Modnar

Garan,

First I would like to say that MoorMaps is a great plugin. Thank you for all of your hard work on this (and your many other!) projects.

I must admit I am mostly writing because I believe I've encountered two potential programming issues:

1) Editing Quick Annotations on Multiple Maps: While using quick annotation to add the tombs along the Way of Kings in Annuminas, I noticed that editing a newly added entry only updated the Annuminas map. Neither the Evendim or Eregion maps were updated with the new information. While not a deal breaker, it is a bit awkward since this means you add one entry (user perspective) but must edit 3 entries in 3 different places.

2) Entry into sub-maps: I had been adding a small addendum to the Description of each tomb since I keep forgetting whether or not it can be entered (example: <name> - [enterable | cannot be entered]) . But Elendil's Tomb created a problem which got me considering your comment about working on adding interior maps. Have you considered tracking how an interior is entered, and what type of interior it is? Because Elendil's Tomb is "enterable Quest Locked Instance" in my database right now. This allows for Quest, Reputation and Level locked areas. As well as accounting for Common and Instanced (raids, skirmishes and instances) versions. I'm not sure you want to account for this in the database, but thought i should bring it up while you're still working on this feature.

Garan

Thanks for your comments. I'd actually already given a great deal of thought to both of these issues and arrived at the current functionality as the best (or least annoying) of several options.

The issue with the multiple annotations on separate maps arises from limitations in the Turbine Lua interface (no map ID and no ability to save/load data in real time) combined with the fact that most maps overlap a bit. Unfortunately, we do not have any way to determine the "correct" map via Lua - the interface doesn't expose this information and the overlaps don't only occur on horizontal or vertical lines making it impossible to do anything other than allow the icons to be added to every map that potentially contains the coordinates. I considered tying the annotations together via a unique identifier, but that got scrapped when I ran into issues with too many custom annotations being carried in a global list. For performance reasons, starting in version 1.06, only the annotations that are for the current map are guaranteed to be in the custom annotations list at any particular time - when leaving a map, the custom annotations specific to a particular map are saved in a separate file and removed from the global custom annotations list, allowing the global list to stay relatively small. Otherwise what happens is that users that have added a couple thousand annotations (one user is already well into the thousands) start having five or six seconds of load time for every map due to the number of custom annotations and that number would significantly increase with additional annotations. That combined with the Turbine 15 second delay on loading/saving live data, means that I can not update annotations on multiple maps without subjecting users to unreasonable delays when loading/switching maps. So, having to manually update annotations on multiple maps if you ever want to change an annotation that is on multiple maps, while mildly annoying, is currently the best compromise. For those who only want one annotation on one map, users can always just open the desired map, right click and add the annotation rather than using the Quick Annotation tool, but for crafters and such, having the nodes show up on multiple maps can be a significant benefit.

You raised an interesting point with the type and amount of data stored for non-parchment map locations. Currently any information that would be specific to a location can be entered into the description text and that is probably how it will remain just due to time constraints (it takes a tremendous amount of time to track down all of these locations and NPCs but it's necessary, especially in the revamped zones). Many of these locations aren't even accessible once you've completed their quests, so I have to go through them on alts, at level, collecting mapping data while fighting mobs, etc - I can tell you, the respawn timers in some of those places are wicked when you have a side task to deal with I'm not looking forward to the higher level instances, imagine "hey, raid leader, can we take another break here so that I can record all of the location information on these mobs?..." hehehe. Anyway, once I've completed gathering and publishing the basic default data for all of the maps I will certainly be extending the interior location information. Whether it is only displayed in the description or gets it's own set of filter/search flags will depend on how much time I am able to allocate when I get to that point. Of course, we may all be level 100 and taking screenies of the Crack of Doom before then, but...

Garan

EDIT: Version 1.06 is now available.
While re-capturing most of Ered Luin's default data I realized that I never entered any of the icons in Staddle, so that little oversight should get fixed in 1.06 as well. I have included a number of other "interior" maps who's resource IDs I already had found, but do not plan to enter default data for most of them until I get the parchment map data done, so don't be surprised if places like the Mirkstone Tunnels have maps but no icons. Other areas like Sarnur will not be added until I find the maps' image resource ids in order to avoid adding JPG maps.

I'm looking for feedback on one of the other future enhancements I've been toying with, user modifiable "overlays" which I think would be really helpful to raid leaders since users could overlay things like paths to follow and warnings about things to avoid, etc. This would require people to actually modify a TGA file but if I allowed them to be uploaded for sharing, I believe this could be useful. The basic idea would be to allow users to save a TGA file in a specific folder and then associate that image with a map as an overlay, then provide a dropdown list of available overlays for the currently displayed map. Since TGA files can be edited in layers, creating the overlays in Paint.net or other software would be pretty easy. Please let me know if there's interest in such a feature.

Mephistophles

Hello,

I must be doing something wrong. I copied all the files to:

c:\users\<username>\Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online\plugins

and when I bring up the LOTRO client, I don't see the plugin in my list:

/plugins list
Available Plugins:
(None)
Loaded Plugins:
(None)

I also can't load it:

/plugins load MoorMap
Unable to load "MoorMap"

I tried moving it to:

c:\users\<username>\Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online\ui\plugins

and got the same result.

