acdream/docs/plans/2026-07-23-world-interaction-completion.md

World interaction completion — pre-M4 program

Status: Slice 1 code-complete 2026-07-23; connected visual gate pending. Milestone: M4 prerequisite/preamble. Architecture: retained gameplay UI over shared selection, object, and interaction state. GameWindow remains a composition/callback shell.

Outcome

Close the remaining retail interaction surfaces before the larger M4 quest/emote/character-creation bodies begin:

1. Favorite spell bars expose their DAT-authored overflow arrows and scroll through every server-persisted favorite.
2. The status bar's hand and magnifying-glass controls invoke the same Use and Assess commands as their keyboard paths.
3. Assessing a creature, player, NPC, or object opens its retail information in the canonical shared main-panel host.
4. World picking can resolve visible equipped children, such as a character's wielded weapon, while selection markers remain anchored to the picked child.
5. Vendor use opens the authored vendor surface, publishes its inventory, and supports retail selection/browsing.
6. Vendor buy/sell transactions, quantities, pending-state ownership, and authoritative inventory reconciliation complete the loop.

The program reuses the existing retained-window host, SelectionState, ClientObjectTable, interaction transaction owner, and server-authoritative inventory updates. It does not create parallel panel positions, item tables, selection state, or optimistic inventory outcomes.

Ordered slices

Slice	Deliverable	Principal owner
1	Spell-bar overflow arrows	SpellcastingUiController + generic retained scrollbar/list
2	Status Use/Assess commands	focused status-bar controller binding to the existing action router
3	Assessment information panel	new retained panel controller mounted by the canonical main-panel host
4	Equipped-child world picking	pure world-query/picking policy plus presentation anchor
5	Vendor browse lifecycle	vendor session/controller plus authored panel
6	Vendor transactions	server-authoritative buy/sell command and reconciliation owner

Each slice begins with named-retail research, produces pseudocode and conformance tests, updates the divergence register if required, and lands as a separate bisectable commit. A visual gate follows each UI-bearing slice.

Slice 1 now imports both 23-pixel arrow buttons, their rollover/pressed media, and HideDisabled from the real combat fixture; places their artwork by the authored leading/trailing positions; shares the list's single pixel-scroll model; advances one 32-pixel cell per press; and exposes only actively selected spells. Passive object/endowment refresh preserves a manual offset. The mixed 610/800-pixel DAT anchor chain is solved to a fixed 747-pixel combat root, producing exactly 18 visible 32-pixel favorite cells (nine numbered plus nine unnumbered) without consuming the overflow. The initial 57-test/full-suite gate passed; the corrective 104-test focus set, 3,472 App tests / 3 skips, Release solution build, and 7,845 complete-solution tests / 5 skips pass. The connected gate is pending after user feedback on arrow sides, rollover, width, and offset persistence.

Slice 1 — spell-bar overflow arrows

Retail oracle

The authored Magic combat layout contains, inside every favorite-tab group:

• horizontal scrollbar 0x100000B5, 685×36 at the 800-pixel design width;
• decrement button 0x10000071, 23×36;
• increment button 0x10000072, 23×36;
• item list 0x100000B6, inset by 23 pixels on both sides and 32 pixels high.

The list references the scrollbar through UIElement_Scrollable property 0x71. The scrollbar references increment/decrement buttons through properties 0x77/0x78, and property 0x79 enables HideDisabled. There is no track or thumb in this specific control: the two authored arrows are the whole visible scrollbar.

Named retail references and executable pseudocode are recorded in ../research/2026-07-23-retail-spellbar-overflow-pseudocode.md.

Implementation plan

1. Generalize DatWidgetFactory.BuildScrollbar so horizontal and vertical scrollbars both import the referenced decrement/increment children, including their authored positions, dimensions, Normal/rollover/pressed media, and HideDisabled property.
2. Generalize UiScrollbar to use distinct authored decrement/increment extents for rendering, hit-testing, track geometry, and dragging. Preserve the existing 16-pixel default for layouts whose button children are absent.
3. Reproduce retail disabled presentation: a model without overflow rejects pointer input; when HideDisabled is authored, the scrollbar also draws nothing and does not claim hit tests.
4. In SpellcastingUiController, bind each group's scrollbar to its UiItemList.Scroll, enable horizontal scrolling, and retain one independent pixel offset per favorite tab.
5. Match SpellCastSubMenu::SetSelected: selecting a spell through keyboard, shortcut, or code scrolls that item into view; passive state refresh does not re-expose it.
6. Carry the combat root's mixed-parent raw-edge policies through the complete imported tree and solve for the retail 18-cell favorite viewport; keep that HUD capacity fixed across desktop resizes.
7. Pin the importer, arrow hit extents, 32-pixel step, no-overflow behavior, controller binding, and selection exposure with focused App tests.
8. Run the App Release suite, solution Release build, and complete Release suite. Then update the roadmap/memory and request the connected visual gate: place more favorites than fit, scroll both directions, change tabs, and verify arrows disappear on a non-overflowing tab.

Invariants

• DAT supplies the controls and their artwork; no new spell-bar texture or overlay is invented.
• The scrollbar and list share one UiScrollable; there is no second offset.
• One arrow press moves one 32-pixel favorite cell, matching UIElement_ListBox::InqScrollDelta.
• Hidden disabled arrows cannot intercept combat-page dragging or clicks.
• Existing stack, combat-power, chat, inventory, spellbook, and external container scrollbars retain their current behavior.
• No substantial feature body enters GameWindow.