Changing the levelmeter only
 

I've changed the look and feel of the letterbox with a new graphic instead of playing around with the bitchy toolbarfield. This method has no problem with different resolutions or the windowmode. The only thing, I have to do is repositioning and resizing the levelmeter. Please, DON'T tell me, that I don't have to change the entire toolbarfield to play around with the levelmeter. Here's my current code:

The UI works, but the levelmeter doesn't change :(

The question, if the levelmeter can be edited completely seperate, seems to be a very, very difficult question :(

My experience (unfortunately) trying to do similar change is that you have to alter a parent element to be able to change it's child.

This means to be able to edit the levelmeter you must change the toolbarfield (thus setting both coordinates and it's size).

It would however be good if anyone else could either confirm or deny this.

I guess, that you're right. Without the parent-element the have been no changes. I'm using the conventional method I've already discussed with you in my other thread (I've started a new one because I think, the topic of this thread is important for others) and it's working fine (I'll release my UI soon).

Nevertheless, it's a pity, that we cannot change the levelmeter without playing around with all the other letterbox-elements. In the end I've only changed the width of the levelmeter and - concerning the final result - I had to change many, many values just to place the letterbox in the standartposition with downside, that my UI only works with fullscreen 1280x1024.

Something you have to be mindful of is that this game engine was never designed for extensive customization. I never played DDO (which is the game this engine developed in) but I imagine we are already getting far more support and features (thank God we have Frosty looking out for us) then DDO ever had. Already we've seen the number of skinnable assets increase at least two-fold PLUS we've gotten the ability to move and resize the art. A far cry from anything we had in beta.

In short, the engine was built for the skinning of a limited array of art assets - nothing more. Give it some time to develop and we may see that wish list dwindle away.

You're right, of course.

But before LITRO I've played Guild Wars for nearly two years, and in Guild Wars the normal user can change nearly every element ingame. It's disappointing for me, that a simple change in LOTRO needs so much work which results in working but not satisfying solution. As described above, only resizing the levelmeter should be necessary for my UI, but I have to rewrite the entire toolbar to get it work.

Yep. I'm used to having full access to XML from EQ and EQ2 and I even started to dabble in the Lua scripting in WoW. Honestly, I get as much fun from modding ui's as I do from playing the game - I'd still be playing EQ2 if it weren't for the fact that my wife likes LotRO so much more.

And that small little DirectX error that keeps crashing EQ2 (for those who frequent the EQ2 tech forums you probably know what I'm talking about!)

Like I keep saying - if Frosty can get us full access to all the art and xml settings for this ui, he would become a bigger name in MMO's then Aradune Mithara - not that he hasn't already done so much for us! I want my XML! From the sound of it, rebuilding the Tower of Babel would be easier.

I want greater abilites like you do, but I do think we have to see it from another perspective.

If LotRO wasn't built upon the already stable core of DDO (where they took the descision not to allow that many changes) we maybe 1) shouldn't already be playing LotRO as it would probably still be develoed and 2) when it came out it would probably have more initial problems/bugs.

So look at it from the bright side! ;)