Effects And Windows Features?

[Atom]

I know you can get a menu status etc with MSDN stuff in Xlua but i am wondering is it possible to get data from common windows features like the task manager, clock/calender and taskbar etc?

If the answer is no is there any library that does this or plan to add this in? I can do it with standard objects just fine of course but i would like to do more things via code if possible so if it is possible some how that would be great.

Also i know you can get layer data but is it possible to access/modify HWA effects and the parameters also, or is that not possible due to the SDK etc but might happen later? I could not find any info about it when looking through the help docs.

[uprize]

Can't you just use some sort of c-module library that does that? I dont want to see so much bloated stuff integrated into xlua if its not a necessity

[Retriever2]

The Windows stuff might get expanded as a separate module (I'm really moving in the direction of lightening the XLua core). However unless it's something you're manipulating constantly, just using plain old MMF functions should be fine. After all, that's all we used to have anyway

HWA effects will PROBABLY be integrated into mmfi.dll once the HWA SDK is released.

[uprize]

Cool, glad to hear. It's good to have lots of features for an extension like this, but splitting them up into seperate modules would be great.
Out of interest, what would HWA allow us to do through xlua that we can't already?

[Retriever2]

I'm not sure I understand your question. Change effects directly, perhaps? There's not really much additional to do, since XLua has almost nothing to do with the rendering runtime.

[Atom]

Thanks Retriever2 it's good news to hear both of these might happen, as separate .dll library's would be fine also because then people can optionally use them when needed.

Can't you just use some sort of c-module library that does that?

That why i asked 'is there any library that does this' because it would be better separate in my opinion also. The reason things like this is good is that sometimes extensions miss out certain things or you have to use workarounds or another object to do a certain thing with it etc. As well as that it is more optimized im guessing than using say 5 different objects or whatever. As far as i know some objects also make temp files so it's more compact also when done through code.

With the HWA thing i want to do things like linking parameters to maths functions moving over time, swapping effects with code events etc. You can do most of that now of course but with code it's easier to manage and you can also get far more complex and dynamic with it with less effort in my opinion.

[uprize]

I'm not sure I understand your question. Change effects directly, perhaps? There's not really much additional to do, since XLua has almost nothing to do with the rendering runtime.

I meant in reply to this:

HWA effects will PROBABLY be integrated into mmfi.dll once the HWA SDK is released.

I didn't think that much else could be done apart from effects, which is what I was asking