PrincessAriel

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly and answering my questions. LOL that would answer the problem.

Areil

psychiea

Hi Hi
Question about the maps. Does your UI have a special map mod? Reason I am asking is.... i deleted entire game from comp and am streaming. I loaded your UI and the map looks like the default. I wanted to know if I'm doing something wrong.
Thank you
Psychiea

Darqwood

Psychiea, I don't have any published mods for the map window. If you had installed EQ2MAP before you deleted the game, you only need to open the EQ2MAP Updater and point to your new game installation folder.

If you did not install EQ2MAP but the map still looks wrong, go to Options (Alt+O) >> User Interface >> Map Window and put a checkmark on New Map System.



.

Nasa

Greetings, Darq

I been using parts from your UI for my compilation. First, I would like to give my thanks by saying thank you for all your hard work and great skills on such a wonderful user interface. Last, I would like to give you a few of my ideas just in case you get bored one day and wonder what to do next.

1. When using the 1 2 3 4-5 buttons on the group and raid window it completely blocks the HP and Power of the target. This can cause a problem as a healer keeping the target alive. ----I'm curious if there is a way to make the opacity almost see through in a way so that you can still see the HP and Power?

2. Similar to #1 the raid window can only have 4 buttons to cast spells, combat arts or abilities.---My idea is to move the 1-4 buttons over the targets name instead of HP and Power and add the 5th button their.

3. My main character is a level 92 Defiler. If you want to make the set default 1-5 buttons on your updater for a Defiler this is what I use. Reason why is I tried for a while last night to get the 5th button working on the raid window and had no success and re-doing the Defiler spells and spell icons on the updater was driving me nuts. The default spells I use for the 1-5 quick cast buttons on the group and raid window.

Dire Balm IX
Sacrificial Restoration VIII
Ancient Shroud VIII
Death Ward II -or- Death Cries -or Eidolic Ward
Soul Ward -or- Ancestral Avenger V -or- Ritual of Alacrity

4. Also, if there is a option to make some of the hot bars to go invisible out of combat that would be cool.......Right click hot bar > Window settings >changing the frame a title.

5. Some of the pet window buttons do not work for my Defiler. I removed the entire pet window. The shrink button does not work and also the automatic recall after a couple seconds. The pet would just continue to attack. The recall button probably does not work because my Defiler does not have a automatic recall as a default skill.


Thanks for your time.

Darqwood

Nasa, thank you for your post. I played a bit with the opacity settings on the raid/group spell buttons, and when the buttons are transparent enough (about 0.300) to see the bars behind them they are also too transparent to see the spell icons. Before changing the opacity settings, try out some of the various layout modes. The raid and group windows have several layouts that place the spell icons to the side or below the health bars. You can get to the controls on the blue pop-out options panel on both windows in-game.

It was primarily an ergonomic decision to put only four spell icons on the raid window. The earliest versions did have all 5 icons, but this made the health/power bars unnecessarily long as well as the entire raid window when the 5 spells were placed to the side. The net result was a raid window that was way too wide. I have many times considered putting a fifth spell under the archetype symbol, but so far I've resisted. Even though this would be more functional, it's not very intuitive.

On #3, there is a feature in the utility that you may want to take advantage of. If you download the optional spell suggestion file (DarqUIspells.csv), you can use Notepad to add and remove spells to your liking, and change the order of spells when you use the setup utility for all of your classes. For example, here is Dire Balm in the spell list:

Comma-separated Fields:
3-letter class abbreviation
Spell level
Spell name
Icon sheet (from the pop-up Icon Viewer in the utility)
Icon position (1 through 36)
Private tell
Group say
Raidsay
Background color (G B P R O Y X where X=black)
Macro string
Macro tooltip
Spell ID number (optional)

I am currently adding the new level 91 and 92 spells to the file, and I'll also add the ones you listed.

The DarqUI hotbars use the "frame and titlebar" settings to hide/display cooldown timers, so I would need to come up with a different way to toggle a combat visibility feature. It's an interesting idea.

The pet window mods were designed for "true" controllable pets (Conjuror, Necromancer, Illusionist and Beastlord for example), so the auto-pull feature will only work if your pet already responds to the pet control icons on the pet window. If your defiler does not already have Shrink and Pet Call spells, then those buttons won't work for that character.


.

orfic

I have downloaded many UIs from here and recently came back to playing. This one was listed at the most recently updated but it is an EXE file. Every other UI I downloaded was a zip file that extracted the files for the UI.

Sorry, I do not trust executables, especially when nobody else is using them for their UI. Please, make a zip file like everyone else and not the suspicious "DarqUI Window Utility.exe" file, and I will certainly give your UI a look.

And yes, I did read the instructions and the requirement to also allow something called "awesomiumprocess.exe" have a firewall exception. UIs don't require executables or additional firewall exceptions. Any UI that requires them is to be considered suspicious right off. I am not saying you are up to anything bad which is why I am sure you will have no problem putting up a UI that does not require executables to be installed.

Zuleyus

@Orfic:

I very much respect your wariness of possible malware, more people should take care about that. But in this case I believe you are overreacting. Have a look at the comments and the number of downloads. Sure, masses can be wrong, but wouldn't you expect a file with 10k+ downloads to get some harsh criticism if it was found to mess with your computer? An executable is not evil on principle - even your operating system is, at its base, nothing but one executable with a bunch of helper files.

What Darq offers here is an automatic update service, similar to EQ2Map (which is a UI mod with an executable as well, although optional) or even the integrated Windows update. It is very handy to use, and makes the (extensive!) configurability of the UI a breeze. Darq could certainly offer a manual version, but that requires much more effort on his AND your part. Personally, I definitely prefer this to having to set up the whole thing myself, and I'm a programmer.

