Hey everyone, before we get into it, A QUICK NOTE FOR PLAYERS ON MAC:
The live and PTR clients have both been updated today to remove the workaround for requiring -XstartOnFirstThread parameter when running on mac. The workaround was resulting in random crashes, so if you are on a mac I highly suggest re-downloading the client and running it with this parameter again for the time being. Apologies for this, it is an issue with Apple essentially throwing OpenGL in the bin because they didn’t invent it.
Anyway…
This build is a big change to the Desktop!
While putting in the groundwork for the new spells system, I ran into the somewhat obvious issue of not having any spell buttons on the client due to the complete removal of these systems on the PTR earlier in the year. Looking ahead, I realised I was going to need space for 3 more spells, space to display buffs and debuffs for not just the player, but targets too – as well as target cast bars, level, etc. With all this in mind, I felt now was the time to reimagine the Desktop UI from the ground up.
This UI is far from finished, but it is now at least functional. This change is far more than just visual, the code backing the new UI is all completely new and is composed in a much more intelligent way with future iteration and new features in mind. I would very much appreciate it if anyone who uses the Desktop client regularly could take a look at this PTR build and leave any feedback or issues in #ptr-discussion on Discord.
What has changed?
- Spell system (not ready for testing)
- Server stores and loads spell data
- Client stores and loads spell data
- Spells support multi-language (coming to localisation repo soon)
- Desktop UI
- Complete scratch rewrite of the primary Desktop UI
- Unit Frames
- Player UnitFrame shows sprite, level, HP, resource, status effects, colour is influenced by current Vocation
- Target UnitFrame shows sprite, level HP, cast bar, status effects (target status effects such as safe, in-combat, drunk, etc to be visible in future)
- Click a portrait to open a relevant UI
- UnitFrame sprites are animated, considering disabling this for the player as it is quite distracting as you walk around ^^
- Item Hotkeys
- Desktop item hotkeys reduced back to 4 in line with the mobile version
- Spell Hotkeys
- Central and now there are 6 in preparation for many more spells and complex builds
- Default keybinds will be QER as with live, and shift + QER for the extras
- Will be able to set them as 1 – 6, or F1 – F6 in preferences
- Menu Shortcuts
- Chat, Inventory, Engine Stats and Menu
- The Engine Stats button shows current latency in place of a hotkey, it will soon have a tooltip to display FPS as well as be clickable to show / hide permanent onscreen FPS and un-trimmed latency like live
- EXP Bar
- Fully extends along the bottom side of the screen when the chat is hidden
- Tooltip is now numerically formatted for readability
- Chat
- Works much the same as live
- The thin difficult to drag separation bar has been replaced by the thicker EXP bar
- Desktop-specific improvements coming to this UI in future
I will be finishing off the UI Buttons and restructuring the last of the Desktop UI code on Monday, then going back to implementing the spell system now there is space to do it. My plan is essentially to get all of the core systems implemented and working on the Desktop client first, then to give the Mobile client the same treatment. My thinking is there is going to be a lot of UI / system design iteration and changes throughout this process, so it makes sense to just do that iteration and make those mistakes in one place and implement mobile support once everything is finalised.
See you next Friday 🙂
Fhox