Addon Rematch

[Jerebear]

I'm a visual person so I will have a harder time commenting, but it sounds good. The only thing that I would really (really really really) miss is that currently I can have both the AH and Rematch open at the same time (useful if you sell a lot of pets). I don't know if that will be possible with it integrated into the journal. That said, I definitely think your direction sounds like a better way.

[Gello]

It will very likely be possible. A stand-alone window is definitely planned.

Some more details fleshed out:

I'm working on three equally-sized panels, each half the width of the default pet journal and the same height as the default journal's pet list:

• Pets: This is the list of pets, search box, filter, leveling slot and queue.
• Loadouts: This is the three slotted pets, loaded team and recent target. The recent target will be styled like a loadout slot with a load button to load the team. You won't be required to actually have them targeted to load the team.
• Teams: This is the list of teams, search box and tabs. Instead of a "team card" you'll be able to mouseover the pets in the list directly and clicking the team will load it.

Pets and Loadouts will always be visible in the journal, with a pullout for Teams (which will stay pulled out until pushed back in).

Options may take up the same space as the team panel or I may move it over to the interface->addons area. If the latter, being able to turn on/off auto load from one of the other three panels will be possible.

Across the top of the journal next to the existing heal button there'll be the "spell/item" type buttons: bandages, treats, safari hat, summon random favorite pet.

The Find Battle button will likely be in its same spot in the default journal, with a "Save" and "Save As..." buttons beside them.

• "Save" will save the loaded team (any changes you've made to it) without any dialog.
• "Save As..." will open a dialog to ask for a name and such. To handle saving for targets, the dialog will have a combo box: "Save for:" with three options:
  • No Target: The default option, save with no target information.
  • Recent Target: This will be the name of the recent target in the loadout panel. You won't need to actually have them targeted.
  • Noteworthy Target: This will expand a menu of all noteworthy tamers grouped by area: Eastern Kingdom, Kalimdor, Outland, Northrend, Celestial Tournament, Draenor, Garrison (which will include the [expletive] challenge posts) and Other (DMF tamers and Little Tommy Newcomer).

I think (hope) this will greatly simplify saving teams, especially for targets.

Anyway, back to the stand-alone window business:

I'm envisioning two modes of one standalone window that's movable (and likely scalable):

• Portable (when Rematch has control of the journal)
• Full (when the user chooses not to have Rematch control the journal)

The portable mode will be roughly half the width of the default journal and a little more than the height of the default journal's pet list. A more traditional titlebar will have a close and lock button. Heal/bandage/etc buttons across the top beneath the titlebar. Tabs across the bottom: Pets, Loadouts, Teams (maybe Options too). Then the tab you're on will move the panel from the journal to the separate window. This means:

• The journal can't be open at the same time as the portable window. Opening the journal will close the portable window and vice versa. (The panels will be moving to whichever is being opened.)
• The save buttons will not be in the portable window. This will (hopefully) ensure the journal is used for creating teams.
• The panels themselves will be fully functional because they will be the panels themselves. This means you can click a team to load it from the team tab, load a targeted team from the loadout tab, rearrange the queue from the pets tab, and filter and cage pets from the pets tab too.

Then there's the Full mode of the stand-alone window. An important part of Rematch is that it behaves nicely with other addons. For some, they want/prefer their existing journal addons. So there will be an option (opt-in) to disable Rematch in the journal. When that happens:

• The panels remove themselves from the default journal.
• Everything hidden in the default journal is restored.
• The separate window doubles in width with pets/queue on the left and loadout on the right with a pullout on the right for teams.
• The window gains a "Save" "Save As..." buttons and other bits so that it's fully functional as a standalone window.

This way, if someone wants to keep their default journal and use Rematch also, they can. If they use the Rematch-controlled journal, they also gain a smaller portable window for doing pet-related stuff without hauling the huge journal onto the screen.

So some take-aways from this:

• The very small "collapsed" view (the three pets crammed into a horizontal space) would be gone. Would that be overly missed?
• The overall shape of the window will be fixed, with no collapse/expand business beyond the persistent team pullout (and the choice to remove Rematch from the journal completely) and no more stretchiness.
• I need a better name for "Loadout" tab. "Pets" is already taken. "Slots"? "Loaded"? Ideas?

If you guys can think of anything I missed please let me know!

