UI help

[EggbornHatchedrotten]

I tried different complete sets, but there is always something about all of them that gives me a headache.

So many of the the UI pieces that I use are from 2002 to 2008, and may of the people have retired.

It's time I take matters into my own hands, and I've made a post on EQinterface for help.

Does anyone here know where to start when it comes to fixing my UI pieces, or even inventing my own. I just have no idea where to start.

I basically like the default, but I just want everthing SMALLER! Up until 7.20.11 I also had three horizontal hotbars and one vertical (this dude I think is still active and may fix this), a tiny map that changes colors, a very very tiny potion belt that I think came from some dude in Township Rebellion that I no longer see on their roseter and their registration for their boards is not working, a very cool action window that I could click inventory and mess with my bags from, a super tiny banolier that Kazh helped me with (yes I am asking him again), and a very pretty spell book from 2002 with a blinking dragon and wings.

Reguardless, if I could learn how to update even a few of these pieces myself, then I wouldn't have to go through the begging and searching every few months that I do. It's worse now, and I only see a few pieces updated for the patch, and I really hate them.

My guess so far is find any spot that looks like the animations and replace that text with something new and cross my fingers!

I would appreciate a point in the right direction if anyone can.

[Noircogi]

Generally, if you just use a few pieces, they won't be impacted by most of the game updates. A "full" UI will though.

Are your current pieces "broken"?

The main thing to make sure you do is NOT copy a full UI into your custom directory and then modify pieces.
Start with an empty directory and put just your changed components into it. That way, all of the rest of the parts come from the default UI and will automatically get updated when the devs change them.

I just use a small UI component (from eqinterface.com) which provides 4 small horizontal hot-bars. Everything else is default for me. I haven't had to do anything with this in 3+ years of patches.

If you use custom spell icons, you'll probably have to update frequently.

[EggbornHatchedrotten]

My hotbuttons, buff window (with a smaller version of icons), short buff window, map, action window, bandolier, potion bar, selector bar, spell book and trade skill window no longer function.

I tried those things.

What I am after is how to create new UI pieces myself please, or just a good thread on eqinterface to get my started. What I see on getting started is Greek to me.

[Alsmack]

The easiest way to start is to understand how the process works.

Under uifiles, if you create a directory and place any given UI piece's xml file in it, you've just created a custom UI. Anything that EQ needs that does not exist in that directory, it will pull from the default directory.

Therefor, you can go choose pieces that you really like one by one for each component, and use only those and leave the rest default.

If you're talking about making your own UI pieces, you need to understand XML and edit the UI files .xml for the piece you want to modify. Basically, the XML file has a specific syntax and layout, and it describes the UI piece. I haven't done much with editing them, but my suggestion is take something basic, like say the target box, and just try to make it wider, or something. Change some text. Make something a different color. Try things one at a time to learn it. It won't be a fast process though.