Submenus DLL

[smf_16 1,835]

@Ulisse Wolf Done, I've added a build script in the repo. You can test it out if you want.

I still have to figure out the details a bit, such as how the item order is going to be handled, and the naming convention of the files. I'd like to stick as close as possible to the package names of sc4pac somehow. For the item order, I would like to use a naming convention for the folders so that the order they appear in the file browser is also the order they will appear in the game. Any suggestions here are welcome of course.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

16 minutes ago, smf_16 said:

@Ulisse Wolf Done, I've added a build script in the repo. You can test it out if you want.

I still have to figure out the details a bit, such as how the item order is going to be handled, and the naming convention of the files. I'd like to stick as close as possible to the package names of sc4pac somehow. For the item order, I would like to use a naming convention for the folders so that the order they appear in the file browser is also the order they will appear in the game. Any suggestions here are welcome of course.

Regarding item order I think we should put the hexadecimal value in the yaml file

[smf_16 1,835]

1 minute ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

Regarding item order I think we should put the hexadecimal value in the yaml file

Yes, that's the obvious solution, but I think it would be nice to have it as a part of the folder structure. Let's move this discussion to https://github.com/sebamarynissen/sc4-submenu-collection/issues/1 I'd say to not pollute this topic too much.

[Kel9509 1,363]

3 hours ago, smf_16 said:

Alright, I've created a repository that explains my idea for the submenu collection

That looks really neat.  I notice that you mention the need for an _icon.png file, but the documentation on GitHub doesn't include that at all.

I've been working on submenus to add @kingofsimcity's parks to various submenus.  But I wasn't sure to add them to the various default ones included with the mod, or to a new one for just his own.  Anyway, hopefully this will make that easier!

Since this mod works by creating an Exemplar Patch, do you think that this functionality might one day extend in a derivative repository to creating exemplar patches for buildings to apply the Allow More Building Styles DLL as well?

[smf_16 1,835]

3 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

Since this mod works by creating an Exemplar Patch, do you think that this functionality might one day extend in a derivative repository to creating exemplar patches for buildings to apply the Allow More Building Styles DLL as well?

Yes! I realized this too when creating the repo, that we can use a very similar approach for the building styles as well. Afaik the additional building styles still haven't been settled though, but once that's done I'll surely set up something similar for it.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

43 minutes ago, smf_16 said:

Afaik the additional building styles still haven't been settled ...

It needs a massive poll set up. CB and I will endorse whatever y'all come up with, but neither of us understand architecture enough to create anything credible for voting.

[Andreas Roth 607]

I've been reading through this thread and was toying with @smf_16's tool in order to move items to one of the pre-defined submenus, and also adding my own. With a bit of tinkering, I was able to get a decent workflow, and adding stuff worked like a charm with some preparation (such as having an icon image ready). Even sub-submenus work fine, as the following example with @JBSimios University of Clayhurst is showing.

As you can see, I re-arranged the files so that all lots that should be grouped in a submenu were moved into a subfolder, as this made it easier to make new submenus and add a number of lots in one go. I also moved the submenu.dat that was created from the root of the Plugins folder to the subfolder where I started the process, and deleted the Exemplar patch after moving the Cohort file into the submenu.dat in order to make things cleaner (see inset in the lower right corner). I'd say that setting up some guidelines about the proper way to do all that would be helpful.

The university buildings now reside in the main submenu of the University of Clayhurst, and the driveways, paths and quads have their own submenu within this submenu. Dealing with the Item Order is easy this way, just type "1", "2", and "3". As mentioned above, there should be some common agreement about using a proper Item Order scheme in the main menus, though. When preparing the uploads for SimCityKurier, I used an internal Item Order sheet and made sure all uploads would fit into the scheme, but obviously, that's not really possible when individual creators publish their own stuff.

Another question is, what to use as an icon for the submenus. The standard icons that @Panda made are fantastic, but obviously, you need advanced graphic skills for that. Maybe there should be some generic icon template that features something like an arrow to the right, indicating that the icon is actually a submenu (similiar to the red "back" arrow between the main menu and the submenu). Any ideas?