[Jerebear]

I'll actually miss the small horizontal version (to be clear, I don't mean the pull out drawer, I mean the collapsed view...I never use the pull out drawer). That's how rematch stays for 75-85% of my time. i like to see the current team selected and the full sized journal takes up too much screen real estate when I am running around.

Maybe instead of loadout, you could use "Current", "Recent", "Selected", etc.

[Gello]

Are you okay with not being able to drag pets onto the small horizontal view? A minimize/maximize button on the titlebar could be done. Minimize the stand-alone window and it'd have heal/bandage/etc buttons but no pets/teams bit.

[Jerebear]

Are you okay with not being able to drag pets onto the small horizontal view? A minimize/maximize button on the titlebar could be done. Minimize the stand-alone window and it'd have heal/bandage/etc buttons but no pets/teams bit.

I don't drag them to it, so no problems there (only ever do that when it is expanded). I just have to see it...it comforts me! Everytime I get into combat I panic because it disappears.

[Zandorian]

I would also miss the small collapsed view. And as mentioned elsewhere, I would like an even smaller pet and team view just so I know I have the right team and pets loaded, maybe show health if it doesn't affect the size too much. And the option to make it translucent when moving would be nice. As someone else mentioned, I also leave this window open when running around doing pet battles. This window would be nice if it is smaller than the current reduced size default window, which seems like your portable window will be even bigger.

Seems with your idea to replace the journal, and not wanting to step on other pet battle addons, you will be creating an extra interface, i.e. two duplicate interfaces. Are you sure this won't create extra work for you, keep in mind maintenance? Also, you run the risk of people saying I like that part of that one, but that part of the other. What if I want all three views, journal, full, and portable? Without seeing it, or using it, I don't know if this is logical or not.

Loadouts: This seems like it overlaps with teams. It shows the current team, there is a load button to load a team. So you can load a team from loadouts and teams? I am guessing we will just use loadouts for saving a team, is that right? Seems a popup dialog would be better. I also think people will be confused between loadouts and teams. So I don't have a better name for it, it seems the main purpose is saving teams, or is it looking at your current team? If the latter, does that mean sometimes we won't see our currently loaded team/pets? If so, then that sounds bad. I always want to see my current team/pets.

You mention that you can save teams with recent targets. You say they don't have to be clicked on. So will we have issues if we are in a crowded area and our mouse hovers over another target just before we click save as?

I like the Noteworthy targets. Seems I could use this to prepare teams before I get to the npc.

Speaking of, I wish we could export and import teams in plan text. The text could be somewhat encoded. But that way people could post rematch teams on forums, and we could import them. Even better if the text was plain text, people readable, or at least the pet names where readable. Like "Chrominius 212, ...". Maybe include breeds, with the import option letting you select the closest match if no perfect breed match.

You mention no more expand or collapse. So does that mean no more enlarged text? Big text is nice. I like the idea of resizing and moving the display. As mentioned above, when doing a bunch of pet battles, I leave the window open as I run around. I try to tuck it away so I can see it, but it isn't in the way. A small team view, minimized movable portable window might cover this need though.

[Zandorian]

Are you okay with not being able to drag pets onto the small horizontal view? A minimize/maximize button on the titlebar could be done. Minimize the stand-alone window and it'd have heal/bandage/etc buttons but no pets/teams bit.

I also do not drag pets into the current minimized window. Instead I will click on pets, to expand the window and then drag them that way.

[Gello]

I would also miss the small collapsed view. And as mentioned elsewhere, I would like an even smaller pet and team view just so I know I have the right team and pets loaded, maybe show health if it doesn't affect the size too much. And the option to make it translucent when moving would be nice. As someone else mentioned, I also leave this window open when running around doing pet battles. This window would be nice if it is smaller than the current reduced size default window, which seems like your portable window will be even bigger.

Yeah there will be a minimize/maximize button on the stand-alone window (whether portable or full) that will minimize to a very small window of just pets and heal/bandage/treats/safari hat button with the name of the loaded team across the top.

The portable window will be rather large (half as wide as the journal and nearly as tall) but the alternative is to have no stand-alone window or to have a huge one with potentially all three panels open at once. (Like you'll be able to in the journal)

Seems with your idea to replace the journal, and not wanting to step on other pet battle addons, you will be creating an extra interface, i.e. two duplicate interfaces. Are you sure this won't create extra work for you, keep in mind maintenance? Also, you run the risk of people saying I like that part of that one, but that part of the other. What if I want all three views, journal, full, and portable? Without seeing it, or using it, I don't know if this is logical or not.

