General Chat

[TSquared]

Originally Posted by EKE my friend did a little change on wow.exe let addons enable, googledrive here : <snip> if not proper, just delete link. <snip>

The reason addons are disabled is to allow Blizzard to receive feedback on the base UI. Also, this early in the process many addons can break or cause the game to crash. This sends "false positives" to Blizz and causes unneeded work.
There will be a time for addon authors to fix their addons, and for players to run with them.

[MunkDev]

Originally Posted by semlar Most intriguingly, each nameplate has a unit ID associated with it ("nameplate1 -> nameplate30"), which allows us to get information directly from a particular unit associated with a given nameplate. This means accurate aura displays, but it also opens up powerful possibilities that weren't previously practical.

Will nameplates behave like unit frames? If so, they would presumably be protected, right?

[Lombra]

Originally Posted by MunkDev Will nameplates behave like unit frames? If so, they would presumably be protected, right?

How do you mean? They are already protected, no?

[MunkDev]

Originally Posted by Lombra How do you mean? They are already protected, no?

They are? I've never actually messed with them beyond just checking whether they're clickable, which to my knowledge they're not. If the nameplates are protected AND have unit IDs, they can be accessed securely in combat, which would allow me to expand this position-based behaviour to nameplates:

[semlar]

They're currently secure frames, but the actual part that you click on to select a unit is the WorldFrame itself.

You click "through" the nameplate frame to interact with something.

I'm not sure how your example would be much different from tab targeting, but you could probably write something that cycles through nameplates if you didn't care what order it did it in.

[MunkDev]

Originally Posted by semlar They're currently secure frames, but the actual part that you click on to select a unit is the WorldFrame itself. You click "through" the nameplate frame to interact with something. I'm not sure how your example would be much different from tab targeting, but you could probably write something that cycles through nameplates if you didn't care what order it did it in.

Yes, I know they're not actually clicked, but let's just say that you could do :GetAttribute("unit") on a nameplate in Legion (or something to that effect to extract the unit ID). That could be used securely, which is great news for me. Assuming, of course, that nameplate IDs can be used to target something.

My example is not cycling through targets. It's sending directional information to the secure environment using a wrapped preclick snippet. By gathering all the unit frames drawn on screen and where they are drawn in a secure table, I can iterate over that data to determine the next unit frame to jump to. The action button that was clicked gets that unit frame's unit ID assigned to it and then targets that unit in the onclick script.

If nameplates behave similarly to unit frames, are secure AND have IDs, this means I could accurately "tab" to a target with, for example, the arrow keys on the keyboard. Jumping from one nameplate/target to the next would only require me to press the arrow key that's pointing in that general direction. If the nameplate is nameplate3 or nameplate22 doesn't really matter, since it's all based on their on-screen position. Probably pretty useless in most cases, but could be useful for controller gameplay since tab targeting is somewhat unreliable.

Another good use of this system (if it works according to this hypothesis) would be to create a grid of custom nameplates (if that's even possible), sort of like raid frames but for nameplates. Could potentially simplify targeting specific mobs in a large pack instead of trying to single out that mob with the mouse cursor. You know, if they aren't forcibly following the target's head.

[Lombra]

Originally Posted by MunkDev Yes, I know they're not actually clicked, but let's just say that you could do :GetAttribute("unit") on a nameplate in Legion (or something to that effect to extract the unit ID). That could be used securely, which is great news for me. Assuming, of course, that nameplate IDs can be used to target something.

I should think you'd be able to extract the unit ID somehow, if they're actually going to be associated with those, like someone mentioned.

Originally Posted by MunkDev Another good use of this system (if it works according to this hypothesis) would be to create a grid of custom nameplates (if that's even possible), sort of like raid frames but for nameplates. Could potentially simplify targeting specific mobs in a large pack instead of trying to single out that mob with the mouse cursor. You know, if they aren't forcibly following the target's head.

Depends on how it will work I guess. You may still have the issue of units moving around in the raid frames if they disappear from screen.

[MunkDev]

Originally Posted by Lombra Depends on how it will work I guess. You may still have the issue of units moving around in the raid frames if they disappear from screen.

Might turn into a game of whack-a-mole, I suppose. But if the frames are secure anyway, shouldn't it be possible to rearrange the unit IDs according to nameplate visibility?

