Development

Manialinks in XAseco1 and XAseco2

This is a very complex topic and i can not include this here, but there are several Tutorials out there (see the links below). The mean problems with these Tutorials is, that they did not include the specials about creating Manialinks for server related Widgets, but here i try to compensate these.

Development

Notes about Manialinks for XAseco1 and XAseco2

• The <manialinks> is the root element for server side Manialinks and not <manialink>, please note the s in the first one!
• The elements <timeout>, <include>, <entry> and <fileentry> does not work with server side Manialinks, because the Game client only send the Action Id to the dedicated server.
• With $h you can link to a Manialink, but be sure you have wrote it lower case, otherwise the link does not work. All other codes like $L can be written upper case.
• With TM2 new dimensions for Manialinks was introduced, now it is possible to make Manialinks for Wide-Screens in 16:9. If you want to reuse your current Manialink from TMF for TM2 and for Wide-Screens, then you have to adjust all posn and sizen attributes. Just multiply all your X with 2.5 and Y with 1.875.
• The max. size of the Viewport in TMF is 128 x 96 and in TM2 it is 320 x 180.
• With the update from 2013-04-24 there are new attributes available for Manialinks.
• For debugging Maniascripts in Manialinks you can now add the attribute name="NameOfThisManialink", which will be shown in the CTRL+G console, see here for more details.

Development

Accessing in-game Flags

To use the in-game Nation-Flags you can use the following piece of code:

<quad posn="0 0 1" sizen="24 24" image="file://Skins/Avatars/Flags/ger.dds" />
		

A full list of available flags can be found in: %ProgramData%\ManiaPlanet\PacksCache\ManiaPlanet_Skins.zip\Skins\Avatars\Flags\

In Trackmania (TMF) you have the same possibility, but instead of file:// you have to use tmtp://.

<quad posn="0 0 1" sizen="24 24" image="tmtp://Skins/Avatars/Flags/ger.dds" />
		

A full list of available flags can be found in: %Install-Dir%\GameData\Skins\Avatars\Flags\

Development

Accessing in-game Player-Avatar

To use the Player-Avatar in a quad, you can use this piece of code in Maniaplanet:

<quad posn="0 0 1" sizen="24 24" image="file://Avatars/<PLAYER_LOGIN>/default" />
		

Just replace <PLAYER_LOGIN> with the login from the Player.

In Trackmania (TMF) you have to access the list-method GetDetailedPlayerInfo to get the structure Avatar, in this structure you will find the FileName which holds the Path and Name.

<quad posn="0 0 1" sizen="24 24" image="tmtp://$FileName" />
		

Instead of file:// you have to use tmtp:// and it can take a while before the avatar is displayed, because it has to be transfered over P2P.

Development

Identifications in Manialinks for XAseco1 and XAseco2

You have to distinguish between Action Ids and Manialink Ids. The Action Id you have to use to identify a click on a Button in your Widget. The Manialink Id is to identify your Widget to be able to control it (e.g. hide or update/replace it).

To identify that a Player has clicked on a Button in your Widget (or the Widget himself) you need to add a Action id, after a click on this you can identify these click at the event onPlayerManialinkPageAnswer.

Before you setup simple Ids like 08154711, think about this, because i saw many times such Ids and you run into trouble when the Admin run your and another Plugin (which use the same Ids) together!

It is good practise to think before write some code. Setup a list which Manialink Ids and Action Ids you need and then make a list like this:

Manialink Ids
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
91800			id for manialink Window(s)
91801			id for manialink SubWindow(s)
91802			id for manialink PlacementWidget ('race')
91803			id for manialink PlacementWidget ('score')
91804			id for manialink PlacementWidget ('always')
91805			id for manialink MapWidget
91806			id for manialink ClockWidget
91807			id for manialink GamemodeWidget
91808			id for manialink VisitorsWidget
91809			id for manialink MapcountWidget
91810			id for manialink ToplistWidget
[...]