About the Awesomium_process.exe - that is actually a part of EQ2. It is the integrated browser process; you run that thing every time you open the in-game help, for example (not to mention the web browser itself). If you have a look at the recent update notes on the official forum, you will see it mentioned there. If your game and the in-game browser already runs fine, there should not be any need to manually enter exceptions to the firewall.

In short: it's good of you to be careful, but in this case you're simply missing out on something great.


@Darq:

See last line in @Orfic.

Darqwood

Zuleyus, thank you.


Orfic, I don't publish a zipped UI partly because it creates unnecessary work as Zuleyus mentioned, but also because several of the features are so complex that it doesn't make sense to customize without using the configuration utility. The utility sorts everything out and writes detailed customizations directly into the XML files rather than editing manually with Notepad.

The utility can also back up and restore your customizations, import and export spells and settings in multiple languages, automatically find your characters and set up the entire interface for them instantly, track and suggest spells and other details based upon class and level, switch between visual themes with a click (something that would take a lot of cutting and pasting if done manually), set your default UI in the eq2.ini (even if it's not DarqUI), convert all of your UI files to a European-friendly file format, and of course download and replace old files when new versions become available.

None of the other custom interfaces have an exe file, but none of the other interfaces can do all that, either. If you prefer less automation, the other authors offer some outstanding UI work that you may like better. And just to be clear: the utility does not collect or distribute any information from your computer. Its only purpose is as described above.


.

Nodor

I recently moved from Profit to yours and am impressed with the functionality it offers.

I changed the examine effect window to make it resizable, for me this is an absolute must so that I am able to take screenshots of detrimental effects from mobs during raids

Was also wandering if you could add an in range/melee combit indicator to the threat window, for example kinda like the in combat indicator on the left of the cures add a small sword/bow symbol on the right.

Darqwood

Nodor, this is a very nice idea. I've been playing with it today and it's been more useful than I thought it would be for keeping track of combat mode. Download the file below and give it a try. I added colored backgrounds because the icons were getting lost on a transparent window background. NOTE: This version of the threat window uses only Robust cures instead of using the cureplayer command. I'm (still) waiting on SOE to add the Robust potions to the cureplayer list.

There is a variable near the top of the new file called CombatIcons. Set it to "false" to turn off the combat icon feature.


Download:

DarqUI Threat/Detriment Window with Combat Icons (Robust Cure Potions)

NOTE: This UI file has been consolidated with the Updater version, and so the Robust Cures Only version is obsolete. Please use the DarqUI Window Utility to download the newest version of this file, which contains all of the features from both versions.




.

Nodor

Perfect, this is exactly what I was hoping for. Now I finally can get rid of the melee/range buttons on my hotbar, freeing up two slots again

mebirdos

Firstly, thanks so much for this invaluable interface and all your hard work.

It keeps me enjoying this game!

------

One point: With this new update I see player cast bars are in-game (?!)
(I mean other player cast bars, not our own cast bars)

This is a tragedy for the useability of the spellcast monitor in listen mode as it populates with every ability your tank/main assist etc is casting, rather than npc only (As well as being mind bogglingly distracting and mind bending).

If this is not an in-game bug, would it be possible to make some way of disabling player cast bars? Or at least not have them read into the table?


---

edit for clarity

Darqwood

Hi mebirdos, thank you for the compliments. The player casting bar was an unexpected change, and I have to believe it was unintentional on the part of the game developers. I've already seen two threads started on the official forums about it, so we should know soon what's going on. In the meantime, I'm not aware of any way to separate player spells from enemy spells using code, so we're going to have to be patient.


.

Cearra

I've said it before, but I love it. This UI just keeps getting more and more awesome!

Originally, I was using most of your UI, but keeping another bag/group/target/implied target/maintained. I've just switched to your group window and, I must say, it's infinitely better. The aesthetics are great. The functionality is great. I love the icons, the highlighting, the pet bar, everything.

As I play a lot of characters, the ability to actually see the quick cast icon allows me to react much faster, rather than having to mouse-over a nondescript button while trying to remember where that particular toon has what spell. I can't believe that I didn't use this window sooner. My only question would be whether it would be feasible to have the outline of the cure icons disappear when not in combat? Also, I haven't been able to target a pet via their bar on the group window. Granted, I think I've only tried to target my own. Is this PEBCAK, or is it not set up that way?

The reason that I like an alternate maintained window is because, on the one that I use, it states the target in gray text right below the spell name. It can sometimes be really handy to see that at a glance. You may not want to do that for a specific reason, but just food for thought!

The target and implied is just an aesthetic preference (I like the percentage off the bar to the right).

The bags are just aesthetic preference. I use a really compact version without much padding on the titlebar.

Overall, though, I don't know how I played without this UI, and I've tried quite a few. The config utility is priceless. But I'd still give my right arm (and maybe my left one too but, then again, that would make it really hard to play) if you could configure 12 characters from within the utility, without having to use a workaround...

I can dream, right?!

Darqwood

Cearra, thank you for your comments! Your logic for the spell icons instead of 1-2-3-4-5 buttons is the same as mine, and they were one of the reasons why I started modding the EQII interface in the first place. I do like your idea of the detriment placeholders (optionally) fading out when not in combat. My concern is how much of a performance hit this will cause. I have a couple of different ways in mind this could be done, and hopefully one of them will work cleanly without dragging down FPS.

Will also take a look at the pet targeting ASAP. I'll admit I didn't do a lot of testing this time around with group window pets, but I also don't know of anything pet-wise that would have changed recently. And I haven't forgotten that you have a ton of characters. If the UI pieces and the utility were expandable without a colossal re-programming effort, I would have done it before now.


.