[Simizen 1,098]

12 minutes ago, Andreas Roth said:

Another question is, what to use as an icon for the submenus. The standard icons that @Panda made are fantastic, but obviously, you need advanced graphic skills for that. Maybe there should be some generic icon template that features something like an arrow to the right, indicating that the icon is actually a submenu (similiar to the red "back" arrow between the main menu and the submenu). Any ideas?

honestly, that probably wouldn't be a bad idea. And I feel like we could utilize either letters or numbers (or maybe even both). Basically, you could do 0-9 with the arrows, as we might not have that many submenus needing icons, but that's hard to say. And, of course, A-Z means we'd have 26 in case there's quite a bit more as a result. Worst case scenario we use both, giving us 36 in total.

But, the only reason why I think we should use either the numbers or the letters is because, we'd still need some rough idea of what menu we're going into. Cause while the arrows would be great, it would be rather hard to keep track of, if you have 5 or 6 menus with the same arrow on them, all stacked on each other and you can't remember which one you went into. And, the numbers/letters might not be perfect, they could at least help out a bit and give people a general idea of where the lots they're interested in, are located, and wouldn't have to memorize which arrow goes where.

If done correctly, then we could adjust it so that the letters/numbers start off at either A, or 1, or 0 (whatever it happens to settle on), until each submenu gets it's own icons. I'd also suggest, just keeping the base part of the icons the same, regardless of the overall menu. Meaning that, if we were to make the numbers blue, for example, then they should remain blue, regardless of being under the Transport, Utilities, or Civics menus. But the colored ring can still change as needed. Alternatively, just give them all the same thing, and that way you could reduce the amount of resources needed to get it up and running. And, afaik, there's no white menu, so, utilizing a white ring around it would absolutely work. Then you'd only need 1 sheet (or however it works out), to be shown until custom icons are made for everything.

 

Though... another idea came to mind: we have things like Paeng's Parks, etc. So, I wonder if maybe utilizing their Simtropolis avatar wouldn't be a bad idea for the icon? Basically, just using  them and their park mods as an example, you'd download the parks, and then you'd have a submenu with Paeng's avatar, and of course the appropriate tooltips, stating what's in the menu. So, you'd get their avatar as the icon, and the tooltip would say Paeng's Parks. But, of course, this would only work on like items. So, if you were to mix a handful of people's works together into a submenu, such as the various Alleyways, this wouldn't work, simply due to the fact that there's at least 5 people involved with different mods, but they'd all still be grouped together.

Though, we probably do need to work out common things among many of the lots that would be tossed under these submenus so that we could make something better. But, we may just rely on the smaller quad image system implemented with some lots already.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

23 minutes ago, Andreas Roth said:

I've been reading through this thread and was toying with @smf_16's tool in order to move items to one of the pre-defined submenus, and also adding my own. With a bit of tinkering, I was able to get a decent workflow, and adding stuff worked like a charm with some preparation (such as having an icon image ready). Even sub-submenus work fine, as the following example with @JBSimios University of Clayhurst is showing.

As you can see, I re-arranged the files so that all lots that should be grouped in a submenu were moved into a subfolder, as this made it easier to make new submenus and add a number of lots in one go. I also moved the submenu.dat that was created from the root of the Plugins folder to the subfolder where I started the process, and deleted the Exemplar patch after moving the Cohort file into the submenu.dat in order to make things cleaner (see inset in the lower right corner). I'd say that setting up some guidelines about the proper way to do all that would be helpful.

The university buildings now reside in the main submenu of the University of Clayhurst, and the driveways, paths and quads have their own submenu within this submenu. Dealing with the Item Order is easy this way, just type "1", "2", and "3". As mentioned above, there should be some common agreement about using a proper Item Order scheme in the main menus, though. When preparing the uploads for SimCityKurier, I used an internal Item Order sheet and made sure all uploads would fit into the scheme, but obviously, that's not really possible when individual creators publish their own stuff.