Only one version of each panel is being made, and they will jump to whichever window is opened (stand-alone or journal) so there won't be any duplicate interfaces beyond the stand-alone frame which will be mostly blank. The journal and stand-alone window will never (ever!) be open at the same time.

I should maybe clarify that this panel-jumping business will not be noticed by most people. They can choose: journal or stand-alone window. When they open one, if the other is open it will close automatically.

Benefits of the journal is they can have pets, teams, loadouts (may call this "Current Pets" as Jere suggested) all on the screen to make teams.
Benefits of the stand-alone in portable mode is the window can be used for loading teams or dealing with the queue without opening the journal (window is half the size of the journal and can be open alongside AH to cage pets or look for tradables not collected, etc).
Benefits of the stand-alone in full mode is Rematch won't touch the default journal so all of their existing addons aren't affected, and they can still have an alternate journal UI.

In the event there's a huge outcry to have both a portable and full stand-alone window, it would not be difficult to do. The major components are totally self contained so it's just a matter of positioning frames. But it's not in the cards for the earlier versions.

Loadouts: This seems like it overlaps with teams. It shows the current team, there is a load button to load a team. So you can load a team from loadouts and teams? I am guessing we will just use loadouts for saving a team, is that right? Seems a popup dialog would be better. I also think people will be confused between loadouts and teams. So I don't have a better name for it, it seems the main purpose is saving teams, or is it looking at your current team? If the latter, does that mean sometimes we won't see our currently loaded team/pets? If so, then that sounds bad. I always want to see my current team/pets.

This is the loadout (very early/placeholder version, ignore the square buttons!):

It's your loaded pets, the most important part of the journal. You'll drag pets here in the journal. Saving will be from the frame it's on (journal or stand-alone) and not specifically within the loadout itself.

Loading for a recent target will be from the loadout panel.
Loading a saved team will be from the teams panel.

I'm absolutely certain the portable version will be used in the same way the minimized window will be used by you. Many turn on "Disable ESC for drawer" or the new "Keep window expanded" and never see the collapsed view again.

You mention that you can save teams with recent targets. You say they don't have to be clicked on. So will we have issues if we are in a crowded area and our mouse hovers over another target just before we click save as?

I meant you wouldn't need to keep them targeted. Whenever you target any npc, it will appear in the Recently Targeted area. Losing your target or targeting a player will not change your recent target.

If you haven't saved a team for the target, you can Save As... and then chose your recent target for the "Save for:" bit. The "Save for:" may auto-fill for your recent target if you have an npc targeted. That way it'd behave like it does now.

One problem with the existing save button is it has too many roles: do you want to save over your existing team, save a copy to a new team, or save for your existing target?
Another problem commonly mentioned (I'm serious) is it takes too many clicks to save a team. I get the impression if they change an ability and click Save the popup dialog with all the junk in their face is annoying. I can understand that.

"Save" and "Save As..." is a very, very, very common convention to overwrite an existing file (team in this case) or save it as a new copy. "Save" will just overwrite the loaded team (maybe one confirm dialog if pets change), and "Save As..." will bring up a dialog to choose what name, target, etc to save it as.

Also, despite what was said earlier, challenge posts will appear in the recent target if you mouseover them. This is Plan B after the awful fiasco with prompting to save a team that's not already saved. On the PTR (tested Rematch 3.x there btw and it works fine) they moved Erris to a spot between the challenge post and Lio, which is annoying. So I may have it not "target" the challenge post if you have an existing target. Those details can be worked out once it's used in practice.

Speaking of, I wish we could export and import teams in plan text. The text could be somewhat encoded. But that way people could post rematch teams on forums, and we could import them. Even better if the text was plain text, people readable, or at least the pet names where readable. Like "Chrominius 212, ...". Maybe include breeds, with the import option letting you select the closest match if no perfect breed match.

