.bat

SPARK is now available via Blish HUD!

You can now install it through Blish HUD and all future updates for SPARK will automatically update for you.

This version also comes with a new 'import from another character' feature to let you import existing profiles you've made from one character onto another one!

For more information, please see getspark.fyi

I'll be doing an update for SPARK likely on Sunday (seeing how my first update on Blish HUD will go, haha).

Update will include a few various fixes and enhancements, such as:

Better Tooltips (nicer look, more crisp, better sizing/spacing)

Character counters on text fields (now you can see the max limits and know when you're getting close to them!)

Custom Races (You can be a Tengu, Kodan, etc. if you want now!)

Moved the 'Mature' designation on the profiles to a different row (if enabled on your profile). It's now on the same row as Themes, Styles, etc.

Lists (online list, saved/bookmarked, nearby players) now use "..." at the end of your field(s) if they cut off. So if you have a long name, race, account name, etc. It might cut off with ... at the end, but will always fully show in the tooltip or profile itself.

Added some extra profile validation/syncing internally on the server

Menu button for quick access to SPARK windows at the top of GW2 (can be turned off too if you don't want more icons up there!)

There might be more than just this, depending on what else I can get done, we'll see!

Thanks again for everyone who has tried out SPARK and given feedback! Happy to give back to this lovely community. ❤️

Thank you, that means a lot to hear!

I wanted something that was lighter on memory and used existing solutions, so making it in Blish HUD made sense since I'm already familiar with C# and use it daily. I dunno if it'll come to other addon managers, as I'm less familiar with them, and this sort of relies on the CDN that Blish provides to get game textures (at a glance search primarily). The memory usage for the addon is 30mb roughly, maybe 35mb after a long session, so it's fairly light!

For submitting it to Blish HUD, I need to reach out to get set up for submitting it and see what the full process is like still. I want the addon stable enough that I don't have any problems with it for a major release to the public. The webserver seems pretty solid so far and should in theory be able to handle a huge amount of users at once.

I think it's about ready for a full on release in Blish, assuming there's no issues with it being added.

I've just released a new version of SPARK which will allow you to see nearby players who are on the same map as you (the ones on the same map IP address show first, then it shows others on different instances!). This will also show how far away they are from you.

Nearby Players is an opt-in thing, so you need to check a box to publish your location to others who use the SPARK addon to be able to see you nearby.

Hopefully, with more testers, I can get some screenshots to show this off!

You can get SPARK here: https://getspark.fyi/

or download the .bhm file for Blish HUD and add it manually here:

https://github.com/at-bat/Blish-HUD-SPARK/releases/tag/v1.2.0-beta

I made a little website for SPARK to showcase it's features, provide more info on how it works, and instructions on installing it (until it gets added to Blish HUD later when it's out of beta)

If you want to try it out or want someone else to give it a shot, it's here:

https://getspark.fyi/

SPARK Beta v.1.1.0 - Text Wrapping!

I got the text wrapping working and it seems stable enough with the addon for a release, so this is out now!

Hopefully, this makes writing profiles a lot easier by being able to write without things cutting off to the side or if you write too much vertically!

There's a few small quirks with the way the selection works, but I didn't want to put a lot of effort trying to fix some small visual issues with this since this already took me a while to get working.

Want to try out SPARK? You can download it and add it easily to Blish HUD here:

Newest releases are always at the top!

Once this is out of beta testing, it'll be added to Blish HUD itself for easy installation and updates.

So far, the beta seems to be going well with the users who have tried out SPARK! I'm still working on some adjustments based on some feedback I've received.

I've done some work to improve some crashing/stability issues with SPARK that I found (mostly due to tabbing in and out of the game a bunch or playing with things in weird ways).

Apparently it also runs on Linux, which is great to hear!

Word Wrapping Support

Currently, some fields in the addon cut off when the text is too long, making it annoying to work with. This is because of how Blish HUD currently handles multi-line text boxes.

There's a pull request on Blish HUD's GitHub to fix this but it hasn't had much movement in a year. So I'm sort of making my own fix for it using the same ideas that this PR does until it's an officially supported part of Blish HUD and I can then swap over to that.

I tried building this in the past before I moved my code to GitHub, so I'm pulling my old branch of this (which had crashing and stability issues) and will try to get a stable fix for this in a few days if it seems good.

So far, I've gotten something that seems stable with a few quirks. Scrolling for some reason has a bit of stickiness to it, which I'm looking into, since I want this to feel nice to use.

Feature Suggestions

I'm always happy to hear ideas on what people would like to potentially see in SPARK! Right now, I feel like it already has quite a nice amount of features for the launch, but I'm always happy to hear what could make the addon work better or help people with RP somehow!

Admittedly, I have only RPed like twice in-game on GW2 because I am incredibly shy and introverted (*puts on my True Introvert title*). So I'm not entirely sure what common frustrations people run into that I can potentially help solve with this addon.