Another question is, what to use as an icon for the submenus. The standard icons that @Panda made are fantastic, but obviously, you need advanced graphic skills for that. Maybe there should be some generic icon template that features something like an arrow to the right, indicating that the icon is actually a submenu (similiar to the red "back" arrow between the main menu and the submenu). Any ideas?

For SC4E content we are using this kind of generic icon

[JoelMk2 332]

3 minutes ago, Ulisse Wolf said:

For SC4E content we are using this kind of generic icon

Which font / typeface are you using for this?

[smf_16 1,835]

I was thinking of adding an option to my tool where, when prompted for an icon image, you get the option to write a small text instead of specifying an image. That way you would get a generic icon like the icon above, which allows you to quickly build up subemenus, and only worry about the icons later on. My tool allows modifying icons of existing submenus easily as well. I'll see if I find some time in the coming days, but I have so many SC4 things going on simultaneously at the moment that it's sometimes hard to keep track of 

[Andreas Roth 607]

Admittedly, I don't really like such generic icons with just a text, or a user's avatar. I also thought the white "1", "2", "3" etc. with the blue background on some of the default submenu icons are merely placeholders until @Panda can finish his set. When I made icons for custom content, I always took a screenshot of the actual lot, maybe cut it to show a representative portion of the lot/building, and maybe added some hints as "1x1" for the lot size or the SFBT logo to them, in order to indicate who made them.

I tried using the circular icon for the University of Clayhurst submenu, and while the portion of the screenshot that is showing isn't ideal (I merely pasted the lot image in the background and erased the part outside the circle), this might be a "proper" way to do icons for a specific set of lots. I don't really know why the circles are so small compared to the standard lot icons, maybe to accommodate for the drop shadow, although I don't really think that's necessary.

We could try to enlarge the circle a little, so it would be just as wide as the lot icons, and drop the shadow (pun intended  ), since the active menu icons that are embedded in a menu "frame" never show a shadow (such as the Maxis "Education" icon in my screenshot).  Unfortunately, this would mean all icons that have been made so far need to be re-done again.

Or maybe the circle could be "pointy" on the right side, so it would form some kind of arrow itself, indicating that there's something hidden under this menu entry. Or we could just use the default Maxis oval shape, in order to keep the entire UI more consistent... Well, as usual, the possiblilties are endless.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

31 minutes ago, JoelMk2 said:

Which font / typeface are you using for this?

AXIS Font

https://www.dafontfree.io/axis-font/

[hugues aroux 3,784]

Hi .. if you're interested, I've got this kind of generic background of sub-menu icons. Or any other variant ... just ask ...

   

[Simizen 1,098]

32 minutes ago, Andreas Roth said:

I don't really know why the circles are so small compared to the standard lot icons, maybe to accommodate for the drop shadow, although I don't really think that's necessary.

combination of things:

• ovals were too large, due to the base icon already being a certain sized square
• shadows were accounted for to make it feel like it matches up with the default menus
• white on blue matches that of what Maxis did with the main menus

most of it was collectively agreed on to Maxis-match the default icons. The point of them being buttons, was to let players know that it's a menu. That's why things like the park set with the 2x2 grid are like that, they're there to show that there's another submenu. But we were running into issues in how we wanted some of these to look, so the compromise was the top level submenus would be Maxis-match, and the lower ones would just show (generally) what was in them

The drop shadows I don't think were originally part of it, but due to Maxis-matching, it created a disconnect where people were seeing it and pointing out that it didn't quite feel right, so it lead into having the drop shadows. After that, the shadows ended up getting cut off slightly, so they were shrunk just enough to allow the shadows in. So, yeah, they're probably unoptimal for their purpose, but their goal of getting the point across was met, so that's what we went into.

Nothing's saying they can't be changed if other's don't like it, it was just done this way to make it easier for most players since they wouldn't be altering their HUD/menus most times.

