when Update 15 goes live. Wish I could do it now, though!

Another caveat: There is a bug in LOTRO that might be manifested if you use this plugin before Update 15. (The bug is already fixed on Bullroarer, and it will be fixed on the production servers in Update 15.) Basically, if you use the automatic gear-removing feature of this plugin, then if you later unload the plugin, then the game may crash. Just be aware of that and don't unload the plugin until you're ready to logout.

[Thurallor]

I used to use Build Swapper but then I found out it caused lots of client crash to desktop problems. Sadly, I had to stop using it. It was PERFECT for my guardian being able to swap between DPS and Tanking gear easily but whenever I'd try to /plugins unload or exit the client (which forces a plugin unload) the client would just crash to desktop.

That's actually a bug in the LOTRO client, not the Build Swapper plugin. And it's still there as of today, but it will be fixed in Update 15. It's already fixed on Bullroarer (thanks, Ransroth!).

But, if you use SequenceBars before Update 15, then the client may crash when you unload the plugin. So you have to be sure not to unload the plugin until you're ready to logout.

I hope you like it!

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Oh, bah you already responded while I was editing. Hehe.

Anyhow, thank you for the plugin! I think I will just leave out the gear removing stuff in the sequences that I build until the Update hits.

You have built a lot of flexible functionality in here that I love. Good job! I'm laughing at your empty bags and shop-bought gear that you are using for the example video. My bags are always full and I have like 4-5 sets of armor, 4 sets of jewelery, 3 sets of LIs, etc..etc.. I live for plugins like this.

One question, how does it handle lag with the gear swapping? Sometimes you can click faster than the client/server lets you equip the gear.

[Thurallor]

You have built a lot of flexible functionality in here that I love. Good job!

Thanks

I'm laughing at your empty bags and shop-bought gear that you are using for the example video. My bags are always full and I have like 4-5 sets of armor, 4 sets of jewelery, 3 sets of LIs, etc..etc.. I live for plugins like this.

Yeah, my gear isn't the greatest. I'm lucky to have one good set that is a reasonable compromise of stats.

One question, how does it handle lag with the gear swapping? Sometimes you can click faster than the client/server lets you equip the gear.

That is a very good question. I haven't seen that before. One possible remedy would be to make each bar at least two slots in size, so the previously clicked icon will still be visible if the item didn't equip due to lag.

Ideally, if the equip failed, the same icon should be presented to you again immediately, so you can try again. I'll think about it and see if there is an elegant way to incorporate this functionality.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Yeah, my gear isn't the greatest. I'm lucky to have one good set that is a reasonable compromise of stats.

Oh, I didn't mean to make it sound that way. I just meant that it must be nice to have such an empty bag. Mine is full all the time because I'm such a packrat.

I do wish that Turbine hadn't done so much game breaking/ruining around Helm's Deep. I used to love being able to switch from DPS to Tanking mode mid-battle. I loved swapping out gear on my hunter as well. Sigh...

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

OK I tested it a tiny bit last night so here's some input:

1) Text fields accept carriage returns as part of the text input rather than completing the field. So you can make names with "Open DPS Bar<cr><cr><cr><cr>" etc.. This makes event thingies show up with the name plus a lot of blank lines in the drop down menu to select it.

2) In the sequence creation window where you have all the numbered slots you can cause some visual errors by expanding/dragging the window horizontally to make it wider (and add more numbers) and then shrink it. The number 12 box will end up with a 13 overlaid on it.

3) It would be nice to be able to drag around every square type in the sequence config window. I can't drag a Special Event item for example.

4) It would be nice to be able to get a tooltip when you hover over items in the sequence order window. That way you can tell if you have the right item in there or not.

5) I think this really needs an "Options" menu item when you right click on a sequence bar so you don't have to open the options window from the plugin manager after multiple clicks and scrolling. Buffbars is a plugin that offers this feature I believe.

That's it for now. Works great! I will try to think of some other things as I use it more. I think it may need some more polish in the user friendliness since without your video it would be really hard to figure out the whole hiding/showing thing. Watching the video let me set it up quickly, though.

Thank you again for this wonderful plugin. I can't wait until we get the bugfix to allow for stable unequipping of items.

[Thurallor]

Thanks so much for testing it and giving feedback. I'll look into the problems you reported.

I'm always open to suggestions for how to increase user-friendliness. One obvious possibility would be to move most of the stuff out of the right-click menus and put them into a settings window. But frankly the reason I put everything in the right-click menus was because it's a lot easier. Laying out dialogs and making them beautiful and easy to use is a labor of love, that some people find quite tedious. For me, it's a matter of priorities: I have only limited free time to devote to this plugin, and I have three million ideas for new features.

I do recognize the documentation deficit, though. I plan to improve and supplement it over time with a how-to guide, a tutorial video, or maybe a configuration wizard.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

I appreciate the effort and don't expect anything else. It functions and I understand people only have certain amounts of time to dedicate to their "fun" pet projects.

