Query Tool UI Extensions DLL

[Null 45 3,121]

A DLL plugin that adds various enhancements to the building query tool and query dialog.

For DLL developers, it also provides services that can be used to add more building query values and/or customize the building and network tool tips.

Download:  https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/36202-query-tool-ui-extensions-dll-for-SimCity-4/

Source Code: https://github.com/0xC0000054/sc4-query-ui-hooks

Shift + Click Object Copying

Some objects can be copied by holding down the shift key and clicking on them with the query tool.

Buildings

Clicking a building will activate the Place Lot tool with the building's lot selected.

Flora

Clicking certain flora types will activate the Place Flora tool with that flora type selected. Note that this only works with the flora objects that have a hover query tool tip.

New Building Query Variables

The DLL provides a number of new variables that can be used in the LTEXT files of a building query dialog in the form of #variable_name#. See the Query Variable List page on GitHub.

Lua Function to Read Occupant Properties

A null45_query_ui_extensions.get_property_value function is provided to allow query UIs to read occupant exemplar properties. This can be used to show properties that are not in the Query Variable List page, or use Lua code to customize the display formatting of the occupant property values. See null45_query_ui_extensions.lua for details.

Extended Terrain Query

The TerrainQuery command now shows the x, y, and z variables without truncating to the first decimal place, and the cell moisture value is now provided as part of the standard query info.

Alternate Terrain Query

This mode is accessed by holding the Alt key. It shows the humidity and ambient wind information, this data appears to be for the entire tile instead of varying per-cell.

Pollution Terrain Query

This mode is accessed by holding the Ctrl key. It shows the flammability, land value, mayor rating, and pollution (air, water, garbage, and radiation).

Advanced Query Tool Tips

These tool tips are accessed by holding Control + Alt + Shift when hovering over an appropriate item.

Flora

This tool tip provides the flora object's exemplar name, birth date, and last seeding date.

Network

This tool tip provides technical info about the transportation networks, excluding power lines and pipes.

Props

This tool tip provides the prop object's exemplar name.

SC4QueryUIHooks INI File

This file contains the following options.

EnableOccupantQuerySounds

This option controls whether the query sounds are played when clicking on an item to open the query dialog or copy the lot, the default is true. The occupant query sound properties affected by this option are SFX:Query Sound, SFX:Query Sound Abandoned and SFX:Query Sound Decayed.

LogBuildingPluginPath

This option controls whether the building name and plugin file path will be written to the log file when the query dialog is opened, the default is false.

System Requirements

• SimCity 4 version 641
• Windows 10 or later
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x86 Redistribute

The plugin may work on Windows 7 or later, but I do not have the ability to test that.

Installation

1. Close SimCity 4.
2. Copy SC4QueryUIHooks.dll, SC4QueryUIHooks.dat, and SC4QueryUIHooks.ini into the top-level of the Plugins folder in the SimCity 4 installation directory or Documents/SimCity 4 directory.
3. Start SimCity 4.

Troubleshooting

The plugin should write a SC4QueryUIHooks.log file in the same folder as the plugin.
The log contains status information for the most recent run of the plugin.

If you would like to make voluntary contributions to support me in continuing to create more content for SimCity 4, I accept donations via PayPal: https://paypal.me/0xC0000054

Thanks to the few people who have donated to me.

[Kel9509 1,484]

I took a look at Equinox's expanded Query UI mod to see if I could add some of this DLL's functionality to it, but frankly I'm at a complete loss on what to do.  I loaded up his Residential Building UI DAT file in Reader, to see if it's just a matter of adding the appropriate variables to an LTEXT dialog, but instead I found this:

Does anyone know how to begin to edit this thing to incorporate Null's awesome mod?

 

[Null 45 3,121]

12 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Does anyone know how to begin to edit this thing to incorporate Null's awesome mod?

UI file editing is complex, and I am by no means an expert. As I have mentioned previously, editing the Census Repository UI to work with my More Demand Info mod took longer than writing the DLL, and that was an easy case because I only had to add text labels and associated LTEXT files to the blank spots already in the dialog.

What I ended up doing is:

1. Export the decompressed UI file from the reader.
2. Load it into ilive's UIEditor (I was never able to figure to how to use the Reader 1.5.x UI editor, plus this way if you mess up you can just reexport the original UI).
3. Edit it.
4. Import it into the Reader.

[Kel9509 1,484]

6 hours ago, Null 45 said:

What I ended up doing is:

1. Export the decompressed UI file from the reader.
2. Load it into ilive's UIEditor (I was never able to figure to how to use the Reader 1.5.x UI editor, plus this way if you mess up you can just reexport the original UI).
3. Edit it.
4. Import it into the Reader.