My suggestion of using the modder's avatar as an icon was meant more as a placeholder, but could still be useful in case it's never updated. Cause at least then we'd know that the lots found in that menu would belong to a particular modder who's made plenty of those kinds of mods.

I believe the goal is still to try and unify it, but of course, with the major parts already taken care of, everything else now, is going to take quite a bit more time to work out. So, it'll likely come out as what's used the most by players. So, like, Paeng's modular parks may still get their own Maxis-match icon at some point if the majority of players are running with those mods. But something like a simple park set made by someone from way back in 05 and there's only like 3 of them, and maybe 10 people are using those parks, won't likely be given their own icon for a while, if at all.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Obviously, a lot of thoughts have been incorporated to what we have now, and as I said before, I'm really blown away of what has been accomplished.  I understand the various thoughts about including a drop shadow and all, and you might be right that this is probably the best match to mimic the Maxis icons for the main menu. I was just pondering that the upper levels of the menus use the drop shadow only because they're hovering on top of the City View, while all lot icons reside on a colored background in the menu, without a drop shadow. @hugues aroux's solution with the tiny arrow in the lower right corner of the icon seems to be a good indicator, maybe I'll toy with that idea some more.

[hugues aroux 3,784]

10 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

with the tiny arrow in the lower right corner

In March 2024, I designed a hundred or so sub-menu icons for RSC204, which also chose the "corner" option. (! ). You can find this set (of PNG 176x44) on my drive (link in the footer of this message: Depot... \submenu_icons_T01_240315.zip ).This set is not definitive and could be discussed ... completed ... modified on request/need. In any case, I'll be planning to share it with the community at some point...

[atsf189 460]

17 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

but obviously, you need advanced graphic skills for that.

Icons can be created with photoshop.

export any png icon from reader then import it into photoshop. this becomes the background layer.

you can then paste any image into photoshop resize it duplicate 3 times and remove the color/convert to black and white of the left icon

Then export it as a png and import with reader.

This is what I use It has all the colored circles from Panda

Submenu Icon Template.psd

[Andreas Roth 607]

Oh, I certainly know how to create icons, I made well over one thousand of them for all the custom content at SimCityKurier and elsewhere.  What I meant is creating the icon graphics like @Panda did for the Submenu DLL icons, with the proper colors, silhouettes, shading and all. Those are really well-made and mimic the Maxis iconography perfectly.

[Panda 209]

On 1/3/2025 at 3:57 PM, Andreas Roth said:

I don't really know why the circles are so small compared to the standard lot icons, maybe to accommodate for the drop shadow, although I don't really think that's necessary.

We could try to enlarge the circle a little, so it would be just as wide as the lot icons, and drop the shadow (pun intended  ), since the active menu icons that are embedded in a menu "frame" never show a shadow (such as the Maxis "Education" icon in my screenshot).  Unfortunately, this would mean all icons that have been made so far need to be re-done again.

@Andreas Roth, As others have said, the design for the "top-level" sub-menus tries to mimic the Maxis UI. The reason the circles are relatively small is to accommodate the drop shadow which helps the button "pop" and clarifies that it is a sub-menu not a lot. In order to accommodate the drop shadow within the 44 x 44 pixel size allotted for the icon, I had to shrink the circle so the drop shadow fits completely within the 44 pixel square. I tested aligning the button to the left which would have allowed it to be larger, but the in-game appearance was not centered and didn't look very good. Using an oval didn't make sense since the space available was a square and an oval would have just limited the height rather than provide extra width.

An option without the drop shadow is possible, but I haven't finished the complete set of the top level buttons yet. They way I have my file set up, It shouldn't be too hard to swap out the frames, but at this point I'd prefer to finish the set first.

