Custom UI help

I was trying to tweak my Player Window UI from pieces I found on eqinterface, and for the life of me I can't figure out the group roles items. I've tried adding Location xml tags to set the location, but they don't seem to work. I have also tried modifying the anchor offsets (though not exactly sure what they are supposed to do) and I can't seem to move them without them just disappearing completely. Any advice?

Current:

Code:

<Button item="PW_GroupRoleTank">
        <ScreenID>GroupRoleTank</ScreenID>
        <RelativePosition>true</RelativePosition>
        <Style_Transparent>false</Style_Transparent>
        <Style_Checkbox>false</Style_Checkbox>
        <ButtonDrawTemplate>
            <NormalDecal>A_Tank</NormalDecal>
        </ButtonDrawTemplate>
        <DecalSize>
            <CX>15</CX>
            <CY>15</CY>
        </DecalSize>
        <AutoStretch>true</AutoStretch>
        <BottomAnchorOffset>15</BottomAnchorOffset>
        <LeftAnchorOffset>87</LeftAnchorOffset>
        <RightAnchorOffset>72</RightAnchorOffset>
        <LeftAnchorToLeft>false</LeftAnchorToLeft>
        <RightAnchorToLeft>false</RightAnchorToLeft>
    </Button>

Tried replacing the Anchor lines with this but seems to fail:

Code:

            <Location>
            <X>117</X>
            <Y>0</Y>
        </Location>

Just a quick glance at your anchor offsets and I see you appear to be missing several.
Generally:
topanchoroffset
bottomanchoroffset
leftanchoroffset
rightanchoroffset
topanchortotop
bottomanchortotop
leftanchortoleft
rightanchortoleft

You don't need ALL of these, but I suspect not having all four offsets (top, bottom, left, right) is putting the role out of bounds.

As for your location sets, are those numbers within the overall window parameters? I.e. your window is set to 100 x 200 and a location at 100, 220 would put it outside the display.

I assumed I didn't need them all. So basically if I have the following crude drawing:

_____ top
_____ 5px difference to top of element
|____| difference of 26 for example, size of element
bottom of element
_____ 20px difference to bottom

I would need:
top anchor = 5
bottom anchor = 20

Then the size of the element is assumed to be 26?

I figured it out, thanks for the help Zirk.

Your welcome. Glad my meaningless drivel helped.

I was hoping to just set an exact location, since I don't plan to make the window resizeable, but setting it like I would other controls made it disappear (out of bounds?) I set it to a location that would have been within its container's dimensions. /shrug. Seems anchors are required for this particular control unless I'm missing something else.

Just a quick note, the <autostretch> attribute is the 'switch' between it using the size/location tags or using the anchor tags. Second, the TopAnchorToTop tag describes whether the object will anchor to the top of the window. True means it will anchor to the top. False means it will anchor to the bottom. The same applies to the other 3. TopAnchorOffset describes how far it will be from the anchor point (depending on the state of the TopAnchorToTop tag).

Since you aren't going to resize the window, you may want to turn <Autostretch> to false and define the size/location tags.

Lastly a word of caution. the value of 'True' (capital T) will be interpreted as false. The true/false tags are case sensitive. An omitted attribute (if it is relevant) will also be interpreted as false. Oh, and the RelativePosition tag sets what all of the offsets/location are relative to. The value true means the location will be relative to the container it is in (like the player window). False means it will be relative to you EQ window screen.

Excellent explanation Jin, thank you.