How to get rid of Patrol and Stop

10-28-2006, 08:50 AM

It is in fact possible to get rid of the two mentioned buttons if you are willing to make some sacrifices.

The basic procedure:

Make sure all units in your map have "Show UI" set to false on their attack. This hides the Attack button.
Edit CommandFunc.txt and CommandStrings.txt so that Patrol visuals and tooltip look like Move and placing Patrol at position 0, 0
Make Stop look like Hold Position, placing it at 0, 1
Make Move look like the Attack button, and placing it at 0, 2
Make Hold Position look like Hero Abilities, and placing it at 0, 3

At this point you should have something that looks like this:

Then you intercept the orders and translate them: Units ordered to Patrol must be redirected to Move, units ordered to Move must be redirected to Attack, units ordered to Stop must be redirected to Hold Position and units ordered to Hold Position may open up a custom Learn Ability menu. (It goes without saying that you need to know how to be able to make Patrol issue a real Move command without that Move command being translated to an Attack and so on.)

Now for the issues, and there are actually quite a few.

First of all, every single unit in the game that is able to move will get a Learn Ability icon. Whether it is worth it or not is up to you; if making a hero-intensive map where every single available button-slot is very important, go for it. Just show a message such as "This unit cannot learn any abilities" for any other units.

Second, you cannot "Move" target an enemy, meaning you cannot "Follow" an enemy. This is because Patrol (which acts as the Move button) does not allow you to target an enemy unit, so if you try to "Move" onto an enemy unit, you will instead move to the position. This makes it impossible to "Follow" an enemy. You can still follow your own units though. I consider this the biggest annoyance and really wish there was a way to fix this. One possible solution: Since patrol targets the ground below enemy units, you could check if there is an enemy unit directly above a given point and issue a "Follow" order if that is the case. (Just for those very odd cases where you are invisible and REALLY want to follow an enemy unit or for some other reason want to force your unit to stand around and not attack...)

Thirdly, there will be some odd highlightings. When your hero is ordered to attack-move or attack a unit, the Attack button will not be highligted like usual because the real Attack button isn't there. When the hero is moving around normally, the Attack button is highlighted, because the attack button is in fact the move button. This can be slightly odd. If I had any idea which texture or model constitutes the highlighting effect, I would try to blank it out and see no hightlighting is preferrable to somewhat odd highlighting.

Finally, you have to use a custom system for learning skills. It takes some work but in return you get more flexibility in learning skills. This is a con only if you really wish you could use the normal hero-learning system.

Now, this certanly is a rather hackish and complex approach, but damnit! Look at the 8 COMPLETELY FREE BUTTON SLOTS! I don't know about you, but I personally find that very sexy! I don't know how to do better than this. (Unless you use the "always open spellbook"-hax, but that cancel button is so amazingly ugly, or a select-building thing, but that screws up right-clicking.)

Attached Images

4buttons.png (54.7 KB)

10-28-2006, 11:29 AM	#2
Jazradel	Beautiful, but with ugly problems. I should have the path for the highlighting effect written down somewhere, I'll see if I can find it for you. Autocast and Cooldown are in war3.mpq under UI/Feedback. That would probably be a good place to start. Now how do you think we can hide the cancel button?

10-28-2006, 11:33 AM	#3
karukef	Hide the cancel button? You can't. That's why I avoided a system that uses adds a cancel button. If you can find that path that'd be great.

10-28-2006, 02:21 PM	#4
Anitarf	I suppose this fits more under general development, even if triggers are involved. Moved.

10-28-2006, 03:04 PM

karukef

Here is a code snippet of translating these basic buttons orders. I haven't tested it yet, and it uses WeWarlock commands to register the orders, but at least it shows the basic approach for those wondering.

JASS:

globals
    boolean BB_DontTranslateOrder = false
endglobals

function BB_TranslateOrder_point takes nothing returns nothing
    //Patrol
    //! PointOrderEvent 851990
    //Move
    //! PointOrderEvent 851986
    if BB_DontTranslateOrder then
        return
    endif
    set BB_DontTranslateOrder = true
    if OE_GetIssuedOrderId() == 851990 then
        //Patrol is translated to move
        //Issue 'move'
        call IssuePointOrderById(OE_GetOrderedUnit(), 851986, OE_GetOrderPointX(), OE_GetOrderPointY())
    else
        //Move command, translated to attack
        //Issue 'attack'
        call IssuePointOrderById(OE_GetOrderedUnit(), 851983, OE_GetOrderPointX(), OE_GetOrderPointY())
    endif
    set BB_DontTranslateOrder = false
endfunction