I'm running LOTRO on a Windows 7 64-bit edition platform.

Regards,

Dennis

Garan

The exact path can differ slightly based on your OS, so the rule of thumb is to take a screenshot inside the game and look for the folder where that screenshot is saved and create the "Plugins" folder under that. In your case it looks like the document folder is:
c:\users\<username>\Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online.

If so, your first path was probably almost correct, but you may not have preserved the GaranStuff folder from the zip file - your resulting path should probably be:
c:\users\<username>\Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online\plugins\GaranStuff
So the .plugin definition files, "MoorMap.plugin", "MoorMapDefaults.plugin", "MoorMapLoader.plugin" and "MoorMapTerminator.plugin" would be inside the GaranStuff folder and the "MoorMap" folder would be under that. Don't get confused by the extra plugins, they are necessary and used by MoorMap itself, but they will also show up in your plugins list once the files are in the correct path.

Additionally, if you have the client already running when you extract/copy the files, you have to force the client to re-poll the plugins folder using the "/plugins refresh" command. Otherwise the client only checks for new/changed plugin definition files on a client restart.

Mephistophles

That was it, thanks. I'd thought the folder "Garanstuff" was just a placeholder and extracted only the contents into plugins. Once I moved everything into a "Garanstuff" folder it works fine. Thanks!

Crackpot370

There may be a problem. I was in Nan Wathren Western Pass
in North Downs. I Right-clicked on a Rich Iron Deposit and
while it was prospecting it, I clicked my button to add it
to the map (like I usually do). Instead of adding it to the map for North Downs,
it said:

Rich Iron Deposit already at these coordinates on map Eriador.
Rich Iron Deposit already at these coordinates on map Bree-land.
Rich Iron Deposit already at these coordinates on map The Shire.
Taking the contents of the Rich Iron Deposit...

I checked your map. It did not show this deposit. It did show
all the ones I'd mapped/prospected further north.


Also, just noticed that when I stopped & added a Heavy Yew to
the map for when my Forester comes that way, it did:

Heavy Yew Branches added to map Eriador
Heavy Yew Branches added to map Bree-land
Heavy Yew Branches added to map The Shire

Haven't noticedit do that before. I'll keep an eye out for
it in the future though.

Garan

The "xxx added to map yyy" and "xxx already at these coordinates on map yyy" messages have been there since version 1.03 when the quick annotation control was first released. It sounds as though you accidentally double clicked the icon but I am continuing to investigate. That message , "xxx already at these coordinates on map yyy" (resource#171) can only be generated if a duplicate annotation (having the same map, NW coord, EW coord, name and description) is found. I've double checked the duplicate detection code (which hasn't been changed since 1.03) and there's no bug there, so the only other possibility is that the data for the new annotation was somehow incorrect.

I am curious about why you got the message regarding the Shire since I didn't think the Shire parchment border overlapped as far as Nan Wathren but I will have to double check that to be sure. Otherwise it sounds as if the coordinates from the Quick Annotation window were incorrect which would imply that the ;loc command generated a bad location. I've got some more testing to do since there is still some question about the message that was generated.

There is a known flaw in the way that custom annotations are merged with existing custom annotations when a map overlaps but this would not generate the symptoms you reported. If the overlapping map has been viewed recently and it's custom annotations split out of the global table, then there is no way to detect the duplication, so a duplicate can be generated. I will have a fix for this is 1.08, I will check when loading the global table whether there is a duplicate and remove it at that time. However, this bug would not cause an erroneous display of the duplicate message, it would in fact supress that message when in some cases it should be displayed.

One of the things in the works which would eliminate the need to save hundreds (or thousands) of node locations is user modifiable overlays. Basically the idea is you would select the "Prospecting Nodes" overlay and it would add a transparent layer over the map which would have the regions where nodes exist colored (since the user would make the overlay, the colors could be coded by type, etc) to show the region where nodes spawn. That way, one TGA image would take the place of hundreds of custom annotations. Unfortunately, this requires the user to create/maintain the TGA image file which, although easy to do, not all users are prepared to do.

EDIT: After quite some time testing map boundaries and adding annotations, I do not see how you could have gotten a failure message for the Shire while anywhere in Nan Wathren, Nan Wathren simply does not extend far enough south or west to overlap the Shire parchment - the furthest south point in Nan Wathren is at 18.9S but the northern boundary of the Shire map is 22.9. A similar issue occurs when checking the EW border for overlap. The only maps possible in that area would be North Downs, Bree-land and Eriador. So far all scenarios test correctly - that is, duplicates do not get added and generate an error message while non-duplicates get added and generate the "added" message with the noted exception that if an annotation is added for an area when a different map is being displayed, a duplicate can erroneously be added but it will still display the "added" message. In all cases, the map names listed were the correct map names for the location tested.

Is it possible the message was already in your chat window from a prior node elsewhere and you didn't notice it until you tried to add the node in North Downs? Of course, that doesn't make a lot of sense unless the mouse click never occurred for the node you were trying to add, but not actually clicking would explain why no annotation was added to the map. Might you have accidentally copied and posted the wrong failure message? I'll keep checking it but I don't see any way that the message you posted came from a location in Nan Wathren.

