TP Notifications and TacO facelift

Hi!

It's been a while, but development hasn't stopped. I recently joined the GW2 API dev chat and some things have already come of it. Namely, a new small but powerful addition to the Mumble API now allows TacO to track the client's interface size setting in real-time. Many people were confused about the separate interface size setting in TacO (or didn't even know about it), and I wanted to refrain from implementing more features that rely on correct positioning of visuals until I had a solution for this.

So now that this has happened, the first of these features is here as well:
If you have an API key added to TacO that has commerce access enabled, from now on the overlay will check every couple minutes if a new sell or buy order of yours has been fulfilled, and will notify you with an additional animated flair around the TP icon's red marker. Clicking the icon (and thereby opening the TP) will make the flair disappear.

The point of this is to fix one of the first features I was missing from GW2 when I started playing it: the fact that if you're out and about in the game but are waiting for stuff to sell, you need to keep opening the TP window to know if something happened since you last checked.

You can also notice that the TacO icon on the menu has changed. The overlay underwent a bit of a facelift, I updated the icon and made it behave more like the rest of the GW2 menu. The fonts have also been changed to use the exact ones the client uses, for each interface size setting. Oh and last, but not least, the text renderer now supports UTF-8 text, so the TS3 overlay should work better now with non-latin characters in names.

Notice the correct rendering of all characters and the new font

You can download the new build here.

Changelog

• Fixed issue where WvW and Dungeon APIs wouldn't update when the computer had been running for more than 21 days
• Reimplemented DPI awareness to account for Windows 7 issues
• The TacO icon now looks and behaves a lot more like the standard GW2 menu
• TacO now automatically switches interface size to match that of the GW2 client. (Thanks for the API additions, Lye)
• Removed the now unnecessary interface size menu
• Added extra notification flair to the trading post icon that disappears when the trading post icon is clicked (and shows up again a couple minutes after a new transaction happened) - requires API key with Commerce enabled.
• Implemented an improvised UTF-8 decoder into the text renderer so that non-latin letters are processed better (this was especially a problem in the TS3 overlay)
• Updated the fonts so they better match the in-game ones, and added a wider range of character sets supported

Mentioned by WP!

Hi!

This video seriously made my day, I've been watching WP's channel for quite a while now. He just made a video about TacO, and I'm seriously flattered :)

I also noticed a spike in questions and all around activity on the blog. If you're new to TacO and have any technical issues please first consult the FAQ/Common Problems section which will in good likelihood have an answer to your problem.

Also, since I maintain this project alone, as a hobby, please note that I may not be able to get to answer all the questions, and updates may come at a random rate when I have time and inspiration strikes.

API madness! WvW, Dungeon and Raid status tracking!

Hi!

Here's a nice big update for you guys just before next week's WvW changes hit. With the API key input added in the last build for the TS3 fixes, there was nothing in the way anymore for me to start poking in the GW2 API.

Important note: all of the new features below will require for you to enter a GW2 API key into TacO.

I present to you the fruits of this labor, in the order I got finished with them:

Dungeon Progression Tracker

This new window will let you track which dungeon paths you have finished today already. The paths colored green are the ones you have finished. The yellow border around the rectangles shows which paths have been completed for the Dungeon Frequenter achievement. This feature requires that your API key has the "progression" feature enabled. Should any new dungeons be added to GW2, this window will automatically update (as soon as they add the dungeon to the API). The display checks the GW2 API every 2.5 minutes. You might need to wait as long as 5 minutes for the status to update, since the GW2 API is heavily cached.
The Dungeon Tracker window is not open by default, you'll need to open it from the TacO menu and move it to the desired position by enabling window edit mode in the TacO menu as well.

Raid Progression Tracker

This window is very similar to the dungeon one - it tracks which raid encounters you have finished over the week. This could come in handy for people with several accounts :) Works the same as the dungeon tracker, requires the "progression" feature in your API key. This window will also update automatically as soon as a new raid is added to the API. You might need to wait for up to 5 minutes for the status to update since the GW2 API is heavily cached.
The Raid Tracker window is not open by default, you'll need to open it from the TacO menu and move it to the desired position by enabling window edit mode in the TacO menu as well.

WvW Markers and Status

There have been several overlays with similar features out there already, and the appearance of a new one just last week (the flatteringly named GW2 Burrito) made me re-think implementing this feature into TacO as well. After some news hit about WvW upgrades I set aside this weekend to add support for the game mode to the overlay.
WvW markers show up without an API key, but they won't have any color information. To identify the world you're playing on, you need to enter an API key with the "account" feature enabled.
Marker location and status information both come from the official API, so in theory if ArenaNet moves things around or adds a new map or anything similar happens, the overlay should automatically stay up to date.
The markers will display the name of the objective (you can toggle this off in the TacO menu), the current owner of the objective (as the color of the icon) and if the objective has been flipped in the last 5 minutes, it'll show a timer when it can next be captured. The markers also become more transparent the more center on the screen they are so they don't add too much additional clutter to WvW. The display checks the API every 5 seconds if you're on a WvW map.
You can toggle the individual WvW marker categories the same as before from the TacO menu.
Sadly Edge of the Mists doesn't have an API endpoint to gather information from, but the white markers will still show up to help you keep oriented.
One note: the position of Langor Gulch is invalid in the official API (it's copypasted from Bravost Escarpment), so I did a bit of a manual workaround, which is why the marker might be in a bit of an odd position (the objective was captured on my world and I couldn't get near to do a precision job). This will also fix itself automatically once the API sends different information, I contacted ArenaNet about the bug.