I was actually going to do that. About a month ago I got a second account to get bnet sharing working and update share strings (import/export strings are the same that go across clients). But people are wanting notes saved with teams. To send anything over 256 characters would require breaking the text up. And with people needing over 2k characters for notes, it necessarily means some compression will have to be involved, or it'd have to deploy slowly over time so the client safeguards don't kick in and auto-disconnect the user. It could do a compression on client side and remain plain text in the editbox. But that's really an incredible amount of work. And since it took only one evening to get bnet sharing working, and sharing teams is functional, and I was anxious to rework the UI, I pushed back the share string update for later.

You mention no more expand or collapse. So does that mean no more enlarged text? Big text is nice. I like the idea of resizing and moving the display. As mentioned above, when doing a bunch of pet battles, I leave the window open as I run around. I try to tuck it away so I can see it, but it isn't in the way. A small team view, minimized movable portable window might cover this need though.

The size of text with the existing "Larger text" option will be the standard size of text in lists.

[Zandorian]

Speaking of, I wish we could export and import teams in plan text. The text could be somewhat encoded. But that way people could post rematch teams on forums, and we could import them. Even better if the text was plain text, people readable, or at least the pet names where readable. Like "Chrominius 212, ...". Maybe include breeds, with the import option letting you select the closest match if no perfect breed match.

I was actually going to do that. About a month ago I got a second account to get bnet sharing working and update share strings (import/export strings are the same that go across clients). But people are wanting notes saved with teams. To send anything over 256 characters would require breaking the text up. And with people needing over 2k characters for notes, it necessarily means some compression will have to be involved, or it'd have to deploy slowly over time so the client safeguards don't kick in and auto-disconnect the user. It could do a compression on client side and remain plain text in the editbox. But that's really an incredible amount of work. And since it took only one evening to get bnet sharing working, and sharing teams is functional, and I was anxious to rework the UI, I pushed back the share string update for later.

I was thinking more of the way you can import and export in Weakauras using text, and then just cut and paste. Then the string could be posted to forums, just like people do with Weakauras. As far as bnet sharing, I don't think I will use that. I may raid with others, but I tend to pet battle alone. (Trying to do text compression, especially beyond a 50% ratio, sounds like a pain.)

"Current Pets" sounds like a good name.

"Loading for a recent target will be from the loadout panel.
Loading a saved team will be from the teams panel.

So two places to load a team, seems confusing. Well, with autoload I assume we mostly won't need one of those ways. I am still digesting the rest, but can't think of issues right now.

[FuxieDK]

Is it possible to pull a team to your hotbars?

If yes, how?
If no, can we have it made possible, please?

[Gello]

Is it possible to pull a team to your hotbars?

If yes, how?
If no, can we have it made possible, please?

You can macro:

Code: Select all

/run Rematch:LoadTeam("Name of team")

Make sure "Name of team" has the same Caps and spelling as the team you want to load.

I've thought of adding a way to create one from in-game (right-click on a team, "Create macro"), except even with 120 global macros, I think this would unnecessarily clutter macro slots. Best to leave that in the user's control.

For a non-macro solution, addons can't place custom objects/behaviors/concepts into canonical action slots. You can't even drag an herb onto an action bar without rewriting the action bar to expect it.

[FuxieDK]

Is it possible to pull a team to your hotbars?

If yes, how?
If no, can we have it made possible, please?

You can macro:

Code: Select all

/run Rematch:LoadTeam("Name of team")

Make sure "Name of team" has the same Caps and spelling as the team you want to load.

I've thought of adding a way to create one from in-game (right-click on a team, "Create macro"), except even with 120 global macros, I think this would unnecessarily clutter macro slots. Best to leave that in the user's control.

For a non-macro solution, addons can't place custom objects/behaviors/concepts into canonical action slots. You can't even drag an herb onto an action bar without rewriting the action bar to expect it.

That sucks But that's not your fault..

Can you use [modifier:alt] etc, in a run-command, so you can cram in 2-3 teams in same macro?

[Gello]

Can you use [modifier:alt] etc, in a run-command, so you can cram in 2-3 teams in same macro?

You can't directly use the [condition] syntax for /run commands. I'll fix up the slash command so it can load teams too, like /rematch team a, or /rematch [mod:alt] team a; [btn:2] team b; team c.

In the meantime you can do this:

Code: Select all

/run Rematch:LoadTeam(SecureCmdOptionParse("[btn:2] Team A; [mod] Team B; Team C"))

[FuxieDK]

Can you use [modifier:alt] etc, in a run-command, so you can cram in 2-3 teams in same macro?

