Request for Variable Options in UI_Request Interface

jerrycnh

First of all, WHEW! It took a lot of work to be able to ask this question, and no small amount of it was the first step of figuring out why the heck the "New Discussion" button wasn't available to me. You guys really should consider a stickied topic to inform new members of the 50 point/30 post rule, because a lot of modders like myself aren't likely to wander to other categories to figure it out.

Anyway.

@SimGuruDrake and whoever else might know:

I'm working on child vampire manifestation, and I notice that even though I've successfully changed over the needs bars to a manifested vampire model, my children don't get the XP Bar. They still earn XP, of course, you just can't see it - and more importantly, you can't click on the button to spend it and gain powers.

Now I know from looking at the Aspiration trackers that it's possible for the XML to make a call to the UI to bring up different windows, like this:

<L n="ui_responses">
<U>
<T n="text">0x7E8E7CD3<!--Select New Aspiration--></T>
<E n="ui_request">SHOW_ASPIRATION_SELECTOR</E>
</U>
</L>

What I'm looking for specifically is what to put in place of "SHOW_ASPIRATION_SELECTOR" in order to bring up the Vampire Buck UI. I figure with that I can just make a toy or an altar that vamp kids can go to to bring up the UI that way.

Alternatively, of course I'd love to hear any insights you guys might have into bringing up the actual bar visually the way it is for other age categories. And I'd be very eager to see a complete list of valid variables that can go in that spot, just to suss out the possibilities for future mod/UI interactions.

Thanks in advance!

SimGuruEugi

<E n="ui_request">SHOW_OCCULT_POWERS_PANEL</E>

jerrycnh

Perfect, that's exactly what I needed.

Although of course, now that I go to implement it, I realize that in the context that it's being called from the Aspiration Tracker, it's putting that button in the Notification Window after an aspiration is completed.

I tried just adding that code to the Dark Meditation call to see if I could get the same notification to pop up after a vampire meditates, but it didn't work out for me. I suspect because the included m="aspirations.aspiration_tuning" is the framework where a call like that makes sense? Does that mean there's no ui_request function outside of that modular context?

Or put more simply, can you show me what the code would look like to trigger that popup as the result of a pie menu interaction?

SimGuruEugi

You can only trigger these UI responses from notifications.

You can show a notification as part of an interaction by using the "notification" tunable under "basic_extras."

jerrycnh

So something like this?

<L n="basic_extras">
  <U n="notification">
    <V n="text" t="single">
      <T n="single">0x(((My String Variable)))<!--Blah blah you can pick your powers while meditating!--></T>
    </V>
    <L n="ui_responses">
      <U>
        <T n="text">0x(((My String Variable)))<!--Select Vampire Powers--></T>
        <E n="ui_request">SHOW_OCCULT_POWERS_PANEL</E>
      </U>
    </L>   
</U>
</L>

SimGuruEugi

Yeah, pretty much.

jerrycnh

I'm missing something about the anatomy of an interaction tuning file, apparently. Using vampire_power_DarkMeditation as my host file, I've tried putting that code snippet in the following places:

1) At the back end of the file, right above the <T n="time_overhead"> call.
2) Inside the <V n="outcome" t="single"> tab, right after the loot list closes.
3) At the beginning, right under the attention_cost

No matter where I put it, the game just glosses right over it.

The TDesc doesn't really give me an idea of where the best practice is on putting something like that in, and I checked other interactions that I thought would be likely to contain it (IE Fridge_Cook) but didn't have any luck finding an example.

Can anyone think of an interaction that triggers a notification, in general? I thought maybe doing homework would but I can't seem to follow that rabbit hole down to the file that calls it.

jerrycnh

Bump.

Devs, please point me to an interaction tuning file that brings up a notification so that I can see it in action.

Neia

Take a look at collection_DigSite_Dig for example, it has notifications with SHOW_SIM_INVENTORY in the outcomes

ETA : You can use text editors like Notepad ++ to find strings inside the files.

DarkWalker

Neia wrote: »

ETA : You can use text editors like Notepad ++ to find strings inside the files.

If the extracted tunings have a XML extension you can use Windows Search itself, I believe it searches inside files since Windows 7 or so.

There are some caveats, though. I had to jump through some hoops due to using a ram disk for storing uncompressed tunings. But if you store them somewhere inside your downloads or documents folder and use a XML extension for them it's supposed to work out of the box.

Hemptrese

@SimGuruModSquad or anyone else who could offer some assistance... Is there a TDESCs download for v1.25.136.1020 that anyone could direct me to? If not is there a proper way to request one that anyone would be kind enough to inform me of? I apologize if I'm going about my request the wrong way but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. I apologize for commenting out of topic I just created my profile and couldn't figure out how to make my own thread.

DarkWalker

The TDESC doesn't change every patch. To the best of my knowledge 1.25 used the 1.24 TDESCs, which can be found at http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/903252/1-24-102-tdescs

BTW, you can only create your own threads when you progress to Member status on the forums. I believe it requires 30 posts and 50 points.

Triplis

@jerrycnh Did you ever figure out this UI thing?

If not, try checking out: S4_03B33DDF_00000000_095819EC8B11070A | sims.occult.occult_tracker

And the line:

<E n="min_age_for_occult_ui">TEEN</E>

Changing it alone to CHILD doesn't appear to accomplish anything, but along with the other changes you've made in your mod, it might do the trick.

jerrycnh

Hi Trip,

Sadly, I still haven't found the python files that call that part of the UI, but I did finally get the notification workaround up and running. My vamp kids can now spend their power points whenever they meditate.

Triplis

@jerrycnh Glad to hear you figured out a workaround at least.