Thanks.  I was looking around here and found this: 

I've downloaded the UIEditor and will give it a try, even though I have zero experience at this stuff.  Gotta start from the beginning, I suppose.  If I were to add anything to the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial queries,  it'll be the occupant capacities of the various buildings as well as the building style.  I'll see if I can do it, and cram them into the respective query. 

[Null 45 3,121]

3 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

If I were to add anything to the Residential, Commercial, and Industrial queries,  it'll be the occupant capacities of the various buildings as well as the building style.  I'll see if I can do it, and cram them into the respective query. 

IIRC, the game doesn't support building styles for Industrial. I have considered trying to add the building styles to the building advanced/debug query, but I was worried that could break things if the list of styles is too long.

[Kel9509 1,484]

I have successfully followed the tutorial I linked above to create a custom query as a test case:

Now that I know the basics about creating a custom query, I'll try editing Equinox's expanded RCI Queries to incorporate Null45's awesome new mod.  I hope it's not too difficult!

[Kel9509 1,484]

And success!  I've added the Building Style ID to Equinox's Expanded Residential Query!  It's at the bottom:

Of course, there IS a problem with this mod.  The problem is, there's a crapload of custom queries out there to edit if you really want to make good use of it.  I was so happy that this worked, that when I clicked on a NYBT building and nothing showed up, I got disappointed.

And the standard NYBT query is used a lot in my cities and it obviously doesn't have any of the add-ons from Equinox, let alone Null 45's mod.  So it looks like if I want to really get some good use out of this mod, I'll need to edit some of the more popular queries out there to update them.  

I'll play around some more with the DLL's functions too.  I'll try adding the Occupancies next and see what they look like.  I might also re-order the positioning of things as well, to make it more intuitive and informative.  Information that is similar should be grouped together.  I'd welcome suggestions on it.  

Eventually, I'll upload these queries here to the STEX as updates/replacements to the existing ones.

[Kel9509 1,484]

Houston, we have a problem...

So I've tested adding the residential occupancy and capacity amounts into the Residential Query to see what would happen. 

Capacity works correctly.  The "capacity" number reports the capacity that each building would fill, at the proper wealth levels. Here, the Query Tool was modified to report the "capacity" of R1 (aka low-wealth) sims.  By clicking on a high-wealth residential building, it reports the amount of low-wealth capacity that'd exist if the building were to dilapidate into a low-wealth building:

In the shot above, the Query tool reports at the bottom above the button for R$ Capacity as 2,559 sims.  That is the same amount that PIM-X reports in the building exemplar:

However, the amount of "Occupants", does not appear correct at all.  In the first screenshot above, it reports R$ occupants as 11,206,656.  I don't know why it reports that number.  I don't have that many R$ sims in my entire region, which is about 1.5 million total sims.  

Here it is again on a different building.  The number is always 11 million and something:

I changed the Query to try reporting R2 (medium-wealth) Occupancy, but the same issue occurred:

Here, Bunker Towers and Ladywood House reported the same number: 11,206,656.  Not sure why that is.

Even the High-Wealth (R3) Occupancy reported an 11 million amount:

And Bunker Towers reported the same 11,206,656 amount for R3 residents as it did for R2 residents:

So I don't know what Occupancy really means here.  I haven't tested the Commercial and Industrial ones yet, but I'll try to do that when I get the chance.  I'm not sure what it was intended to report but it's reporting something odd, for sure.

One other question is, I know that the Building Style ID reports only the numbers not the names, but will additional #s be reported if the Additional Building Styles DLL is installed and used?  

Overall, I'm not sure of the benefit of the Capacity being reported.  The one benefit it seems is that it's available as an LTEXT item instead of through an instance ID available only in a particular query.  So maybe the "capacity" amount can be added to OTHER non-query LTEXTs such as building descriptions?  Otherwise, the usefulness of this mod seems best with the Building Style being reported, particularly if it works in conjunction with the Additional Building Styles DLL, so that a Mayor can manage their buildings properly if desired.

[Null 45 3,121]

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

So I don't know what Occupancy really means here.  I haven't tested the Commercial and Industrial ones yet, but I'll try to do that when I get the chance.  I'm not sure what it was intended to report but it's reporting something odd, for sure.

Yeah, I suspect that the header signature I am using has wrong return type. It is a 32-bit value when it looks like it should be a 16-bit value, the two bytes of garbage data would explain the values you are seeing.

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

One other question is, I know that the Building Style ID reports only the numbers not the names, but will additional #s be reported if the Additional Building Styles DLL is installed and used?  