function BB_TranslateOrder_object takes nothing returns nothing
    //Patrol
    //! ObjectOrderEvent 851990
    //Move
    //! ObjectOrderEvent 851986
    if BB_DontTranslateOrder then
        return
    endif
    set BB_DontTranslateOrder = true
    if OE_GetIssuedOrderId() == 851990 then
        //Patrol is translated to move
        //Issue 'move'
        call IssueTargetOrderById(OE_GetOrderedUnit(), 851986, OE_GetOrderTarget())
    else
        //Move command, translated to attack
        //Issue 'attack'
        call IssueTargetOrderById(OE_GetOrderedUnit(), 851983, OE_GetOrderTarget())
    endif
    set BB_DontTranslateOrder = false
endfunction

function BB_TranslateOrder_instant takes nothing returns nothing
    //Stop
    //! InstantOrderEvent 851972
    //Holdposition
    //! InstantOrderEvent 851993
    if BB_DontTranslateOrder then
        return
    endif
    set BB_DontTranslateOrder = true
    if OE_GetIssuedOrderId() == 851972 then
        //Stop is translated to holdposition
        //Issue 'holdposition'
        call IssueImmediateOrderById(OE_GetOrderedUnit(), 851993)
    else
        //Holdposition runs a learn command for the unit, if possible
        //Call learn function if it has one
        call BJDebugMsg("Unit wants to learn")
    endif
    set BB_DontTranslateOrder = false
endfunction

10-28-2006, 08:52 PM

PipeDream

Quote:

Second, you cannot "Move" target an enemy, meaning you cannot "Follow" an enemy.

You also can't surround if you can't move on enemies.

10-28-2006, 10:37 PM	#7
Taur	You go to a lot of trouble to hide the patrol and stop button and then go add another mostly useless button. The way I see it is, you check hide UI, then change patrol to take the place of attack, which to me (being the 5th icon) was always an eye sore, I think most people would be just fine with having stop, move, hold position and attack, and getting rid of patrol.

10-29-2006, 06:03 AM

karukef

Quote:

Originally Posted by PipeDream

You also can't surround if you can't move on enemies.

Good point, I forgot that for a second. Not that surrounding occurs often in non-melee maps, but excluding the possibility would suck. A very good reason to implement the fix that causes a follow if move is issued to a point directly below a unit.

@Taur: In maps where the hero is the most important unit, those take priority. If one slot can be saved for the unit that matters, I consider it worth it. Anyone understands that they don't have to make Stop into Learn so I saw no need to point that out.

11-03-2006, 10:30 PM	#9
ArchWorm	This is a mess. Commands are abilities 'Aatk'-attack, 'Amov'-move and so on. As long they are abilities, you can remove them. Check WEU for a list of those.

11-04-2006, 12:02 AM	#10
karukef	Please remove that braindead post. You completely missed the point and have no clue what you are talking about.

07-11-2007, 04:24 AM

#11

zauz

Hi, Im trying to do this but when I edit the CommandFunc.txt file, Move position to 3,0 & Patrol position to 0,0

And WorldEdit says:

Quote:

This application has encountered a critical error:

The file data is corrupt.

Program ...\Warcraft III\worldedit.exe
File: Units\CommandFunc.txt

so.. is this still doable? Would love those 8 free button slots ^^

(Sorry for reviving a old thread)

07-11-2007, 05:47 AM	#12
darkwulfv	Well, for one, you don't set Move to position 3,0. You set it to 0,2. That might help a bit.

07-11-2007, 09:38 AM

#13

grim001

As you can see, I do this in a totally different way...
First of all I remove the attack skill (or set show UI to false) to remove the attack button.

Move stays as move, stop stays as stop. I modify the patrol button into a "face" command, which makes your unit face a particular direction by intercepting the order, although it could stay patrol just as easily.

The remaining button is Hold Position, which is redundant with stop once the attack ability is removed, because they will hold still and not attack anything with either command issued now. I changed Hold Position's icon and description to a Level Up icon. I plan to use this in conjunction with a custom exp/leveling system that intercepts the "hold position" order and allows you to pick skills. However, you could easily make this into any kind of button you want.

Why did I move the bottons to the bottom row? Because now the hero's 8 skills can be hotkeyed to Q, W, E, R, A S, D, and F, and their positions on the skill tab correspond with the positions on the keyboard, making it so much easier to control a hero that could potentially have 8 skills. Move, stop, face, and level-up are mapped to Z, X, C, and V to continue the pattern.

Anyway, it should be more common for people to edit the UI, especially in maps with complex heroes. The main purpose is to make room for better hotkeys which make the game more playable.

07-11-2007, 11:11 AM	#14
BBDino	It's also funky and a point of difference different, and don't tell me that isn't important even if it provides no functional benefit.

07-13-2007, 10:07 AM

#15

zauz

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkwulfv

Well, for one, you don't set Move to position 3,0. You set it to 0,2. That might help a bit.

Nah I didn't want it down there, but it somehow worked today when I tried edit it again, could be because I edited the Hold Position button position too ^^

Attached Images

wc3-button position.jpg (35.0 KB)