If there's one thing you could do out of all that I listed just doing the Options thing it will be a big help. All I'm talking about is being able to access the Options by right clicking on the name rather than having to dig through the carat menu to get to the Plugins Manager and then scroll alllll the way down my plugin list (Yeah, I have a TON installed) to get to SequenceBars.

Or even just add a command line option like /sb options to open it up or something. Both would be very useful.

[Thurallor]

I just uploaded a new version (1.03) that addresses your issues 1, 2, and 5.

I do plan to implement drag-and-drop in the sequence editor, but it's kind of tricky because the user may decide to drag an item from one sequence editor to another, and I need to handle that properly.

As for tooltips, that's also on my roadmap. But for now, you can simply left-click on any item in the sequence editor to find out what it is.

[CroKat]

Apart from that unequip slot crashing the game, I love it. Absolutely beautiful and very useful for swapping gear. I could finally get rid of some extra bars and make my screen less cluttered.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

I just uploaded a new version (1.03) that addresses your issues 1, 2, and 5.

I do plan to implement drag-and-drop in the sequence editor, but it's kind of tricky because the user may decide to drag an item from one sequence editor to another, and I need to handle that properly.

As for tooltips, that's also on my roadmap. But for now, you can simply left-click on any item in the sequence editor to find out what it is.

Nice! Thanks for the speedy changes.

[Thurallor]

Apart from that unequip slot crashing the game, I love it. Absolutely beautiful and very useful for swapping gear. I could finally get rid of some extra bars and make my screen less cluttered.

I'm glad you like it. I have tried to make it beautiful so people won't mind having it on their screen all the time.


Version 1.04 release notes

New features:

• For special slots, you can now specify "automatic activation". This will cause the action to be executed immediately after the previous slot, without waiting for you to click on it. This is useful if you have a bunch of "remove equipment" slots in a row: You can now execute all of them with a single click. [Limitation: Automatic activation is not available for standard item/skill quickslots (because Turbine intentionally prevents this) or for slot 1, because you have to click to start the sequence.]
• There is a new special slot command: "Set Unequip Destination". This allows you to specify where in your bags you would like the equipment to go when it is removed. So you can keep your bags organized, rather than always placing unequipped items in the first available bag slot. [Note: To make use of this feature, you need to delete and recreate all of your "Remove equipment" slots. The existing ones will not pay any attention to your desired destination bag slot.] [Note: If you have more than two gear sets to swap among, then you will want to put this command at the end of your sequences, not at the beginning. The reason is obvious if you think about it. ]
• You can now select any bar size from 1 slot to the maximum number of slots that will fit on the screen.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a problem that required clicking twice on an icon after it moves under the cursor, when animation is set to something slower than "instantaneous".
• Fixed a problem that made the cursor not animate properly.
• Added more error checking during import operations.

Other changes:

• For "Remove Equipment" slots, you now specify the equipment slot type on the slot properties panel.
• Added localization for chat window messages.
• Resized bars will now move automatically if their captions are pushed off the screen.

Feedback is appreciated.

[Thurallor]

Version 1.05 release notes

New features:

• Drag-and-drop operations are now supported in the sequence editor window. You can:
  
  • drag an icon to move it within the sequence; or
  • drag an icon to another sequence editor window.

However, you still can't drag icons from SequenceBars to elsewhere (such as your inventory bags or quickslot bars), and you probably won't ever be able to do this, due to Lua API limitations. For the same reason, showing tooltips while hovering over icons in the sequence editor window probably won't happen, either.

• In the sequence editor window, you can now overlay each quickslot with an arbitrary caption ("text overlay").
• In the right-click menu in the sequence editor window, you can now create emotes or other chat commands, and assign your choice of icon and text overlay to them.
• In the right-click menu in the sequence editor window, you can now clone a quickslot.
• For any given group, you can now specify whether the bars should be shown or hidden at startup. This is accessible in the "Event Behaviours" submenu of the group's right-click menu.
• There is now a shell command ("/sb"). It allows you to open the options panel, generate user events, or display a list of the user events you have created.

Bug fixes:

• The "remove left ring" and "remove right ring" special slots were in fact removing the right and left ring, respectively. This is now fixed (thanks DToX).
• Addressed some weirdness with the "Empty Trash" feature.

Other changes:

• When you create a new bar, you will now get a different random color each time.

Feedback is appreciated.

[Thurallor]

Version 1.06 release notes

New features:

• Event behaviors can now be assigned to individual bars -- not just groups.
• There is a new event behavior: "Move bar to mouse cursor". This causes the bar to be moved underneath your mouse cursor, wherever it happens to be on the screen. (You can create a shortcut in one of your standard quickslot bars to generate the user event. Then use the hotkey for that slot to move the bar under your mouse cursor.)

Bug fixes:

• In the previous release, I inadvertently broke something: If you had "Silver Frame 2" selected for the cursor style of any bar, an error message was displayed. This is fixed now.
• In the previous release, disabling event behaviors had no effect. This is fixed now.

