Brodgar client

hafen.ui: The Chat Window and Its Kinds of Line

The chat is one site key, chat. Other keys refine it by kind of line, walk a colour, or dress its decoration. Colour is how the client tells one kind from another, so a color on chat alone paints them all alike.

local sheet = hafen.ui():sheet()
sheet:rule("chat"):color{180, 190, 200}                     -- everything the kinds below do not claim
sheet:rule("chat.system"):color{255, 200, 0}
sheet:rule("chat.private"):color{255, 60, 200}
sheet:rule("chat.speaker"):color{ palette = {{220, 90, 90}, {90, 200, 120}, {110, 150, 230}} }
sheet:rule("chat.urgent"):color{ palette = {{0, 200, 0}, {230, 200, 0}, {230, 0, 0}} }
sheet:install()

Keys

Key	The lines it covers	The client’s own colour
`chat`	The whole window: every message, the channel tabs, the typed line.	The stock face, and each kind’s colour below.
`chat.system`	The System log: what the client tells you.	White. Dark red for an error.
`chat.mine`	Your own line, in whichever channel.	A pale blue-lilac.
`chat.private`	A private message, received or sent.	Warm pink in, cool blue out.
`chat.party`	A line in the Party channel.	The speaker’s party colour, assigned by the server.
`chat.urgent`	The unread indicator: an unread channel’s tab, the glow on the chat button.	Blue, orange, then red as urgency rises.
`chat.speaker`	The colour a speaker is given in a multi-person channel.	A hue the client walks, one step per new speaker.

A channel answers the key its lines resolve at as channel:kind(), and a line its own as msg:kind(). chat.mine is the one key a line carries and no channel does. A rule that colours a kind and an addon that reads one name the same thing.

Each kind falls back to `chat`

Rule	Detail
One ladder	A kind with no rule reads as `chat`. `chat` with no rule reads as `*`. `["chat"] = {color = …}` paints the whole window. Naming one kind changes that kind alone.
A fallback, not a blend	A key has a rule or takes the one beneath it whole, as the site half of the cascade always does. Write both properties in the rule naming the kind. A tree key or `widget:rule()` composes per property and outranks every key here.
`$col[…]` markup wins	Part of the string the server sent, so a line carrying its own colour keeps it under any theme.
`font`	Honoured on every key. A kind without one takes `chat`’s by the same ladder. On the two walked keys it lands on nothing.

The colours the client walks

chat.speaker is a colour per speaker and chat.urgent a colour per urgency level. A single colour cannot express either, so both take a sequence and refuse a colour.

Written	Is
`{palette = {{r,g,b}, …}}`	The colours to hand out, in order, cycling when they run out. Never empty.
`{generate = {step =, saturation =, brightness =}}`	A walk around the hue circle, the shape the client’s own speaker colour has. All three required: `step` in `0 < step <= 1` (the client’s own is about `0.414`). `saturation`, `brightness` in `0..1`, carried by every colour minted.

Rule	Detail
Refusals	A colour on either key raises naming the sequence. A sequence on any other key raises naming these two. A value naming both spellings raises. For every answer alike, a palette of one colour.
Read-back	`rule:color()` reads whichever shape was written.
`chat.urgent`	Read one entry per level, rising: the first entry is the quietest unread channel, the last the loudest. A channel with nothing unread keeps the client’s resting colour.
A speaker keeps the colour given	Minted the first time someone speaks and remembered, so a sequence re-colours the speakers who talk after it is installed. Scrollback keeps what it was drawn with.

The chat’s own decoration

chat writes the letters. chat.frame is what the chat paints round them and chat.log the wash behind them. The chat is docked into the HUD, not framed by a decoration, so window.frame and window.title never reach it.

sheet:rule("chat.frame"):bg{ asset = "img/paper.png", mode = "tile" }        -- the field, behind everything
                        :border{ asset = "img/chatframe.png", slice = {8, 14, 8, 6} }
sheet:rule("chat.log"):bg{ color = {9, 13, 22, 200} }                        -- the wash behind one channel
sheet:rule("chat"):color{150, 225, 240}

Rule	Detail
Parts, not kinds	Neither cascades from `chat`: both fall straight back to `*`, as `checkbox.mark` does against `checkbox`.
The frame has no bottom edge	The client’s own is two corners, three runs and two pinned ornaments, open at the foot: a 9-slice for it wants a transparent bottom slice. That shape is why the catalogue declares the field and stays quiet about the frame.
The field is a window’s field	`chat.frame`’s stock `bg` is `gfx/hud/wnd/lg/bg`, tiled: the rule that themes your windows themes the chat’s field.
`padding`	Nothing to move on either: the chat’s box is the size the user dragged it to.
Not reached	The channel list’s own art and the notification popups the chat throws up while collapsed.

Other rules

Rule	Detail
Re-rendering	Only the visible messages re-render, the scrollback as it scrolls into view. Each message’s height is re-measured so the log re-flows under a bigger font. URLs stay clickable.
The typed line	Belongs to `chat`, not `textentry`.
Tab truncation	Measured from the stock font once, so a much wider font can shorten a long channel name slightly early.
Party vs kin colours	A party member’s colour is assigned per session and `chat.party` overrides it. A kin group’s colour is one you picked, and `world.nick` paints over it.