You can't directly use the [condition] syntax for /run commands. I'll fix up the slash command so it can load teams too, like /rematch team a, or /rematch [mod:alt] team a; [btn:2] team b; team c.

In the meantime you can do this:

Code: Select all

/run Rematch:LoadTeam(SecureCmdOptionParse("[btn:2] Team A; [mod] Team B; Team C"))

I see you have already done that

Code: Select all

04/26/2015 version 3.4.6
- /rematch command can now include a team to load for use in macros: /rematch Capture Team or /rematch [btn:2] Capture Low; Capture Team

[Swtairen]

I feel like a complete idiot but I'm going to ask this anyway.

I went to save multiple teams. I made a tab for the Garrison Dailies and I wanted to add teams for each of the pets you'll encounter here. I had already done a daily tamer "Bordin Steadyfist" and had saved that one. So when I made this new tab and tried to save it all I get is "would you like to overwrite" and it's speaking of my Bordin Steadyfist team. So how do I save the separate teams?

[Gello]

You're not an idiot. The saving over a team/saving a new team/saving for target business all on one button definitely needs changed.

Basically:
- If you have a target, when you click save it will save for your current target.
- If you have no target, and a team is loaded, when you click save it will start saving for the loaded team.

To save as a different team you can enter a new name and uncheck the 'Save NPC ID with team' if it's there.

If 'Save NPC ID with team' is checked, it will keep the Bordin Steadyfist npcID and any name you give it will overwrite Bordin's team.

The new UI will fix this by making a 'Save' and 'Save As' buttons separate, and you can save for noteworthy targets even without targeting them. I've had to go through several layout changes so it's taking longer than expected, so I may go ahead and add the separate save/save as to the existing live version in the meantime. It's certainly important enough to need fixing.

[FuxieDK]

Small request: Maximum Health

For the levelling pet, we have a minimum health option, but I could use a maximum health too.

Little Tommy Newcommer/Lil' Oondasta cast Frillblast, which swap in the highest health pet. Problem is, I just had a level 17 levelling pet, which had more health than my level 25 that was supposed to be swapped in by the Frillblast, thus it swapped in my levelling pet, ruining the fight.

So, if we can have a max health option, next to the max health, issues like this can be avoided..

So far, this is the only fight where I have rn into this problem, but we never know if more similar situations can occur in the future..

[Painbow]

Heya!

I have a pretty good idea for Rematch and I'm not sure it's been proposed before.

So I'm almost done collecting pets now and I'm running out of things to do. Lately I've been leveling pets to sell as level 25s on the AH but due to my short term memory, I always forget which pets I was wanting to sell and which extra pets I use for pet battles. Would you be willing to add a feature to right click a pet to put on a dollar sign icon $ next to where the blue leveling queue arrow shows is on the pet list? Anything to mark quickly that instantly distinguishes it's a pet you're intending to sell or trade?

Thanks again for the awesome addon of which I'm constantly promoting.

[Gello]

Small request: Maximum Health

Noted. There's been a request for minimum level (in addition to minimum health). When/if it gets added it'd probably be in the same update.

Would you be willing to add a feature to right click a pet to put on a dollar sign icon $ next to where the blue leveling queue arrow shows is on the pet list? Anything to mark quickly that instantly distinguishes it's a pet you're intending to sell or trade?

A definite plan is to add notes for pets like you can for teams now. It may work well for what you want. So you'll be able to tag pets by putting a "#AH" in their notes. (The "$" is a common formatting character for abilities and probably wouldn't be a good candidate as a tag.) Pets with notes will have a little note icon beside their name. You can mouseover the note icon to see the note (like teams), you can search for "#AH" to list pets with "#AH" in their notes (like you can with teams), etc.

[FuxieDK]

Feature request: Weak Aura-style strings.

I imagine this is a rather big change, but I think it could prove extremely useful..

Weak Aura 2 can display a million different things on the screen. This is shared by exporting your setup to a string (of non-understandable characters), that other people can then import into their own WA2.

What I imagine is, when someone have made the "perfect" team for a pet fight, you can export it, post it in forum here (or elsewhere) and others can import it, and have an exact copy of the team, including NPCID, Min. Health/Max Level (for levelling pets), strategy notes etc etc etc. Basically, everything saved for the team in question.

And no, I don't have an idea what should happen, if you lack one (or more) of the pets in the string, when you import