Crackpot370

In an effort to try to duplicate the situation, I logged in and was going to ride back to Nan Wathren. I was just outside Esteldin when I logged in. I started riding out toward the road when I saw a Rich Iron Deposit.

I figured, what the heck, and right-clicked it to prospect, and clicked the button to add it to the datavase, even though I know I already have that one in the DB. It said:

Bountiful Iron Deposit already at these coordinates on map Eriador.
Bountiful Iron Deposit already at these coordinates on map Bree-land.
Bountiful Iron Deposit already at these coordinates on map The Shire.
Taking the contents of the Bountiful Iron Deposit...
You have acquired a [Flat Whetstone].
You have acquired [4 Chunks of Rich Iron Ore].
You have acquired a [Ruby].

I immediately hit my LOC button & it said:
You say, 'Eriador: Kingsfell: 9.4S, 43.7W'

I would think that'd be far enough North and East on the map not to overlap any other maps, but I don't really know how they're set up.

What I did when I logged in was click my button to load up my plugins.
(Campsite, Compendium, DailyTasks, LotroPad, MoorMap, TonicBars, TravelRef)

Then I mounted my pony.

Then I road West until I hit that spot where the deposit is.

It was then that I right-clicked the deposit, and, while it was prospecting, I clicked the button to add it to the DB.

Immediately after that I cut & pasted from the chat window to this one.

Since these messages included the Shire, I didn't figure I needed to go all the way over to Nan Wathren. (If you still need me to I certainly will.

Garan

I went to the same exact coordinates and was able to add annotations just fine. Something peculiar is occuring on your system (and possibly lots of others ). It occurs to me that somehow your map data files may have gotten corrupted so that the plugin thinks the maps overlap when they actually don't. If you still have the instructions I PM'd you on emailing me your plugin data, would you mind zipping that up again and emailing it to me so that I can examine your data files and determine whether in fact any corruption has occurred - and if it has, hopefully backtrack the cause. If you need new instructions on which folder to zip or the address to send it to, just PM me here and I will get that to you.

Crackpot370

If you still have the instructions I PM'd you on emailing me your plugin data, would you mind zipping that up again and emailing it to me so that I can examine your data files and determine whether in fact any corruption has occurred - and if it has, hopefully backtrack the cause.

I still have it. Will send it off to you soon.

Garan

I got the files, thank you. Unfortunately, initial testing shows the map files are not corrupted but I haven't finished inspecting the annotations (you've got a LOT of them ). I did notice that you are still using version 1.06, so I tested your files with 1.06 and 1.07 and everything worked perfectly. So now I'm left with an interesting puzzle. I'm going to keep digging - I will probably have to send you a modified version of 1.06 with additional debugging information. Please do NOT download 1.07 (this only applies to Crackpot370) until I get a chance to have you run the debug version of 1.06 since upgrading to 1.07 might temporarily mask whatever the underlying problem is.

Crackpot370

I got the files, thank you. Unfortunately, initial testing shows the map files are not corrupted but I haven't finished inspecting the annotations (you've got a LOT of them ). I did notice that you are still using version 1.06, so I tested your files with 1.06 and 1.07 and everything worked perfectly. So now I'm left with an interesting puzzle. I'm going to keep digging - I will probably have to send you a modified version of 1.06 with additional debugging information. Please do NOT download 1.07 (this only applies to Crackpot370) until I get a chance to have you run the debug version of 1.06 since upgrading to 1.07 might temporarily mask whatever the underlying problem is.

Uh, I thought I WAS using version 1.07. How odd. I just looked in the directory I unpack stuff into & it does seem to be 1.06. I must have planned to install 1.07 & got distracted somehow. *shrug*

Crackpot370

I got the files, thank you. Unfortunately, initial testing shows the map files are not corrupted but I haven't finished inspecting the annotations (you've got a LOT of them ). I did notice that you are still using version 1.06, so I tested your files with 1.06 and 1.07 and everything worked perfectly. So now I'm left with an interesting puzzle. I'm going to keep digging - I will probably have to send you a modified version of 1.06 with additional debugging information. Please do NOT download 1.07 (this only applies to Crackpot370) until I get a chance to have you run the debug version of 1.06 since upgrading to 1.07 might temporarily mask whatever the underlying problem is.

Uh, I thought I WAS using version 1.07. How odd. I just looked in the directory I unpack stuff into & it does seem to be 1.06. I must have planned to install 1.07 & got distracted somehow. *shrug* If you need to send me something, feel free to use the email address I sent you the files from.

Crackpot370

Looks like the problems is solved.

It appears that the alias I have on my toolbar got screwed up somehow and now keeps trying to save to the same location over & over.

I don't know how that happened since I create that button using cut & paste from a file I have containing the correct way to build the button.

I re-entered the commands to define the alias using the cut and paste. It seems to work perfectly now.

Wish I knew how that fixed data got saved to that button location, but at least I know what to look for in the future.

Thanks once again for your tireless work on my favorite plugin.