TacO startup

I also did some work on the performance of the overlay. Startup should now be a lot faster, especially if you have a lot of marker packs in your installation.

You can download the new build here.

Change log:

• Replaced the xml parser with a faster one
• Further optimized the loading of POI data
• Added GW2 API key input
• Added API key based Dungeon Progress tracking
• Added API key based Dungeon Frequenter achievement tracking
• Added API key based weekly Raid completion tracking
• Added API based WvW markers and objective status displays (API key required for world identification)
• Added minSize and maxSize parameters to markers. These can be set in pixels.

TeamSpeak 3 fixes, Guild Race pack

Hi.

It's been a while, life got pretty busy these last couple months. I managed to make a bit of time for TacO now though and by some small miracle I wasn't utterly tired either, so... Progress!

This update contains two things.

The first is the much requested fix for TeamSpeak 3 support. What happened was that a new release of TeamSpeak updated the ClientQuery plugin that TacO is using to access TS3. The update wasn't big, but it did add mandatory API key authentication to all applications using the plugin, this is what basically broke TacO. There's no nice way around this, I had to include an API key input field.

You can find the API key entry menu in the TacO menu. Now that it's in place, in the future I'll probably use this input method to access the GW2 APIs as well. If you still have a TS3 build pre 3.1.3, it should still work like before, but I'd appreciate a heads up if anything went wrong with older builds.

The second addition is a marker pack by Xenophy - routes for the Guild Races! This one needs no explanation I think, it's just pure awesome. I had this one for a while, but never got around to releasing it.

You can download the new build here.

Change log:

• Added an API key input interface
• Added ability to enter TS3 ClientQuery API keys
• TS3 connection will now authenticate
• Added notifications to the TS3 window if authentication fails
• Added Guild Race marker pack courtesy of Xenophy

Mentioned by a Dev

Hi!

Quick note on the legitimacy of TacO. During a heated debate on GW2 addons, TacO came up, and a dev replied, addressing the overlay specifically.

Here's a link to the original comment.

This semi-endorsement shows that the development of the overlay is on the right track. I specifically develop TacO with very strict rules in mind to keep it as EULA compliant as possible. This will not change.

Super Adventure Box Galore

Hi everyone,

since Easter (and the weeks before) is traditionally a very busy time for me, and this year it heavily coincided with SAB, I couldn't keep up with all the stuff that has been going on in GW2. That being said, I came home to see that ArenaNet has been tweeting about videos that showcase TacO. I'd like to thank everyone who started creating and sharing their marker packs, helping others along the way.

Tekkit in particular did a bunch of videos on TacO, including a tutorial:

And a series with Tribulation mode routes, that all have links to the marker packs used:

I'm quite sure that many other marker packs have been created in the last couple weeks. I'd like to list them all here, so that in the coming years people have access to all these resources. Let me know if you have something to list.

On updating the TS3 overlay: now that I'm home I'll need a bit of rest, and I'll look into fixing it in a week or two.

TS Overlay Issue with latest TS3

Hi.

Quick note: the latest TS3 update broke the display in TacO. This time I'm unable to supply a quick fix as I'm swamped with other projects until after Easter. The issue is known and I'll look into it as soon as I can. Thank you for your patience.

Maintenance Update

Hi!

The patch yesterday broke TacO due to some minor changes in the Mumble Link data format. This hotfix is meant to address this issue. It also includes a long standing debt of mine, the fix for some crashes that occur when marker packs have markers in them that have spaces in their names.

Important: if you're someone who created their own marker packs or placed markers with categories that contain spaces, those will need to be looked over. The marker format will no longer accept category names to contain any type of space or special character. There is a newly added field for markers and categories called DisplayName that allows you to add a pretty name for the category to be displayed in the TacO menu. See the updated poi files supplied with TacO for reference.

A new marker behavior for winterberry farm type markers has also been added that will track the triggering of markers daily and per character.

You can download the new build here.

Change notes:

• Updated the parsing of the Mumble Link data so markers work with the new build.
• Fixed the crashes coming from toggling the visibility of marker categories that have spaces in their names
• Updated the supplied marker packs with pretty names
• Added a new marker behavior, (behavior="7") that tracks the triggering of the marker so it resets daily, tracked separately for each character (useful for Winterberry farm type stuff)