Keep in mind, Guild Wars 2 is very, very limited on what we can do with addons since their API is not the best to work with, nor does it offer as much as other online games do, like what World of Warcraft offers for addon developers. Wildstar was also quite robust and nice (I miss Wildstar).

SPARK Website

Once I get closer to finishing SPARK for the full release (which would be adding it directly onto Blish HUD), I will likely make a small website for SPARK to showcase it better, provide information on its features and how it works, etc.

I might pick up a domain for it, but I already pay for a lot of domains for projects already, so I might just keep this as a subdomain to keep costs low.

I think SPARK is finally at a point where I am okay with the public trying it out, finding bugs, and seeing if it runs well enough.

I've also migrated the server structure to postgres and redis so this should handle a larger amount of players using SPARK than my private beta tests did. Hoping it won't kill the server if a lot of people suddenly start using it, but that's what a beta is for, after all!

How do I access SPARK?

You will need:

1. Blish HUD with your API key added to it (these are safe to add, GW2 API keys only read data)

2. The SPARK module file (see here)

Because this is NOT submitted to Blish HUD yet until I've beta tested it thoroughly, you have to manually install this addon. Instructions are provided in the release, as well as in the Discord.

How do I submit bugs/feedback/questions?

I have a SPARK Discord server for people who want to discuss development and report things so I can fix them and work on it.

Keep in mind, some quirks are things I can't fix (like text cutting off in the profile editor and such, waiting on Blish HUD to fix this).

How long is my data retained?

24 hours at most. After that, if you haven't been online then your profile information gets wiped from the server entirely. I do not keep your data, nor do I want to store it indefinitely.

The exception to this is user reports. If you report a profile, it snapshots a copy of the profile on the server, plus your message, and saves that into a permanent database for review and moderation.

Can I contribute to SPARK?

You can!

A while ago, I migrated SPARK's codebase off of my own self-hosted repo and onto GitHub purposely so it was publicly accessible.

You can find the source code here.

It's licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Currently it checks for a new version and downloads off the SPARK server with several checks for security but I'm realizing this is just not worth the hassle. I'll periodically generate a new index file and bundle it into the addon and do that instead. Most of the code that does this was from an old project of mine and reworked for SPARK and it just feels unwieldy.

That cuts out like 2/3 of the code for this search system already and simplifies it.

But my biggest issue is that SPARK uses 23mb of RAM, but doubles due to the in memory search. So I'm swapping it to a stream search instead. This means it only uses like 3mb of extra RAM and then clears up when the garbage collection fires.

While 50mb total is small, I know that some people are on low end devices and I don't wanna poorly optimize this because I bought my RAM before prices exploded.

"When is SPARK available?"

Hopefully soon! My goal was to release it this month. Still working on many enhancements before I feel like it's ready.

Later this week I might post a link where people can download the module and manually install it (until it's released publicly on Blish itself).

I might also make a Discord server for it for bug reporting and discussion sometime soon.

Keep in mind, this is a hobby project, so development is kind of slow. I primarily spend my time coding or writing for my own game most days. The last thing I wanna do is make this feel like a second job.

Keep reading for some new features already added, upcoming ones, and more.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way I can really fix that specific issue.

As far as I know, joining a specific map IP has to go through the join function while in a party or in a squad with the person. I don't know if there's a way to do it outside of that. So you'd need to find someone who can party you and bring you in.

With my addon, it does allow you to copy the person's name to whisper them, which I suppose is the next best thing.

SPARK Sneak Peek v2.0

Some new images of SPARK as a sneak peek.

Keep in mind, everything is a heavy work in progress still. There's much work to be done. I'd estimate I have about 80% of what I want in the first release ready. It's been... 6 or 7 weeks of development so far, I forget exactly when I started on it initially.

This first page is the in-progress revamp to make things a single page without scrolling. More options to come as I work on new features.

One new feature is auto-hide UI. This closes most SPARK windows when you open a map, load zones, or view a vista.

Blocks also now have their own manage window!

This means making sizing more consistent and utilizing the new important message field (tells you why SPARK isn't working so you can fix it, like no API key, etc).

I did remove status messages though. You previously could set one up to 140 characters but I realize this over complicates the way I sync data on the server, and it's redundant since your "currently" (for in character status) and OOC info fields work for that just as well.

I did move blocks to their own window for management however!

Once I finish up with the blocklist updates, I have some other rewrites to do still.

I might also add a toggle to mark profiles as 18+ and make that an opt-in function to see profiles marked that way. I know people are gonna be explicit in them. It's one of the reasons I have a block feature so people can curate their experience as they see fit.

Fixed a few quirks as well that caused some annoyances.

Hoping over the next week or so I can make this more refined and ready for launch.

Hiya!

I've admittedly not looked at any RP Discords for GW2 and probably should seek that out at some point!

I think I was in a few RP Discords like.. uhh... 8 or 9 years back? It's been a long, long time. @_@