For the image, @atsf189 mentioned duplicating the image three times and de-saturating the leftmost image. The Maxis UI buttons also have a slight de-saturation and add a blue hue to the white icon on the second from the left image. (See below for an example)

Maxis UI:

Submenu:


Of course, this menu button design was developed primarily for the top-level sub-menus. I think it could be used as a template for other submenus, but I don't think it is set up well for showcasing an image of a lot or lots like the University of Clayhurst example demonstrates.

[JoelMk2 332]

Here is a preliminary version of the Airport submenus for modular airports. I haven't yet tackled prefabricated or functional airports, but this does cover many lots from:

• The SC4D LEX Legacy Airports Pack
• SimCity Aviation Group packs on the STEX
  • Aircraft: A300, A310, A330-200, A330-300, A340-200/300, A340-500/600, 777 (series II), DC-10/MD-11, MD-80, ATR-72/42, Bombardier Dash-8
  • Cargo Planes and CLSS Cargo Lots
  • Air Traffic Control Towers 
  • Hangars (Air NZ and Air NZ Link)
• Diagonal Runway Project (STEX - Scaley McSlither)
• 48m Runways (STEX - ncamferdam)
• Rapid Exit Taxiways (STEX - ncamferdam)
• My own recent uploads 

I've used a combination of patches created via the sc4 tool, and edits to parent cohorts from the SCAG releases. The parent cohorts need to replace or load after files of the same name frmo the original releases. Hence the use of ZZZ folder names. 

I've built the submenus for the entire structure outlined earlier in the thread. Some of the submenus are currently unused, as I don't currently have plugins that fit the bill (e.g. supersonic airliners). I also don't have the 4x runways. 

Happy to hand this over for others to take forward, or take any feedback to make updates. 

Airport Submenus.zip

[smf_16 1,835]

Thanks, I will integrate them in my GitHub repository.

[smf_16 1,835]

@JoelMk2 I've added all your airport submenus to the repository. Great work! I've done this using a new release of my sc4 command line tool which adds a new command sc4 submenu unpack, which unpacks all submenus in a given folder and then adds them to the folder structure from the repository. Works great, and this can be used to add more submenus to the repository.

This means that anyone can now update the icons of the submenus by simply replacing them in the folders and then create a PR in the repository. Feel free to contribute everyone!

[Panda 209]

I'm working on the submenu icons. Here are three buttons for the Landmarks menu:

Landmarks:
57 - Government
58 - Entertainment (theaters, operas, cinemas, stadiums, night clubs, etc.)
59 - Religion (Churches cemetries)

Let me know your thoughts.

[Kel9509 1,363]

15 minutes ago, Panda said:

Let me know your thoughts.

Looks very nice.  I think the choice of spotlights for Entertainment is a good choice.  I wouldn't have thought of them myself, but they do seem to apply to all entertainment.  Very well thought out.

[Simizen 1,098]

1 hour ago, Panda said:

I'm working on the submenu icons. Here are three buttons for the Landscapes menu:

Landmarks:
57 - Government
58 - Entertainment (theaters, operas, cinemas, stadiums, night clubs, etc.)
59 - Religion (Churches cemetries)

Let me know your thoughts.

these look great!!

And I have to agree with Kel9509 here, I didn't even think of the search lights as an option. Which, really, if you think about it, completely makes sense. I mean, 20th Century Fox is literally known for it due to being in their logos since they've been around, lol

[Andreas Roth 607]

Great choice indeed! When I was thinking about the entertainment button, I had a theater mask in mind, but those lights work just as nicely. Churches and Government buildings follow the Maxis scheme perfectly again, I'm looking forward to see the rest of the icons. 

[Andreas Roth 607]

I've been playing around with the Submenus DLL a little more, and created custom submenus for all the sets of lots that I have in my plugins folder, and also created some more patches to move parks, plazas etc. to the default submenus. Now all the menus are cleaned up and I don't have to scroll miles and miles of icons anymore - simply awesome!  What I still need to do is creating some proper icons, maybe with the little triangle in the lower right corner, so it's easier to see if there's a submenu or not. Also, my menu descriptions are pretty basic right now, but it does the trick.

