help with openexternalpm()
 

ok, so I'm just working with some stuff and I try to get a pm window open when a player just double clicks another, here's what I got:

From what I can tell it should work, but when I double click nothing happens at all. What am I doing wrong?

Should work, though I didn't test it. Though I just realized testplayer doesn't work in nopk zones(do to testplayer works by checking for where players block), but I'm sure you get the idea.

No dice, still nothing happens

Try this, have someone PM you and chat "checkpms"...
If that doesn't work I dunno, because that's the syntax I use in my map script.

I have made the ("-Playerlist").anypmswaiting() a public function so that should return if there are any unread PMs.

The correct format is to use ("-Playerlist").openPMWindow({array of player objects}, bool ismasspm); (note the ismasspm value is ignored if reading a received PM). On the current client this may not always produce an external PM window as currently shown on the Windows client, but the TServerPlayer.openexternalPM(bool display PM) function doesn't work properly on Mac or Linux I don't think (where the scripted playerlist is used already).

In the next client the scripted playerlist windows are all external by default anyway. Tig has also made some changes to the scripted playerlist in an attempt to make it more like the Windows one (which is currently uploaded on Login 2).

I hope we can still use the current docking one?

In the new client the Delphi external windows are gone. Every client will use the same scripted playerlist with the same external windows support. It would be possible to make the scripted windows dockable which would produce the same effect.

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The scripted one is glitchy, clumsy, and ugly. Something tells me a lot of people aren't going to be happy using it, including me.

I have been using the scripted playerlist for years and have not found it to be "glitchy". The design, however, could be improved and that's what Tig's been working on addressing. As for ugly, well, it follows whatever theme you have the rest of the client using. If you want to change the theme, you are at liberty to do so.

It doesn't make sense to have a Delphi playerlist on the Windows client and not on the Mac and Linux clients though because then we have to implement a Gtk and a Cocoa playerlist separately in addition, and that makes code portability a nightmare and updating the playerlist logic even more of a nightmare.

I can't change the theme of it without changing the theme of everything else apparently.

I find it quite glitchy, especially on Mac, though that's probably mostly the external windows - mainly focus problems, clicking doesn't select, you have to click once to select the window, then click again to select.

It may not make sense if you think about it like that. However, think about it like a player. You don't care if something makes sense or not to the developer, you just want it to work well and look nice. I have a feeling it's going to definitely be a downgrade going from the Graal v5 playerlist to the in-game one.

That is something we can look into if there is enough demand for the ability to change the theme of the playerlist separately.
The external windows in the most recent Mac client are working very well for me. The controls do not select at the same time as the windows focus because that is default behaviour in OS X for control-less windows (since the external window contents are essentially bitmap framebuffers). Stefan can make that optional I guess (since a click event could be passed as well as a window focus event).
Matching the functionality of the external playerlist is the aim of the improved script on Login 2 so that when the new client is released, people should not have to relearn anything to use the playerlist just as they always have.

Scripted things like the playerlist wouldn't be so bad if the GUI's were more responsive like the real OS counterparts. They always feel like they're scripted rather than being part of the 'real' interface, if that makes sense.

Selecting also doesn't work in the scripted playerlist. Holding shift while selecting players just "adds" more to the selection, while holding ctrl should do that job, and shift should select a range between click one and click two. Ctrl does nothing. That's my main concern.

I'm not a fan of the scripted playerlist, and the login 2 one doesn't look much different. Also, there's an 'Options' button on the login 2 playerlist but it opens up a Mass PM when you click it, might want to look into that.

As for the removal of the dockability, that's a rather huge downgrade considering the amount of positive feedback that came from it when it was first released. Personally, I always have my playerlist docked to the side when I'm on.

That's fixed on the new version.

The options window is only available if you're using the new client.