Possibilities of the NAM TAB function

[jplumbley 5]

I am by far no modder, but I have been playing around with The Reader and I have figured a few things out myself and I got to thinking. I noticed that with NAM you guys have made icons where you can TAB through a bunch of different road pieces or GLR pieces. And I was wondering if there is a way to do that with all types of lots, like having one icon for all the trail pieces in the Parks Menu and just TAB through them, or one icon for all the different train stations in the Rail Menu. Is it possible to do this with all lots? It would greatly clean up my menus if I could do this.

[Andreas Roth 639]

This has been tried several times before, but unfortunately, the TAB feature only works for network items, but not for lots.

[GoaSkin 2]

Theoretically it is possible to create a rotation ring (that what declares a set of puzzle pieces) containing LOTs. You have to make entries in the interchange RUL file and declare it there like a puzzle piece. On the Exemplar, there is one ResourceKeyType what makes it possible to link to a LOT exemplar instead of a model directy.

The bad side is that the interchange RUL file has a fixed Instance ID and is distributed with the NAM. Nothing else may contain additions to it - only overrides. The goal of the NAM is to provide network additions and not to abuse it to make LOT rotation rings possible.

But you asked about trail paths. These may be added to the NAM if someone converts them into functional puzzle pieces usable for pedestrians. I once had the idea to create ped trails for the NAM and played around with that. I stopped the work because there were optical bugs and I did not found out a solution.

[prince_of_sims 0]

so the TAB rotation function can only be applied to network lots and not other type of lots? say jeronij's seawalls.... would it be possible to create a TAB rotation ring for them?

[jplumbley 5]

Thanks for your great input there goa. So if I were to do this it would force me to do it over everytime NAM was updated and a new patch was released, is what I get from what you are saying. Is there a way to take a NAM file that provides the TAB function, save a backup for it, take the basic function of that file and add new lots and keep 2 separate file with different files names?

[jplumbley 5]

Sorry, I was reading some other posts and threads and I think I may have answered my own question already. If I am understanding this correctly, which I think I am, is that it cant be done using the Interchange RUL because it gets overwritten with a new NAM and all of my new rotations would be lost. Am I understanding this correctly Goa?

[GoaSkin 2]

Yes this is true.

By the way the ped mall puzzle pieces come with park- and yimby-effect to let them be a good place for commercial buildings around.

[Tropod 144]

Date: 7/27/2005 7:50:51 PM Author: GoaSkin Theoretically it is possible to create a rotation ring (that what declares a set of puzzle pieces) containing LOTs........

quote>

I tried this ages ago & my findings on the matter is that it is not possible. Granted though, as always I may of missed something. Wouldn't be the first time .

Many items are imbedded in the exe & work off of the UI Control (in a manner of speaking). Certain items & properties are directly linked with an items' ButtonControl &/or the manner in which an item is placed. The LotResourceKey & ItemButtonID properties, in conjunction with other EXE checking mechanisms, are two of the main UI ButtonControls that are used for Lots & various other items. They have a big say in how an item functions & what properties will & won't work for the Exemplar containing either one of these properties.

 

[jplumbley 5]

I'm not worried about the park effect and yimby effects. I just want to clean up my menus a bit. I spent a couple of hours last night looking at how you have done some of the GLR Exemplars, S3Ds and LTXT files and I'm learned quite a bit last night and I think I'm close to attempting to try to make a ring of my own but that may take a little while. But thanks for the great help goa and tropod. Maybe I can figure something out.

[morrisnatte 0]

I just want to emphasize: It would be truly revolutionary if someone could discover an easy way to enable TAB-cycling through any group of items. This would make ploppable RCIs, extensive embankment sets, trail sets and much more worthwhile without having to waste your time scrolling endlessly. Whoever makes this possible is my hero.

[Karybdis 34]

And,again, I will just take up on behalf of the modd squad again to say NOT possible

We cant update the NAM every time someone wants to add rotation rings, even if we could find a way to do rotational lot rings, which according to all current tests is impossible anyways.

 

The only thing you could do is make network puzzle pieces for a given set of lots, which would be really pointless, and would still be impossible because they'd all require NAM updates.... Believe me, I wish we could do this too, but its a moot point with current research.

 

[vil 3]

If its technically possible (IF!!!!) i think the NAM should try to accomodate menu TAB rings for sets of lots that are downloaded often and would clearly benefit from such treatment. This would probably be more useful at this stage than further NAM extensions. It would have to be totally voluntary on the part of the NAM crew and, while obviously more work, would be VERY VERY useful. Someone would have to make it work first, but please dont get discouraged by the negative noises being made The NAM would not have to be updated more often - the ring requests would have to wait for a new NAM release. If its technically possible...

[scorer 12]

I know, that doesn't fit perfectly here, but it helped me with my menu clutter:

You can use your mousewheel to scroll the menus. This speeds up the process quite a bit! After finding out that (which was just recently, I really felt bad about all the wasted time scrolling through the menu for 4 years ), I felt no need anymore for tabbing through sets, since your can work through your lists alot faster and still see the icons to distuingish between your lots.