The Windower 5.0 (alpha)

Leviathan.Arcon

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By Leviathan.Arcon 2018-07-01 14:53:20

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Hello everyone,

In pursuit of greater stability, functionality, and cleaner code, we have been working on Windower v5 for the last two years and it has finally reached the point where we would like to get some feedback from the community. Some of the new features added include:

UDP packet events
Data sharing across addons
Access to memory from Lua
Better UI tools to make prettier addons
Low level C interface through FFI
Redesigned addon API for simpler usage

That last point does mean that v5 will not be backwards compatible, meaning none of the old addons will work in v5. But to reassure you, we will be supporting Windower v4 for the foreseeable future and keeping it updated and fix bugs, so people who do not want to switch can still play with it.

In this alpha release, we are looking for:

Feedback from potential future developers - Do the APIs and libraries work for you?
Basic information from potential users - Did it crash when you tried to use it? Where is your crash log? etc.

Please note that while we consider the (core) API stable enough to start a public alpha there will certainly be some changes down the road. Entire libraries are still missing, others may be changed or rewritten, so expect fluctuations at this point.

Everything you need to start is on our wiki (including various download options):
https://github.com/Windower/packages/wiki

Communication will happen primarily on our Discord server in the designated "Windower 5" channels:
https://discord.gg/aUrHCvk

You can file bug reports in the channel in there or on the issue tracker:
https://github.com/Windower/packages/issues

Thanks!

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By Jetackuu 2018-07-01 15:40:14

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Thank you for your hard work.

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Asura.Iminiillusions

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By Asura.Iminiillusions 2018-07-01 15:41:58

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Finally! Thank you guys so much for this. We've all been waiting a long time for this!

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Bismarck.Cloudstrafie

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By Bismarck.Cloudstrafie 2018-07-01 16:04:32

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Are there currently any addons that are in development or this is just for base testing? Thank you for your hard work

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Fenrir.Niflheim

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By Fenrir.Niflheim 2018-07-01 16:17:20

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There are 4~ addons currently.

This is mostly about getting people playing with the API.
We need feedback so we can create a better dev experience.

We are also encourage people to port addons to get the feel of the api.

Take a look at these links of examples of the new user interface library. Videos, and images complements of ZetaEpyon.

YouTube Video Placeholder

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By Lakshmi.Ihzuna 2018-07-01 16:28:58

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Can this be installed without altering my existing windower set up?
I ask cause I was previously hit with the whole crash at swap from pol to xi bug and have just recently got everything back working like I want it.

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By Fenrir.Niflheim 2018-07-01 16:38:33

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The Zip(portable) on the wiki page is probably the right option for you. here is the link to the wiki again: https://github.com/Windower/packages/wiki

with the Zip(portable) you just:
1) download,
2) unzip to where you want to store the files,
3) run the new windower.exe in the unzipped file location.

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By Draylo 2018-07-01 16:39:20

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Wow very nice! Glad to see it is still worked on.

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By Lakshmi.Elidyr 2018-07-01 19:11:59

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Thanks guys. :D

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By Nekseus 2018-07-01 19:12:00

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Launcher Preview

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Nekseus

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By Nekseus 2018-07-01 19:18:11

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Lakshmi.Ihzuna said: »

Can this be installed without altering my existing windower set up?
I ask cause I was previously hit with the whole crash at swap from pol to xi bug and have just recently got everything back working like I want it.

Windower 5 is not a version update to 4, it's a complete rewrite and is completely independent. However of course this is alpha.

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By Elizabet 2018-07-01 20:17:43

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My #1 wish: button bind support for controller.

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By Sylph.Siccmade 2018-07-01 23:53:25

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I've been using ffxi switchmon for the longest, it's a great program.

I tri-box very vanilla, play each character, have the screen switch set to my DS4 on two buttons, one forward, one back.

