Momentum Mod's game User Interface files used by the Chaos Source Engine's Panorama UI framework.
The repository primarily consists of XML, SCSS and JavaScript files. It also includes all icons and various images and videos used by the UI.
For a general overview of Panorama, see the VDC page.
XML, found in the layout/ folder, is used to describe the overall layout of all panels. These panels can then be manipulated by JavaScript and C++ code.
Panorama uses a variant of CSS for styling. Note that it does not conform to the standard CSS spec, differing majorly in how it handles things like flow and scaling. A complete list of CSS properties can be found using dump_panorama_css_properties markdown in the ingame console (you will need to launch with -condebug and read the console.log output). The list is also kept on the VDC though this may not be fully up to date.
Momentum uses the Sass preprocessor for all styling. This is compiled by the game itself on first load then cached for future loads if unchanged. Developers may therefore change any Sass styling and it will be recompiled on next launch or reload with panorama_reload, which is by default bound to F7.
The Sass module structure, found in styles/, is quite conventional, with all top-level modules (besides abstract/) handled by main.scss. Any XML file then needs only include main.scss to access the entirety of the styling. We use the BEM (Block Element Modifier) naming scheme for all classes, besides those that are referenced in C++ code, which use UpperCamelCase.
Panorama uses the V8 JavaScript engine to interpret and run the JavaScript files, found in scripts/, at runtime, which are included in XML files within <scripts> tags (similar to regular web development).
JavaScript communicates with the game via events and APIs exposed by the game, a full list of which can be found by running dump_panorama_events markdown and dump_panorama_js_scopes markdown ingame. Many of these are listed in this repository, though it currently requires manual updating so may not be kept up-to-date.
The easiest way to develop for Momentum Mod Panorama is to fork this repository and mount it in your momentum/custom/ folder, for example:
cd <Your Steam Momentum Mod or Momentum Mod Playtest install location>\momentum\custom\
mkdir PanoramaDev
cd PanoramaDev
git clone https://github.com/<your github account>/panorama.git
You should end up with momentum/custom/PanoramaDev/panorama containing the contents of this repository.
This will be mounted on game launch and override the files in your momentum/panorama/ folder. To avoid any overlaps (e.g. if your branch renames or moves a file, the original file will still be mounted), we recommend temporarily renaming your momentum/panorama/ folder. (NOTE: you'll need to do this after each Momentum Mod Steam update!)
Once up and running, if you're on VSCode, we highly recommend the tools at panorama-languages-support made by one of our team members, @braem . Also, the get_latest_js_types scripts in momentum/tools/ will generate a JS file containing type information for all the Panorama panels and APIs, just keeping that file open in VSCode/WebStorm should provide you with type info.
If you're looking to contribute, you should install the latest LTS Node.js which comes with NPM. Once installed, in a fresh terminal (you may need to reload your current one if you have one open), run npm install to get all the dependencies, namely Husky and Prettier. These two work together to ensure a strict formatting is followed.
You may also want to install the Prettier VSCode extension which will automatically format your code on save.
Most of our larger systems and components require significant work with (closed-source) game code and thus requires licensed C++ access or working tandem licensed C++ developer. Our work until now has been done internally by the core team. For 0.9.1 and onwards, we have exposed enough events and APIs that non-team developers should be able to work on areas like HUD components (for an example of non-licensed HUD work, we recommend scripts/hud/cgaz.js). We will continue to expose data as we best see fit for custom panels.
Therefore, those looking to contribute should look for issues NOT marked with "Needs C++". We also deeply encourage you to check out the the #panorama channel in our Discord - whilst Panorama itself is poorly documented, we are happy to help any potential contributors further there!