Better Ally Frames - Clickable Party and Ally Frames

[Heisa]

Better Ally Frames

Clickable party and ally frames for GoS: SWTOR Core

A standalone Core script. Enable it, and click any frame to select that unit.

 

Overview

better_ally_frames adds a compact panel drawn by Core alongside SWTOR's stock UI; it does not hide or replace the stock party frames. It renders friendly players, companions, and ally NPCs with observed health, optional resources, distance, and range awareness, and every displayed frame is clickable.

• Click to select - Core binds the click to the entity shown when mouse press began, even if the frames re-sort before release. Lua resolves that captured handle in the current session and submits Core's opaque click ticket. Core retains undispatched intent for up to two seconds during contention; Lua does not retry the selection. A newer click or manual selection supersedes stale undispatched intent, while already-dispatched work retains its outcome evidence. Hiding/disabling the panel, expiry, session changes, or losing frame eligibility cancels pending intent where dispatch has not won.
• Compact and movable - drag the panel by its title bar, minimize it with the title button, or hide it with the hotkey (default F6). A completed drag saves the position; configured frame dimensions persist as settings.
• Type-aware - self, players, companions, and ally NPCs can each be enabled or disabled, with distinct accents: gold border, purple companions, and green ally NPCs. The active selection is highlighted in cyan.
• Health and resources - observed health bars with a below-30% color and a zero-health dead state, plus an optional resource bar colored by resource type: Force, energy/ammo, rage/focus/heat, or generic. Missing snapshots remain empty/unavailable.
• Range awareness - allies beyond the implemented threshold dim to the out-of-range opacity; the selected or pending-selection frame remains at full opacity. See the current distance-conversion limitation below.
• Sorting and layout - choose Group then name, Distance, Health %, or Name, with configurable columns, frame width and height, and distance readouts.
• Bounded - up to 32 sorted frames are drawn. Any additional eligible allies are reported by an overflow line instead of creating an unbounded panel.

better_ally_frames - clickable ally frames drawn by a script

 

Controls

• Visible and Show / Hide Hotkey (default F6) with Minimized.
• Sort Frames, Columns, Frame Width, and Frame Height.
• Out-of-Range Opacity and Range (metres).
• Position X and Position Y (also updated by dragging the title bar).
• Show Self, Show Players, Show Companions, and Show Ally NPCs.
• Show Distance and Show Resource Bar.
• Targeting Diagnostics - shows left-mouse input, cursor availability, frame rectangles and hit tests, interaction edges, retained slot handles, target requests, queue or busy state, confirmation latency, and failures in the script's Log tab with INFO enabled. A status update once per second remains visible even when no click event arrives. Disabled by default; use Save to export the retained log.

Requirements

• GoS: SWTOR Core with scripting enabled and the native click-ticket / target-request contract. The shared Core repair is source/regression tested but UNTESTED LIVE; the Lua script and matching native build must be activated together by the user.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic, retail client.
• No other scripts or modules needed - better_ally_frames is standalone.

Installation

• Open the Script Library in Core, select Better Ally Frames, and install or update to the latest release.
• Enable the script in the Scripts list and open its settings card.
• Drag the panel where you want it; the position is saved.

Roadmap

Planned work, not yet implemented:

• Buff, debuff, and cleansable icons - display each unit's effects on its frame the way SWTOR shows them, so you can read an ally's buffs, debuffs, and cleansable effects at a glance.

Notes

• The script never casts or runs a rotation. Its one gameplay action is the explicit user-requested target change when you click a frame.
• Frames render from prepared snapshots. Missing health is shown as --; missing distance is shown as ?m and treated as out of range rather than guessed.
• Current distance limitation: this Lua revision multiplies unit:distance() by 10 even though the current Core snapshot already reports metres. The displayed distance and the value compared with Range (metres) are therefore ten times Core's current metre value. The label is retained because it is the live settings field; this page does not pretend the present conversion is correct.
• Part of GoS: SWTOR Core - see the full feature overview: Detailed Explanation of All Features.

 

Built on GoS: SWTOR Core.

Edited Tuesday at 10:38 PM by Heisa