Any chance there could be a workable Windower addon for this purpose? I would like the option to assign a character to a button or key bind.

Thanks for all you guys do, /salute.

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By Iryoku 2018-07-02 00:48:26

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Elizabet said: »

My #1 wish: button bind support for controller.

It's planned, but not implemented yet.

Sylph.Siccmade said: »

I've been using ffxi switchmon for the longest, it's a great program.

I tri-box very vanilla, play each character, have the screen switch set to my DS4 on two buttons, one forward, one back.

Any chance there could be a workable Windower addon for this purpose? I would like the option to assign a character to a button or key bind.

Thanks for all you guys do, /salute.

It should be possible as an addon once controller binding is implemented, but I'm not 100% sure on this. I would have to think about how to implement it.

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By Ragnarok.Casey 2018-07-02 12:44:22

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Launcher missing "hardware mouse" option -- wasn't sure if this issue is valid for "packages" issues, since it's technically a launcher issue?

At that rate, assuming hardware mouse is forced on, dgvoodoo2 still has a missing hardware mouse. Ashita managed to fix this by hacking around the problem by drawing its own cursor with a plugin as dgvoodoo2 is what actually breaks it, so i don't expect it to get support here in windower 5 at all.

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By Fenrir.Niflheim 2018-07-02 14:34:01

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Thanks Casey for bring up the topic.

We actually do encourage that people submit any issues to the packages issue tracker.

As it will insure we see the issue and it's the only place avaliable to everyone right now.

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By Ragnarok.Casey 2018-07-02 14:44:27

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makes sense. I'll report to the issue tracker.

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By Iryoku 2018-07-02 17:00:37

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Yes for the time being we're accepting any Windower 5 issues on the packages issue tracker. We do have a separate issue tracker for launcher and core related issues, but it's not public yet, so we're using the packages tracker as an interim solution.

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By Sidiov 2018-07-02 17:37:35

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Any specific dotnet version requirements? I am trying this under wine with 4.0 (which is what Ashita works with) but fails right away with various errors some of which appear to be dotnet related.

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By Iryoku 2018-07-02 17:59:40

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.Net Framework 4.5

It was also tested to work with Mono, but that was some time ago, and I'm not sure it still works. If there's a problem getting it to work on Wine with either .Net Framework 4.5 or Mono, let us know. We do want this to work on Wine.

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By Sylph.Reain 2018-07-02 18:20:23

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Not really a Windower issue but Windows defender Anti-Virus triggers a false positive on preview build of Windows 10. (Version 1803. Build: 17704.1000)

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By Fenrir.Niflheim 2018-07-02 19:58:43

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One of Windower Dev Team members also had this come up this morning.

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By Asura.Wiccaan 2018-08-03 01:23:59

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Ragnarok.Casey said: »

Launcher missing "hardware mouse" option -- wasn't sure if this issue is valid for "packages" issues, since it's technically a launcher issue?

At that rate, assuming hardware mouse is forced on, dgvoodoo2 still has a missing hardware mouse. Ashita managed to fix this by hacking around the problem by drawing its own cursor with a plugin as dgvoodoo2 is what actually breaks it, so i don't expect it to get support here in windower 5 at all.

For the record, Ashita's method of fixing this is not via rendering its own cursor. It's by fixing the problem itself.

If Windower wants the info on how to do this:
- Hook SetCursor
- Check for null cursor handle, if null override with Windows default arrow (IDC_ARROW).
- Enforce the cursor to show via ShowCursor.

(I am atom0s, the lead developer of Ashita, if anyone wonders about the validity of this info.)

Side note, grats on v5 Windower. Best of luck! :)

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By Vausabant 2018-08-03 14:29:11

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Oh no what have I done? So I wanted to preview the 5. Looks feels nice. Now windower 4 wont scale right. It keeps zooming in. I have disabled all the dpi scaling, told it to scale to 1080 p but it wont work. 5 still runs correctly though.

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