Action Ids
~~~~~~~~~~
91800			id for action close Window
91801			id for action close SubWindow
91802			id for action for show LastCurrentNextMapWindow
91803			id for action for show ClockDetailsWindow
91804			id for action for show DedimaniaRecordsWindow
91805			id for action for show LocalRecordsWindow
91806			id for action for show LiveRankingsWindow
91807			id for action for show GerymaniaRecordsWindow
91808			id for action for show ManiaExchangeMapInfoWindow
91809			id for action for show TopNationsWindow
91810			id for action for show TopRankingsWindow
[...]
		

After that you are ready to write code... ;)

To interact with the Players, you need to setup a action="[N]" into your Manialink. When a Player click on your Button, then the Game-Client send this Action Id to the dedicated server and this releases the Callback TrackMania.PlayerManialinkPageAnswer (TMF) or ManiaPlanet.PlayerManialinkPageAnswer (TM2) to XAseco and XAseco releases the event onPlayerManialinkPageAnswer.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manialinks>
  <manialink id="91800">
    <quad posn="20 48 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Rankings"/>
    <label posn="15 48 0.01" text="Label 1"/>
  </manialink>
</manialinks>
		

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manialinks>
  <manialink id="91800">
    <quad posn="20 48 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" action="91800" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Rankings"/>
    <label posn="15 48 0.01" text="Label 1"/>
  </manialink>
</manialinks>
		

As you can see in the second example i use the same Id for the Manialink Id and the Action Id and this is no problem for you or the dedicated server, because only the Action Id are available at the event onPlayerManialinkPageAnswer for identifying!

// Register your function to the event (have to be placed outside any function)
Aseco::registerEvent('onPlayerManialinkPageAnswer',	'demo_onPlayerManialinkPageAnswer');

// $answer[0] = PlayerUid (from dedicated server)
// $answer[1] = Login
// $answer[2] = Action Id
function demo_onPlayerManialinkPageAnswer ($aseco, $answer) {

	// If id = 0, bail out immediately
	if ($answer[2] == 0) {
		return;
	}

	if ($answer[2] == 91800) {
		// Close the Window, the Player has clicked your Action Id (see Id list above)
	}
}
		

Development

Custom Ui management for Manialinks for XAseco1 and XAseco2

With a special addition to your Manialink you can control (enable/disable) the in-game Widgets. Since the Freezone in TMF you have to send such a CustomUi block only once when the Player connects, otherwise your Plugin breaks the Freezone-Rules.

<custom_ui>
  <notice visible="true"/>
  <challenge_info visible="true"/>
  <net_infos visible="true"/>
  <chat visible="true"/>
  <checkpoint_list visible="true"/>
  <round_scores visible="true"/>
  <scoretable visible="true"/>
  <global visible="true"/>
</custom_ui>
		

To see which result you have after disabling one of the above, see this description:

Setup the Custom Ui

It is easy to setup one of the Custom Ui entries, just call the function setCustomUIField() from manialinks.inc.php like this:

setCustomUIField('scoretable', false);
		

But with these the work is not done, because you need to send this with your own Manialink together:

$xml  = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>';
$xml .= '<manialinks>';
$xml .= '  <manialink id="91800">';
$xml .= '    <quad posn="20 48 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" action="91800" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Rankings"/>';
$xml .= '    <label posn="15 48 0.01" text="Label 1"/>';
$xml .= '  </manialink>';

$xml .= getCustomUIBlock();

$xml .= '</manialinks>';
		

With the function getCustomUIBlock() you can get the whole Custom Ui, you must always send a complete Custom Ui to take the wanted effect!

The $xml from the above example looks now like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manialinks>
  <manialink id="91800">
    <quad posn="20 48 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" action="91800" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Rankings"/>
    <label posn="15 48 0.01" text="Label 1"/>
  </manialink>
  <custom_ui>
    <notice visible="true"/>
    <challenge_info visible="true"/>
    <net_infos visible="true"/>
    <chat visible="true"/>
    <checkpoint_list visible="true"/>
    <round_scores visible="true"/>
    <scoretable visible="false"/>
    <global visible="true"/>
  </custom_ui>
</manialinks>
		

Development

Build Manialinks for XAseco1 and XAseco2

In server side Manialinks you are able to send more then one Manialink together. This makes it easier for you to control each Manialink, e.g. to send two Manialinks and after a while you can disable one of them and the remaining Manialink is still to see.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manialinks>

  <manialink id="91800">
    <quad posn="20 48 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" action="91800" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Rankings"/>
    <label posn="15 48 0.01" text="Label 1"/>
  </manialink>

  <manialink id="91801">
    <quad posn="20 43 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" action="91800" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Buddies"/>
    <label posn="15 38 0.01" text="Label 2"/>
  </manialink>

  <manialink id="91801">
    <quad posn="20 38 0.01" sizen="4.6 4.6" action="91800" style="Icons128x128_1" substyle="Custom"/>
    <label posn="15 38 0.01" text="Label 3"/>
  </manialink>

</manialinks>
		

To hide one of the above sent Manialinks, just send a empty Manialink with the same Manialink Id:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<manialinks>

  <manialink id="91800">
  </manialink>

</manialinks>
		

Development

Send your Manialink in XAseco1 and XAseco2

To send your Manialink you need to check who should become your Manialink. There are more ways to do that, the first is to send your Manialink to all connected Players, the second is send it to a given Player only and the third is to send to a list of Players.

// Do not close after a click
$close = false;

// Do not autohide
$timeout = 0;

// Send the Manialink to all conneted Players
$aseco->client->query('SendDisplayManialinkPage', $xml, ($timeout * 1000), $close);
		

// Do not close after a click
$close = false;

// Autohide after 20 seconds
$timeout = 20;

// Setup one Login to send to
$player = 'han_solo';

// Send the Manialink to the given Player login
$aseco->client->query('SendDisplayManialinkPageToLogin', $player, $xml, ($timeout * 1000), $close);
		

// Do not close after a click
$close = false;

// Do not autohide
$timeout = 0;

// Setup multiple Logins to send to
$logins = array('leia_organa', 'darth_vader', 'han_solo', 'luke_skywalker');

// Send the Manialink to the given Player logins
$aseco->client->query('SendDisplayManialinkPageToLogin', $logins, $xml, ($timeout * 1000), $close);