iWant widget

A standardized, widget-centric library that simplifies programmatic use of Skyrim user interface (UI) with Papyrus. Allows easy access to arbitrary text and graphic displays in the UI. Provides the ability to control library and Skyrim native UI elements. Removed requirement for Adobe Flash as a valid UI modification.

What?

A standardized, widget-centric library that simplifies programmatic use of Skyrim user interface (UI) with Papyrus. Allows easy access to arbitrary text and graphic displays in the UI. Provides the ability to control library and Skyrim native UI elements. Removed requirement for Adobe Flash as a valid UI modification.

How about it?

design concept

Expanded the concept of SkyUI widgets to make it easier to incorporate them into Skyrim mods. The library only works using tools that are free for Skyrim Special Edition owners.

in game

The library itself will not produce any results. It is intended to be used as a support library to allow modders to easily extend its functionality by bridging some otherwise complex technical gaps.

Loading order

Plugins can be loaded anywhere.

compatibility

As such, there are no known compatibility issues. The total number of widgets in SkyUI is capped at 128. Out of the box, this mod consumes 1 of these blobs and allows for any (very large) number of iWant-controlled widgets.

Why?

Because Skyrim UI modding is so difficult! It's really, really hard. They are not difficult for game developers with the right tools and knowledge, but they are well beyond the technical and/or financial reach of most modders (as evidenced by their relative scarcity at the time this mod was developed). As a hobbyist, I wanted an easy way to get interesting graphics. When I came up with nothing, I set out to reverse engineer the few existing widgets I had, thinking I could find a pattern that would allow myself and the community to easily reuse existing widgets in new projects without Flash. What initially seemed promising turned into a very deep rabbit hole. Eventually I learned that due to the way Scaleform (Flash) works, reusing existing SWF files with new graphics is a dead end because they conflict with each other (I know now because they are all in a global namespace).

Since going down this path, I've learned that SkyUI (and SKSE) do some great things in standardizing Skyrim UI access (especially widgets). There is a fairly robust library in SkyUI that is self-documenting. Unfortunately, it's still a bit esoteric for most people and, perhaps more importantly, relies on commercial tools. In particular, the SkyUI model requires access to Adobe Flash creation tools, which at the time of this writing are no longer sold by Adobe or available for free. I believe this barrier, even more than the complexity, hinders possible mod development in this area. You either have to be someone with enough knowledge and knowledge to use the tool, or the involvement of someone with those capabilities. This greatly improves the work of turning simple ideas into simple mods.

When I started developing my first public module, iWant RND Widgets, I found that I wanted to be able to easily add widgets to other things besides simply starting out. It seemed possible at first, not easy, but doable. I spent a lot of time reverse engineering the SWF files that I could use. I am able to change the graphics used and understand programming well enough to extend the widget file as I wish (within limitations). Unfortunately, once I built a second widget module, iWant Frostfall Widget, based on the SWF file used in the iWant RND widget, I ran into unexpected and especially annoying problems. No matter what changes I can make with JPEXS, the two mods interact with each other and are even visually unique (new filenames, new ActionScript class names, etc.). For example, load two widgets, change shape and resize (functionality in the widget-only class that extends SkyUI's WidgetBase). This happens with multiple different source widg …