Transparent UI ver 1.0 by Ezrick
Update: Ver 1.01 02 Sep 02
Moved digital target health indicator to overlay the health bar. Toned down the green to make it more readable. Fixes a bug
where a_mob_with_a_very_long_name00 was corrupting the HP display.
Update: Ver 1.10 05 Apr 04
Its been a long time! I took a loooonnng time away from EQ. I did the seemingly endless beta of Star Wars Galaxies from Beta
1 on through release. Obviously I failed miserably, the game just didnt hold my interest. This is the first update to
Transparent in about 18 months. Most of the changes are just to get the UI updated and working with the current Everquest.
Put the HP% indicator for players on the respective bar to keep it from being corrupted by long names. Put in a charm slot
into the compact inventory screen, some minor cosmetic fixes (heh, sounds easy, took days to get it right).
Credits
This UI is a comglomeration of several. The largest pieces are from T.King and the Quartz UI. There is also some (heavily
modified), bits from Geddiene, Lythandar, Abbatoir, AcesUI and Kariani. If you believe some of the code here to be your work
and would like to be credited please contact me at
[email protected].
Philosophy
When the new UI was released and the first new bits started to appear I was pretty dissapointed. Every UI maker was seemingly
out show off as many bells and whistles and cram as much useless information on the screen as possible. Im a cleric and Ive
got to ask what possible use is there to a digital readout of the health of player 5s pet? Do I really need to know what my
Str, Dex, etc is all the time? Either the buff you need is in the buff box or its not. That kind of information just doesnt
change often enough to take up screen space. Everything was taking up plain too much screen real estate for my liking.
So I set out to make a UI for those of us who dont want every EQ fact available on the screen at one time, but just what is
needed for effective gameplay. The judgement of what is needed is, of course, highly subjective. I dont expect melee types
to get a lot out of Transparent. There are no /hitsmode functions defined for instance, I keep most of that stuff off and
/serverfiltered anyway. Hopefully, at the very least, you clerics out there will get some use of it.
Design
I like to see the screen and whats going on. This is the primary design theme behind Transparent: Put the most important
gameplay information on the screen while maintaining as much screen real estate as possible. I do not subscribe to the "stare
at the the health bar" theory of cleric play. If Im paying attention I SEE the mob break mez and Im healing that enchanter
before I notice health bars moving. Still I like the F-number labeling, it gives me a mental picture of who belongs to what
key as I almost exclusively use the keyboard when playing.
Upper left corner beneath the lag-o-meter is Lythanders excellent location compass. A perfect example of form following
function. You dont need to play red-light, green-light to find your way in the world of EQs reverse 720 compass! The first
time I used this I was extremely impressed,its simple and effective,try it.
Lower left, this is the mousing area. Most elements that you would want to click with a mouse are combined in this area for
convenience for those who use the mouse a lot. You can get at your 8 primary inventory slots (they too, fade to invisible).
Note: you cant see those in the screenshot as they are faded out, they are just left of the main chat window. The pet health
bars that pop up when needed under the player health bars (our shaman in the F2 slot has a pet). The purple casting bar
superimposes the stamina bar as needed. I liked the simplicity of just having one line for XP and AAXP with the digital number
as opposed to two more guages there. The horizontal casting bar also helps to cut down on mouse travel and as long as there
was dead space there I moved the buff bar down as well. The chat windows are self-explanatory, left is main chat all the
garbage in the right. Personally I use the right chat area for damage shields so I know when to MoK a target, but anything can
go in there.
What is not shown is the inventory screen. It is compact with no stats, just your inventory. Also, I took over the pet window
(alt-F1) and it exclusively shows player stats. Transparent is NOT for pet classes unless you want to mod it! Also in the
picture you cannot see the spell bar as it is faded out, it is underneath the left chat window arranged horizontally next to
the buff bar. Songs show up along the right side of the right chat window. You see in the screenshot that Im casting a
spell, as soon as the spell is finish, that bar reverts to showing your stamina, pretty spiffy I think.
Installation
1. Create a folder under everquestuifiles called Transparent.
2. Unzip this file into the folder
3. When in EQ type /loadskin and select Transparent
4. Fiddle with windows to suit
5. Remember, your stats are not on your inventory screen, use the pet window (Alt-F1) to view your stats! Rarely, but
sometimes I leave this open along the left side of the screen.
6. There are no facepick or dye functions in the inventory. Im working on it but dont consider that a high priority (how
often do you really use those?). For those functions you need to load the default UI.
7. This will not set your windows to the transparency you see in the screenshot. Right-click the windows title bar, choose
Alpha, then Faded to set the faded transparency. I use a setting of 5 for everything but the compass.
Updated 05 April 04
Ezrick Blackpriest
Archon, Invictus Verite
Tarew Marr