Not sure if this is at all a good idea, it's just a previously unseen possibility that could be explored. Maybe an addon that lets you hold tab and a wheel of nameplate targets pops up, sort of like OPie?

[semlar]

You have no way to identify which nameplate is your current target except temporarily after you select one using its unitID. If the nameplate is recycled or you acquire a target some other way, you won't be able to start any new selections based on the location of the current target's nameplate.

You won't be able to just push "right" and select the next nameplate to the right of your target once the script loses track of which one is your target, so new selections will have to start from an arbitrary point like the center of the screen.

[MunkDev]

Originally Posted by semlar You have no way to identify which nameplate is your current target except temporarily after you select one using its unitID. If the nameplate is recycled or you acquire a target some other way, you won't be able to start any new selections based on the location of the current target's nameplate. You won't be able to just push "right" and select the next nameplate to the right of your target once the script loses track of which one is your target, so new selections will have to start from an arbitrary point like the center of the screen.

Yes, you're right, assuming that data is not accessible securely. I bet nameplates are clearly distinguishable outside the restricted environment, but it's not really a big deal if their secure counterparts aren't. Defaulting to the center of the screen when the nameplate goes out of view is still a large improvement over current tab targeting.

[semlar]

I made "enemy unit frames" out of nameplates a while back which might be easier to select with a controller, but there isn't any association with the physical location of the unit on-screen.

It'll be a lot easier to recreate with the new unit IDs, but given the nature of nameplates, you'll still probably have them constantly rearranging themselves as they spawn and die or move on and off the screen.

https://youtu.be/tIrSlYh-5ao

(It looks like you still can't embed a video in a post? I could have sworn there was a way to do this.)

[MunkDev]

Originally Posted by semlar I made "enemy unit frames" out of nameplates a while back which might be easier to select with a controller, but there isn't any association with the physical location of the unit on-screen.

Source code plz?

Originally Posted by semlar It'll be a lot easier to recreate with the new unit IDs, but given the nature of nameplates, you'll still probably have them constantly rearranging themselves as they spawn and die or move on and off the screen.

Yes, but there might be ways to determine which nameplate to use as "default" beyond using the unit IDs, depending how much information is relayed securely. As an example, if the target nameplate is bigger than others, :GetRect() could be used to determine the target nameplate in a very hacky fashion.

I've had a look at some of the source code from 7.0.1, but I think I'll wait till beta before delving any deeper. It does look rather promising, though.

[Resike]

Originally Posted by semlar (It looks like you still can't embed a video in a post? I could have sworn there was a way to do this.)

No, Phanx made a post about how much she hates it and it got removed.

[Spyro]

Originally Posted by semlar Most intriguingly, each nameplate has a unit ID associated with it ("nameplate1 -> nameplate30"), which allows us to get information directly from a particular unit associated with a given nameplate. This means accurate aura displays, but it also opens up powerful possibilities that weren't previously practical.

Finally a way to track combat status on any nameplate to instantly know if they are sappable, interesting.

Originally Posted by semlar I made "enemy unit frames" out of nameplates

That looks insanely useful for multidoting specs like Affliction and Shadow.

Originally Posted by Resike No, Phanx made a post about how much she hates it and it got removed.

She? I didn't know that.

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by Spyro She? I didn't know that.

What's so shocking? We females do exist on the internet...

[SDPhantom]

I think it's more on a comment that from the way she writes her posts, it's hard to tell.

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by SDPhantom I think it's more on a comment that from the way she writes her posts, it's hard to tell.

This still makes no sense. Are females supposed to sound like girls in a text-based medium? Are they supposed to talk about girly stuff and say "oh my gawd!" and "like, totally", and not be assertive or intelligent sounding?

/end off-topic

[Spyro]

The nickname sounded more male-ish than female-ish to me.

[SDPhantom]

Originally Posted by Seerah This still makes no sense. Are females supposed to sound like girls in a text-based medium? Are they supposed to talk about girly stuff and say "oh my gawd!" and "like, totally", and not be assertive or intelligent sounding?

You can tell a lot about someone's personality from how they form their words. It involves reading the meaning behind the words and not the words themselves. I'm not a master of it by any means though.