Yes, it reports whatever styles the building has in its exemplar.

2 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

Overall, I'm not sure of the benefit of the Capacity being reported.  The one benefit it seems is that it's available as an LTEXT item instead of through an instance ID available only in a particular query. 

It was intended for buildings with multiple wealth levels, e.g. a Cs§§ building that also provides a smaller number of Cs§ jobs. SC4 would only report the Cs§§ job numbers in its standard query. The original request was in the following post:

3 hours ago, Kel9509 said:

So maybe the "capacity" amount can be added to OTHER non-query LTEXTs such as building descriptions?

What do you mean by 'building descriptions'?

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.0.1, which fixes an issue with the *_occupancy tokens returning an incorrect value.

[Kel9509 1,484]

I plan on testing this again later this week, hopefully, to explore the Commercial and Industrial options, and then to refine the Query eventually to get it into a place where it can be uploaded.

One other thing I want to do is create some new Building Styles, and see if those show up.  I'm wondering what will happen if there are 8 building styles.  I'm not sure, but hopefully the Query will not need to be stretched out, and can do a "word wrap" or something like that so that there's enough room for them to show up.

[Null 45 3,121]

27 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

One other thing I want to do is create some new Building Styles, and see if those show up.  I'm wondering what will happen if there are 8 building styles.  I'm not sure, but hopefully the Query will not need to be stretched out, and can do a "word wrap" or something like that so that there's enough room for them to show up.

I don't expect that to be a major issue as most buildings would has at most the default 4 styles. That was one of the main reasons that I used the style numbers, they are much more compact than the names. I would expect that the text gets clipped, but I have never tested it.

The whole point of having additional styles is that you can have much more fine grained control over what grows than with the game's 4 default styles. Also, the Industrial buildings don't have building styles, the game only uses that property for Residential and Commercial buildings.

[Kel9509 1,484]

15 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

I don't expect that to be a major issue as most buildings would has at most the default 4 styles. That was one of the main reasons that I used the style numbers, they are much more compact than the names. I would expect that the text gets clipped, but I have never tested it.

The whole point of having additional styles is that you can have much more fine grained control over what grows than with the game's 4 default styles. Also, the Industrial buildings don't have building styles, the game only uses that property for Residential and Commercial buildings.

I do see in the query text options that there is a setting that says "wrapped=no", so I wonder if I change it to wrapped=yes, it might work.  I'll try testing it.  If compactness isn't an issue, can the names be displayed?

[Kel9509 1,484]

A quick update before I move on to Commercial and Industrial Queries: I've added the 3 Occupancy/Capacity entries to the Residential Query, each as 3 separate lines.  I also tested a version of the Query with all of the entries in one LTEXT file, and turned on wordwrap=yes.  

Here's the regular version:

And here's the version with word-wrap.  You'll notice the beginning wealth indicators are on the prior line:

Still, I think word wrap using Building Style names might be feasible, because if it is a traditional word wrap, it'll keep the word complete and only wrap upon encountering a longer word.  If people have building style names that are excessively large, it might be an issue.  I'd like to test it with the Maxis defaults if possible.  And in the meantime, I'll try the Commercial and Industrial queries.

 

[Null 45 3,121]

32 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

If compactness isn't an issue, can the names be displayed?

That should be easy to add, I have code in the More Building Styles DLL that I can adapt. It gets the names from the Building Style dialog radio buttons, so those strings can be long.

[madhatter106 3,931]

1 hour ago, Kel9509 said:

A quick update before I move on to Commercial and Industrial Queries: I've added the 3 Occupancy/Capacity entries to the Residential Query, each as 3 separate lines.  I also tested a version of the Query with all of the entries in one LTEXT file, and turned on wordwrap=yes.  

Here's the regular version:

And here's the version with word-wrap.  You'll notice the beginning wealth indicators are on the prior line:

Still, I think word wrap using Building Style names might be feasible, because if it is a traditional word wrap, it'll keep the word complete and only wrap upon encountering a longer word.  If people have building style names that are excessively large, it might be an issue.  I'd like to test it with the Maxis defaults if possible.  And in the meantime, I'll try the Commercial and Industrial queries.

 

Remember that you'll need some extra room at the bottom of the residential queries for the My Sim.
Standard residential queries are already the most jam-packed with info and thus are the "tallest" vertically (just compare their heights to those of commercial and industrial buildings, which don't care about things like the School Grade and the Hospital Grade).  And then throwing in the My Sim at the bottom left, next to the close button.  With the inclusion of all your additional text, it might be running into/over the My Sim picture, so you might need to adjust your query layout a little bit.
I had a devil of a time working out the residential custom query for some uploads which I have yet to share on the STEX - I could have left the My Sim out of it, perhaps, but didn't want to aggravate or create any problems down the road...

