Need help with Dashboard Skins

[Coasty]

With the recent updates to nUI+, including v5.07.24, a problem has arisen for me. I don't know if it's a bug or a planned change which is why I'm posting here.

For quite some time I've been using the nUI_Transparent Console dashboard skin. I use it because it removed the top-of-screen nUI background graphic (the sort of upside down wide squashed T) and the art work around the action and pet bars. I especially liked the upper screen background graphic being removed as I like the Player/Target and Blizzard Bar elements placed down on top of the console. So, basically I much prefer a dashboard skin that is completely minimalist AND without distracting (not to mention some times down right ugly) art work in the console background. Not to mention it's annoying to continuously look at a large unused background graphic.

The problem is that the Transparent Console replacement skin quit working correctly two days ago as the top-of-the-screen default nUI background graphic is once again always displayed. But, being a glass half full kind of guy, at least the art work graphics replaced by the skin in the console at screen bottom are still hidden. Also, there are no LUA errors generated for this problem.

I've removed and re-installed nUI, removed all nUI related /WTF files, none of which has made a difference. I looked at the TOC/LUA files of those replacement skins that were updated this month, but if there's any changes I can't see them, so I have no idea of what was actually updated.

Subsequently, after going through the nUI: Art downloads I found that ALL the skins that removed the upper background nUI graphic no longer do so for me. Unfortunately, all of the skins that were updated this month also make use of the default nUI upper screen background graphic, so even if they were to work correctly, I still wouldn't be using them .

So, this leads to a couple of questions.

Is this happening because something changed that requires an update to the replacement skin TOC/LUA files?

Did something change that requires a modification to the relevant replacement graphic file?

Is this a problem specific to just my system?

Or is this just a bug that crept into the woodwork?

In any event, suggestions are welcome as to how I can fix the problem. I'm completely stymied as nothing I can think of to try and fix things has worked.

Oh, out of curiosity, what is the actual graphics format used by the dashboard files? I'd like to look at some of them and see how they're put together.

[spiel2001]

/nui console off
/nui console mouseover

Either one should do the trick for you.

Nothing has changed that would prevent it from working that I know of.

As for the graphic format, it is a proprietary Blizz format (or at least a non-standard format). I create all of my graphics in PNG and then convert them to BLP

[Coasty]

I gotta write down those command line strings and print myself a handy cheat sheet, I keep forgetting about the darn things.

As for the non-standard BLP format Blizz uses for its pix, is there a BLP format file viewer available somewhere so one can look at them directly?

[Chmee]

There's a wikipedia article on the blp format that links to at least one viewer.

[Vis]

Originally Posted by Coasty I gotta write down those command line strings and print myself a handy cheat sheet, I keep forgetting about the darn things.

There's a thread dedicated to the slash commands that you can print from the FAQ Forum. It should have everything

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Chmee There's a wikipedia article on the blp format that links to at least one viewer.

There's a nifty little BLP/PNG file converter written in Java you can grab... you just drag and drop your image files onto it and it converts them between formats for you. I think it's just called "PNG to BLP" or something... should be easy enough to Google.

Then you just work in PNG as you normally would and convert to BLP for testing.

[Coasty]

Nifty... Thanks...

[Coasty]

I've discovered some additional woes with nUI+ 5.07.24 replacement skins that turn off the top bar background graphic and move the micro-mini menu bar elsewhere on the screen. If I haven't mentioned it before this problem began immediately after patch 4.3.

The main problem is with the /nui console command. Namely that, yes, "/nui console off" does turn off the top bar background graphic, which is what I want to happen. Unfortunately it also turns off the micro-mini menu bar, which is what I do NOT want to happen.

In addition, there seems to be an interaction between nUI and other addons that is also having an effect. Definitely, for sure, there's an interaction of some sort between nUI and Carbonite. It also looks like there's interaction with some other addons but, with 60 of them installed, other than Carbonite I haven't yet been able to identify which one(s). What I accidentally found though is that by going back to some backups of the /WTF directory that I could get the replacement skin to display correctly. I only noticed this when I uninstalled an addon through the Curse client and used it's tool to remove left-over addon config LUA files from the /WTF directory, which immediately resulted in the nUI replacement skin not working correctly. Seeing this I didn't re-install that addon, but just put its LUA files back into the /WTF directory and, voila, the nUI replacement skin again worked like it should. Very weird!!! Unfortunately, so far anyway, there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind this that I can find. One day things work right, the next day they don't. Some days, all 3 of my toons have the same problem of the replacement skin not working right, other days it's just one of my toons with the problem. Unfortunately, what's making it very tough to figure out which addons might be contributing to the problem is that it's intermittent as hell. Again, very weird!!!

The way things are now, if I use the "/nui console off" command then the top bar background graphic never displays, no matter what I do with other addons or whatever changes occur in the /WTF directory. Unfortunately that solution is _far_ from ideal as it also leaves the micro-mini bar turned off, something which I use a lot. So if I want to use the micro-mini bar I never know from one day to the next if I'm gong to end up looking at that annoying empty top bar background graphic!!

One suggestion is that you might want to consider adding a 'bg' switch to the "/nui console on/off/mouseover" command that allows you to turn on/off _just_ the top bar background graphic while leaving the micro-mini bar turned on. It's probably the easiest fix, and one that would probably (well, hopefully anyway) remove any need for a bunch of PITA troubleshooting.

Again, all of this weirdness started happening after patch 4.3. Blizz, for sure, did something in the patch, probably undocumented, that's screwing things up for me.

What ever the case, I definitely could use some help!!!

[spiel2001]

I'll add it to my list of things to look into... though I have little/no control over how those art plugins are coded, of course. That said, it may be something I can address on my side.

The '/nui console mouseover' solution might be a decent middle ground until it's fixed?

[Coasty]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 The '/nui console mouseover' solution might be a decent middle ground until it's fixed?

Sigh... It figures.... Yeah, the mouseover solution works, sort of anyway, saying I had the reflexes of Superman... I'm 66, so that ain't happening!!!

I have the micro-mini bar located on top of the lower console on the middle right side. With the mouseover solution active I have to move the mouse up to the screen top to activate it, which turns the micro-mini bar on. But, the mouseover switch solution is predicated on the micro-mini bar also being located at the same location as the top console background graphic, if it isn't it turns itself off before I can get the mouse down to its changed location and make a menu selection. Not very useful in other words.

All of which is understandable as when you wrote it I rather doubt you'd envisioned mod authors of background skins changing the default operation of the top console.

Oh well... I'd say this pretty much falls under the category of "Suck it up Paul, quit whining, and live with it until you get a chance to fix it"...

[spiel2001]

Yeah... daggumit!

Quitchurbitchin.

~lol~

(I'll get it squared away if I can)