im adding the code to enforce character ordering, so your pods are always in the same order. I've got it working fine but I want to fine tune the behavior for undeclared characters.

Naturally, if you set your order in the INI to "Maudigan Grumble" and then login with Maudigan, Grumble, Arcanis, then maud and grumble come first and Arcanis comes last since his order wasn't specified. Here is my confusion as to the most desirable behavior. Once you log Arcanis into netbots, and a pod gets displayed for him, should his name automatically be added to the INI in his current position; "Maudigan Grumble Arcanis". In that way he would always appear where he appeared the first time... Which would be nice, but people who play 50 different characters on various servers would have a ridiculous setting in their INI... I could maybe add a toggle to swap the method, but which should be the default (most people will just use the default and not explore).

I'd think that could cause problems (or a non-intuitive workaround).

Today you log in Maudigan, Grumble and Arcanis. Arcanis becomes #3. Tomorrow you log in Maudigan, Grumble and Ugin. Does Ugin become a second #3, a new #4, or ignored by the ini? The day after, you log in Maudigan, Grumble and Legggollaz. Same question. At some point in the (possibly distant) future, you log in Leggollaz, Ugin and Arcanis. What's the order?

IMO, I think it's better to let the player decide on any custom order by editing the ini or by issuing a "save this pod order to ini" command. The default order - first come first served - is used unless the player makes an explicit change.

That's probably a good idea

My opinion: XLNT!
Yup, would love to see the ability to order them in the way I order my characters. It would make things more consistent.
If it could just go by something as simple adding to the .ini something like 1(name)..2(name)..3(name)..4(name).. etc.. that would be fine. Then the system would load that order every time.
However, if you added something to the /pod command to allow an order based on something like:
/pods order Suicide, Stream, Blitz, Methuselah, Livn, Siobahn
and it would then pop in that order.. well, that would just be about the finest thing ever! Oh, but don't write this one to the .ini as it would be considered a temporary order.

Anyway, looking forward to what you come up with..
Cheers M!
Thanks man!

OK, third edit.
Perhaps with the /pod command you could add something along the lines of
/pod order name1 name2... (which wouldn't save to the .ini)
/pod ordersave name1 name2... (which DOES save to the .ini)

R

What resolution do you play in? Do you find the controls are too small?

I'm on a retina display and they're downright microscopic for me now days. I'm redesigning the stupid little move button too. How tiny it is for me made me take an honest look at it and it's kind of silly how it looks and functions. I have to put my face against the screen to see it.

I almost forgot, I've been thinking about this ordering thing too. Here is the soft-plan. Consider 5 characters, A, B, C, D and E. The Ini has an "Order" setting. It starts like this:

Order=

Then you log in A, C, and D in that order. As they enter the game it automatically writes to the ini in that order, and displays them in that order.

Order=A C D

No need to save. The next time you log them in they will be in that order. New toons would be added to the end automatically. So, you log in toons in the order of: D C E A B. Since you previously had A C D order, they maintain that order and E and B get added to the end in the order they joined.

Order=A C D E B

The user never needs to trigger a save or add characters. Then a command is added to move them, something like /pods moveup C E would move both of those guys up by 1 in the order provided, resulting in an on-screen and ini of:

Order=C A E D B

With that command in place two buttons could be added to the pods that execute the command. Meaning If "A" was in the second slot, you just click the up arrow on his pod and he moves up to the first slot. You'd never have to type anything or save anything.

In short, you'd never see the characters ever change order unless you made them change order.

The downside is, if you play 50 characters and have a bunch of random bank characters or spawn watchers you'd quickly end up with:

Order=A E F H R M U G X S O P U F B N M T R Y H M K O L I U R E F V D G E G B J K M U T R E F V N M L O U I P O L K M N H G R T H

I'm thinking that wouldn't be a big deal since the nature of the commands would mean you wouldn't be manually editing the INI anyway. Some things to mitigate, it would only be happening for characters who have Send on NetBots enabled. There would also be a toggle to turn the AutoOrdering off and on. It might also help to have the setting be server specific

Order.PEQ=A B C
Order.StormHaven=B C D

How does that sound, specifically for you, and in general as well. I've been tossing around the idea of making the pods dragable too, but that may be a bit complicated.

I play in 1920 x 1080 and the move button is fine for me.

The description you list in the second post sounds great. For me, it wouldn't make any difference if the ini had an option for server as I have separate EQ installations for the servers that I play on since they typically have different spells files, etc.

I was reading through some other posts here on the subject and someone had asked about how to make it show if a character had fallen behind. Would it be possible to add in something that would allow you to designate a leader and then when in /netfollow mode, maybe blink the entire pod if the character had fallen behind by a user definable distance? I think something like that would be exceptionally useful as it happens often enough to be a problem (at least for me :-) Just a thought..
Keep up the good work..
Thx
R

That's already possible. OK, maybe blinking the entire pod isn't possible but you can certainly change the color or text of a button. MQ2EmuCharacters in HIGHLY customizable. The very same button you click to initiate Netfollow can change colors based on distance or status. Look in the documentation for the Caption Color section. It gives an example based on sit/stand status but it can be tweaked and layered to signify distance and/or netfollow status.

Ya, I was thinking along the lines of something like blinking the background from Black to Red or something.. something overt so it doesn't get missed.

I already had set up the original to show invis status by changing the color of the button.. Maudigan changed it to change the color of the characters name which is way cool.

I've made macros to alert me if one of the team members falls behind and it works nicely. Just think that implemented here would be even better.
Thanks

You can change Pod color and maybe Pod size as easily as button color. A little creativity and you can toggle color and size at regular intervals (blink!).

That's a good idea and shouldn't bee too hard to implement. I'm adding a blink feature now. The way it'll work is just a TLO property that swaps from TRUE to FALSE on a regular interval. So you could do something like ${If[${Pods.Blinker},255 255 255 255,255 255 0 0]} as the Pod.Color and it would blink.

EDIT: It's in there, seems to work good. It'll be a bit longer though. I keep coming up with other things to add :)

So, I'm nearing completion. I've changed/added about 2,000 lines of code. It'll still be the same tool at its core but it'll have many more features. I'm testing all the new features individually, but I'm thinking some real world play testing would be good. If anyone wants the beta copy shoot me your email and what client you play on. You don't need to be a member; I'll add time.

I'd be happy to give it a look. Sounds great!
R

Sorry I haven't given any feedback yet. Other than being unusually busy, my gaming monitor took a dump the other night so I haven't really been able to do much with it. I ordered a new one and the caps to fix the old one. The new monitor is supposed to be here today, so... perhaps this weekend I will get a chance to play with it.
Cheers
R

No rush, I'm still finding more things to add