[Kel9509 1,484]

2 hours ago, Null 45 said:

That should be easy to add, I have code in the More Building Styles DLL that I can adapt. It gets the names from the Building Style dialog radio buttons, so those strings can be long.

Excellent!  At least it's worth testing it out to see if there's room for them.

1 hour ago, madhatter106 said:

Remember that you'll need some extra room at the bottom of the residential queries for the My Sim.

I completely didn't realize the My Sim was even there!  I think a lot of people leave it out.  Equinox didn't, but his original query is bugged because he didn't move it.

Here's the original Maxis query, showing Bob Newbie as a sim living there, with a header that says "My Sim" (I wonder why they couldn't use a code for the Sim's name?):

Here's Equinox's original expanded query:

And here's what I came up with for now:

[Kel9509 1,484]

Working on the Commercial Query now.  This time, I decided to move the Building Styles to the bottom, and give more room for them to be displayed.  I made that line left-aligned for more room as well.  The result is, there's plenty of room for building style names if the DLL mod can be made to support displaying names.  For this test, I just repeated displaying the existing styles twice.  

 

[Null 45 3,121]

44 minutes ago, Kel9509 said:

The result is, there's plenty of room for building style names if the DLL mod can be made to support displaying names.

I just implemented this for version 1.1.0.

Release version 1.1.0, which changes the building_styles variable to display the style names (when available).

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.2.0, which adds a growth_stage variable that displays the growth stage of the building's lot.

[Kel9509 1,484]

13 hours ago, Null 45 said:

Release version 1.2.0, which adds a growth_stage variable that displays the growth stage of the building's lot.

Excellent!  I'll update the Query Mod for this info as well, as soon as I can.

[Kel9509 1,484]

Here's a working test of the next version of the RCI DLL Query Upgrade Mod.  The Building Lot Growth Stage is the last bolded item, right above the Make Historical option.

I considered it saying "Stage #" instead of just the number.  But I think just showing the number is good.  

I also expanded the area for the Building Style names, since with the proposal for 12 Community Styles plus additional individual custom styles, plus the base 4 from Maxis, there theoretically could be buildings that hold many overlapping styles.  Maybe.  Or maybe not?  How many buildings will really apply for all 16+ styles?  Let me know if it can be smaller.

 

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.3.0, which adds a mysim_name variable that provides the name of the MySim that lives in the selected residence.

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.4.0, which has the following changes:

Added building_full_funding_capacity and building_full_funding_coverage variables.

The building_full_funding_capacity variable displays the cost for Education, Fire, Health, Police and Power buildings at the full (100%) capacity. For Fire and Police stations this is the coverage radius.

The building_full_funding_coverage variable displays the cost for Education, and Health buildings at the full (100%) coverage radius (School Bus/Ambulance).

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.5.0, which has the following changes:

• Using Shift + Click on a building with the query tool copies the lot instead of showing the query dialog.
• Added a SC4QueryUIHooks.ini file with an option to disable all query dialog sounds.

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.6.0, which adds a building_is_w2w query variable that returns a 'Yes' or 'No' value based on whether the building has a W2W occupant group.

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.6.1, which displays an empty string if the token doesn't have any data.

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.7.0, which adds a LogBuildingPluginPath option to the INI file.

The  LogBuildingPluginPath option writes the building's name and plugin file location to the log file when opening the building query dialog.
This option is off-by-default, but can be turned on to help locate the plugin file for an installed building.

[Null 45 3,121]

Release version 1.8.0, which has to following changes:

• Changed the building_style variable to use a pipe character as the list item separator.
• Added a building_style_lines variable that shows a list of the building's styles, with each style after the first one on its own line.

[Kel9509 1,484]

1 hour ago, Null 45 said:

Release version 1.8.0, which has to following changes:

• Changed the building_style variable to use a pipe character as the list item separator.
• Added a building_style_lines variable that shows a list of the building's styles, with each style after the first one on its own line.

The building styles in a list at first wouldn't display at all, and I suspected that the documentation was wrong.  The variable that works is "#building_styles_lines#" not "#building_style_lines#".  It wasn't working so I guessed that the legacy command "#building_styles#" was merely augmented with "_lines" and it worked.

However, the additional custom building styles no longer show!  Only the Maxis ones appear now.  

Also, the Wall-to-Wall query doesn't work anymore either.  

Something is definitely not working right in this version, unfortunately.