Feedback is appreciated.

[Thurallor]

Version 1.11 release notes

New features:

• All of your bars will now be hidden when you hide the heads-up display (F12).

Bug fixes:

• Interior scrollbars in some dialogs were apparently causing client crashes, so I have removed them.
• In previous releases, if you had two overlapping bars, parts of the bar underneath would overlap the bar above. Bars will now be brought to the front when you click on them, and fully overlap any bars that are behind them.
• In the bar right-click menu, some of the submenus could be so large they would extend off the screen. This is now fixed.

Other changes:

• In previous releases, bars were always displayed in front of everything else, including all UI elements and even the map. I have moved them to the same logical layer as the UI elements now. The map will display in front of them.
• Code reorganization to prepare for planned future features.

Feedback is appreciated.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Woohoo for the F12 fix!

Thanks for the updating. I know it's hard to keep the energy flowing at keeping your plugin up to date. Just want say I appreciate your efforts.

[farmhand99]

Thanks for the update and I appreciate all the hard work you have put into this.

[Thurallor]

You're welcome. But it's not really hard work if it's fun.

I've just uploaded a new version (1.12) that fixes a minor bug I introduced in 1.11: When you tried to drag an icon in the sequence editor it would disappear. The drag/drop operation still worked, but it was confusing and annoying.

I'm working on a major revision (2.00) that I hope to release either this weekend or next. The major change will be the ability to use conditionals (if-then-else) in a sequence. So you could decide which item or skill to use based on your morale, etc. Not sure how useful or practical it will be, but I can guarantee that it will be neat.

[Thurallor]

Version 2.00 release notes

New features:

• Sequences can now include conditional branches ("if .. then .. else .."). So you can decide which skill or item to use based on various conditions, including: player morale, target morale, player effects (such as wound or poison), target effects, whether a particular skill is ready (i.e. finished cooling down), whether the player is in bear form (Beornings only), and more. I will add more conditions upon request. (Note: For efficiency, conditions are only evaluated when you click on a slot or reset a bar.)
• You can now include the sequence from one bar into the sequence of another bar. This allows you to create basic building-block sequences, and then combine them together to create complete skill rotations.
• Any slot specified as "automatic" in the sequence editor will now be invisible by default in the bar. (You can make them visible with the "Hide automatic slots" option in the bar settings menu.)
• In previous versions, the first slot in a sequence could not be automatic. I have removed that restriction, so you can make the first slot of a sequence automatic. In that case, the slot will be executed automatically at startup and any time the bar is reset.
• You can now scale everything down to 40% or up to 300% of its normal size. (This option is available under the "Global Settings" tab of the options panel.)
• You can now make everything transparent, specifying an opacity anywhere from 0% to 100%. (This option is available under the "Global Settings" tab of the options panel.)

Bug fixes:

• In the previous version, the "Move bar under mouse when user event occurs" feature was broken. This is now fixed.

Other changes:

• There is a new option in the bar settings menu, "Hide inactive branches", which determines whether conditional slots will be displayed if their corresponding "if" or "else" condition is not satisfied. By default, inactive branches will be hidden.

Feedback is appreciated.

[danielbrown1969]

"There is a new special slot command: "Set Unequip Destination". This allows you to specify where in your bags you would like the equipment to go when it is removed. So you can keep your bags organized, rather than always placing unequipped items in the first available bag slot."

No more than a week ago I was just asking on these forums for a plugin that does this exact same thing. As a guardian and normally playing with a 2H weapon, there are times when I need to swap to a 1H w/shield and I HATE when I switch back and my shield gets placed in the uppermost-leftmost slot in my bags. This is perfect! Thank-you.

[Thurallor]

This is perfect! Thank-you.

You're welcome, glad you are using it!


Version 2.01 is now posted at lotrointerface.

Version 2.01 release notes

New features:

• The directory of bars and groups is now alphabetized.

Bug fixes:

• In the previous version, the snap-to-grid feature didn't work correctly with nested groups. This is now fixed.
• In the previous version, when editing an "Include other sequence" slot in the sequence editor, the "Other sequence" pulldown menu wasn't working correctly. This is now fixed.

Other changes:

• Updated Russian translations. Thanks DToX!

Feedback is appreciated.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

I'm trying to get the unequip location to work correctly in my bags and it just doesn't seem to want to work right.

Any chance you could explain a bit more about it?

Basically, there's 4 items I unequip in my DPS sequence and then 3 I unequip in my tank sequence.

DPS: Unequip shield (I want it to go in a certain spot), Unequip Right Earring, Right Bracelet, Right Ring
Tank: Unequip Right Earring, Right Bracelet, Right Ring

No matter what it seems the shield always ends up in slot 1.

Can I do multiple equip slot locations?
You mentioned having to put unequip location at the end of a sequence. Why? And is that for everything that you unequip in that sequence?

I'd like each item I unequip to go to a specific slot for itself.