EQ1 - Lua Windows Ques

First post here so my apologies if this is in the wrong place but it seems to fit and I did not see any results in a search for this topic.

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with running **REDACTED** and the new lua scripts with regards to lua window placement saving. When loading EQ with **REDACTED** only (no ISBoxer), the lua windows save in the spots you leave them when you camp. Upon loading EQ through ISBoxer, those lua windows relocate to various places in EQ, usually left center-ish. I have tried locking/unlocking them etc and no luck. I can not seem to find a way for ISBoxer to save the lua windows where they are placed. Is there a setting I am missing or not aware of somewhere?

Thanks!

[bob]

Have you tried asking the developers of **REDACTED**. There is no setting in ISBoxer that will help you with saving in game window positions in **REDACTED**.

I have and there is no issue there. I have narrowed it down to the layout wizard load that does it. If I load toons with isboxer manually one by one then everything saves. If I load the group with the wizard layout I created it moves the windows around upon loading and when I swap from one to the next as well.

[bob]

What you are describing sounds like the LUA window manager is relocating the in game windows to other positions if the resolution is being changed.

ISBoxer deliberately tries to take you down the path of having a window layout where the internal render resolution of the game is the same all the time. If you have a Window Layout where that is not happening (i.e. instant swapping is disabled or you are using multiple swap groups but using a single reset region, or you just have a multi display layout across multiple monitors of differing pixel counts), then that may be a problem. Thinking about it, if using Windows' Display Scaling feature that might also throw some bunnies into the mix.

According to the developers, under what conditions does the LUA Window Manager attempt to relocate the windows? Once those conditions are known, it would be easier to determine what in the window layout may cause those conditions to occur.

There is no general lua windows mgr that I am aware or can find. Each one loads separately and they tend to relocate on the screen in different places depending on the lua.

Now that you mention it though, they appear to relocate from the right side of the screen to the left only. If I place a lua window on the left, it stays in that area (not always the exact position). If I place it on the far right and swap windows, it moves to the left side when I swap back to that window. That's definitely consistent with it moving from the main monitor to the second one and then back again. Both monitors are the identical make/model and purchased simultaneously with the same resolution if that helps.

I looked at windows display scaling in Win 11 and I don't think it's being used as the percentage is blank.

Screen shot attached of the layout parameters I used. Instant Swap is true but I'm afraid I am not sure if this would be considered a multiple swap with a single reset region or not. I know enough tech to get me in trouble, but I'm no expert.

When I right click on Innerspance and go to the top under the Everquest section and load the toons one by one on the same screen, they do fine and all windows remain where they should. It only occurs when I load using the character set I created in the toolkit.

My goal is to have my main toon on the left/main monitor and be able to swap to the toons on the secondary/right monitor but maintain their window placement. Is this enough info to guide me in the right direction to changing a setting(s) to resolve the issue and if not, is there anything else I can provide?

PS - No AFK, farming, or funny business here. I play 6 toons and swap some out depending on the content I am doing or quests I am doing.

[bob]

I was using the term LUA Window Manager to describe the action of what you earlier wrote in that you have some LUA script that saves window positions and then on opening the game again will reload those settings and try to place the windows back to where they were.
Maybe I have misunderstood the next part that this relocating is also happening when you swap between windows, so this putting windows into the saved location is active all the time??

I guess I could just say "your LUA script" if that makes it easier.

Anyway, the Window Layout looks fine. It has settings I'd expect.
Not sure what Windows 11 Display Scaling settings look like. I've yet to load Win11. In Windows 10 the display scaling settings show 100% if scaling is not set (and you have to select each monitor to check it's setting as they can be per monitor). Sometimes Win10 will lie and report a value that is not what is actually being used and it requires changing and then reverting to 100% to get it to set correctly.

As to your issue. The mini windows to the right in your Window layout are displayed (scaled) at a smaller resolution than they are internally being rendered at. ISBoxer does this so that the game does not do a graphics reset every time you swap windows (which is really slow and annoying and messes up the games internal window locations). This is what ISBoxer calls Instant Swapping (as it gets rid of the aforementioned graphics reset) .
It is possible your LUA script is detecting the Display window size, rather than the internal Render size. i.e. This would be not unknown if it is monitoring the wrong events/values for determining the current height/width. If this is the case, it would explain why you are seeing the behaviour you see. It would then possibly be trying to cope with the "don't put this window out of the viewable area" scenario, and thus sticking them in a location you don't really want. If it is equally not too clever when the window goes small it just whacks them centerish and marks as "floating", so when you make it bigger again they continue to "float" somewhat centerish, while other windows that did not get moved from the saved locations stay where they were.

Window management is tricky, and EQ itself is also a bit weird when it comes to its game window, but I suspect the issue lies within your LUA script and how/what it is detecting for determining window size changes.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and explain this to me. After reading your reply and looking at videos on youtube. please correct me if I am wrong, but I think I have a better understanding. In the windows layout section under regions, I see the windows on the right all show a size of 640. 360 whereas the main display is region 1 and it shows 2560. 1440. Based on your response, it sounds like isboxer is reducing the image of any window on the swapped right side to the small size and then back to 2560.1440 when I swap it back to the main window. For some reason, EQ windows do not seem to have a problem with this scaling because they do not move or adjust. The lua windows however do not behave the same and are apparently trying to compensate for the resolution change and moving around to remain on the screen. Certainly not as isboxer issue as you stated or the EQ windows would move as well. Sounds like there may not be a solution for this issue atm but I will ask around to some of the lua developers and see what they say. In the end, I'm not giving up my isboxer because the windows mgmt is amazing, so it seems like I will have to adjust my liking of where I place my windows within EQ and just be happy LOL.

Thank you again for taking the time to assist!

[bob]

Indeed. If your main window is 2560x1440, and the smaller windows are displaying at 640x360, the default settings for an ISBoxer window layout will make the smaller windows internally render at 2560x1440. i.e. ALL the game windows will be rendered at 2560x1440. For the purposes of your eyes, the rendered output may be scaled, but they are still essentially 2560x1440. If you ran a "stacked full screen" layout, then they would all be displayed at 2560x1440 (one on top of the other), and this would use the exact same resources (GPU/VRAM etc) as the mini displays.

Whereas if the smaller windows were being rendered at 640x360, then
1. resources required for this is much lower (less pixels to render),
2. in game elements move around because the rendered display area is smaller and stuff needs to fit in that area,
3. relative mouse movement is annoying as the in game UI elements do not necessarily scale to the same relative size of the render area
4. if you change the render area (height/width) the game has to flush/reset the canvas and buffers the re-render the whole scene at the new size which takes a few seconds, sometimes results in a blackwindow while this happens, and depending on how the game does this, can sometimes even result in a flicker while it happens.

Hence, Instant swapping is used to have the games render at all the same resolution as it resolves quite a few issues, but, can have repercussions if you have a tool/utility which is looking at the Window size rather than the D3D canvas size to determine where to place elements.