Steps on how to design your own controlbar.
1. In a image program, design your controlbar on a 800 X 600 blank page, this program MUST have the feature of showing the co-ordinates of your cursor, you'll find out why later on.
2.Convert your image to tga, but keep a version which is in a format which you can view from an image program which has the co-ordinate feature.
3. Using the programs, FinalBig (
www.wagnerma.de) or XCC Mixer (
http://xccu.sourceforge.net/), open the window.big file situated in your C&C Generals or C&C Generals: Zero Hour directory.
4. Extract the file called 'Controlbar.wnd' to any location you wish and create a copy for editing, keeping the original if you muck it up.
5. Download Deezire's WndEdit, with this program open up the original version of the Controlbar.wnd, DO NOT EDIT ANYTHING!.
6. Open up the editing copy of the Controlbar.wnd with notepad.
7. In WndEdit, you will be able to view which window is which, so that in notepad you can find the window you wish to move/edit, although WndEdit is equipped for it, it is not advisable to move windows in WndEdit as it is not very exact.
8.After locating the window you wish to edit in WndEdit, search the name in notepad, open up your controlbar graphic and with your cursor note down the co-ordinates where you want to move the window to and then apply them in notepad, I remind you DO NOT edit wnd files in WndEdit (sorry Deezire).
9.Alls fine for the beginner if you obey the following.
- If you move a window, make sure that the subwindows belonging to it fall inside its co-ordinates.
- Besides that, any single windows which are arranged to be inside other single windows (as indicated in WndEdit), keep them that way, change their position but keep them inside eachother just like they are in WndEdit.
- For now, avoid deleting, disabling, or modifying windows in any way except co-ordinates.
- Lastly, never EVER edit the windows in WndEdit, this means you will never be clicking 'save' so remember that. Use WndEdit only for noting the windows you wish to move, and occasionally for opening your notepad edited Controlbar.wnd to see if you get the positioning right.
10. When you think you can handle it, heres a few interesting pointers....
-Every single window can be any size/shape you like, although not quite interesting this also applies to commandbuttons, with a bit of resizing and reshaping along with nifty graphics you could make some interesting buttons.
-To make the above point more useful, you can add these nifty buttons without wasting the current 14 commandbuttons as it is possible to add a further 4 commandbuttons, in notepad just copy any commandbutton window code and substitute the end numbers for 15-18, you may be required to add buttons 15-18 in the ButtonSet.ini in the default folder aswell (I've added them, but I haven't tested to see if they work without the buttonset.ini entries).
.wnd editing how