Naturally, the modder in me wanted to have all the menu descriptions in German, so I added German LTEXT files to the default submenu DATs. @memo: Feel free to include those from the attachment below in the next release. I also noticed that the "submenu-essentials.dat" contains some German text strings, but not the English equivalent, are those somewhere else (maybe in the game files) already?

@Panda: I've also added the last three icons that you made; they look excellent in the game alright. I noticed some minor bugs, though: several icons have a slight "pixel shift" when you hover over them with the mouse. This includes the "deluxe police station", "sports facilities" in the park menu and also the new "government" button. I fixed the aforementioned icons and included them into the zip file below. I think some of the ploppable R/C/I icons are also affected, but I cannot test this properly since I don't use those a lot, hence the menu spots in the game are empty for me.

I also have another question for @memo or anybody else with the proper knowledge: How does the Submenus DLL determine if a lot is an El-Rail station or a GLR station? From what I can see, the properties are the same, but maybe I'm missing something? Most of the stations that I had installed appeared in the proper menus, but a handful shows up in the wrong one. Now I could create some patches for those manually, but I was surprised that the DLL picked everything up and sorted it properly in the first place. 

Oh, and I caught a little bug in the power menu. PEGs Hydroelectric Dam showed up in the "dirty power" menu, even though the properties are properly set to "hydroelectric power" (Power Plant Type: 0x00000003).

 

EDIT: Ok, I've been tinkering a little more, and I think this could work as an icon for a submenu of a set of lots. The default state has an orange frame like the menu buttons and shows a little red arrow in the lower right corner. When you hover with the mouse over the icon, it gets the default white frame, but the arrow still shows up. Once you've selected a submenu, and go back, the button shows the active state, which is indicated by the default grey frame, plus the red arrow. I wanted to make the symbol as unobstructive as possible, but still notable enough. What do you think?

Attachment:

submenus_german.zip

[memo 1,445]

16 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

I also noticed that the "submenu-essentials.dat" contains some German text strings, but not the English equivalent, are those somewhere else (maybe in the game files) already?

The initial version of the DLL came with 4 submenus for the parks menu, including German translations. The English LTexts are included in the individual submenu dat files. For the submenus added in later versions of the DLL, I didn't translate the descriptions.

16 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

I also have another question for @memo or anybody else with the proper knowledge: How does the Submenus DLL determine if a lot is an El-Rail station or a GLR station?

There's a heuristic that checks whether the building height (occupant size) is below 15.5 meters. See here for the precise calculation. It works correctly in many cases, but fails, for example, if an El-Rail station uses an overhanging prop instead of an ordinary building model. @Tyberius06 was planning to define a new Occupant Group for GLR stations, but I don't know the ID yet and there aren't (m)any stations using it so far.

16 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

Oh, and I caught a little bug in the power menu. PEGs Hydroelectric Dam showed up in the "dirty power" menu, even though the properties are properly set to "hydroelectric power" (Power Plant Type: 0x00000003).

According to the new_properties.xml file, power plant type 3 is "Natural Gas", so it looks like a bug in the PEG Hydroelectric Dam dat file.

16 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

The default state has an orange frame like the menu buttons and shows a little red arrow in the lower right corner.

Looks pretty good. Perhaps, the arrow could be a bit larger so that it stands out more.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

16 hours ago, Andreas Roth said:

Oh, and I caught a little bug in the power menu. PEGs Hydroelectric Dam showed up in the "dirty power" menu, even though the properties are properly set to "hydroelectric power" (Power Plant Type: 0x00000003).

 

17 minutes ago, memo said:

According to the new_properties.xml file, power plant type 3 is "Natural Gas", so it looks like a bug in the PEG Hydroelectric Dam dat file.

This is very common as many have used the gas-fired power plant to simulate hydroelectric and geothermal power plants. Currently, new classes of power plants cannot be added because it requires a compelte rewrite of the utility simulation. The only thing that can be done is to add a specific OG.