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THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN EARLIER - User Interface (UI) and Chatting

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* Press 'R' to respond to the most recent tell you've received. Press 'G' to say something in groupsay. Press ' to say something in say (heard by all in immediate vicinity). Press 'Enter' to enter a command or type something in your default chat channel (set by pressing the chat bubble icon at the bottom left corner of the chat window). After presssing 'R', you can press the up-arrow to scroll through a list of people who have recently sent you tells. This comes in handy when talking with multiple people simultaneously. If you press enter, you can press the up-arrow to see the things you have recently said. Hitting enter again will repeat them as if you retyped it. This is useful when auctioning something, or looking for a group in /ooc (zone-wide, non-rp chat).

* You can create macros for common things like pulling a mob with an incoming message to the group, assisting the main tank, changing equipment, etc  Go to Socials > Macro, then click on a macro name or "click to edit".  Up to 24 actions/commands can be put in each macro, and you can set the icon to one of the defaults available or drag a spell or item icon to the macro's icon box to use it.  You can also right-click on any hotkey in your hotbar and select "Create Macro" to make a Macro with default to that name and icon.

* You can have multiple hotbars for your hotkeys. To do so, right click on your main hotkey bar and choose Open New Hotbar. You only get keyboard shortcuts to the first three hotbars. By default these are # for primary, Alt+# for secondary, and Control+# for tertiary hotbars. You can set one of these to function keys instead (F1, F2, etc) in the Options window, but remember to remove the various targetting functions from those keys if you do.

* You have ten hotbar banks (1-0), each with 12 hotkeys.  To change which bank is displayed in your primary hotbar, press Shift+[#] - ie, if you press Shift+4, the hotkeys in bank 4 will display in your primary hotbar.  Shift+alt+[#] changes the hotkeys in your secondary hotbar, and Shift+Ctrl+[#] changes the tritary hotbar.

* You can place links to items in text such as /ooc, /auction, or /g. To do so, open your inventory and find the actual item (note this means you must accept your quest rewards before you can link them to show off to all your friends). Either click and drag the item to the line of text you are writing or hold Shfit and click on the item, and the item name will insert itself. Other people can then click on the name to get a description of the item as if they had examined it.

* Many things in the game (from UI windows to mobs) have right click contextual menus. If you are not sure what something is, or want more information/options, try right clicking on it. Note that some things may not be activatable via a double click -- in this case, right click and use them through the menus.

* If you place your cursor over something (like a piece of furniture, or a barrel) and it glows, you should right click and examine it. There are MANY quests started this way, particularily in dungeons and outside of the cities, so make sure you cursor over everything you see at least once to see if it glows. Also note that some things will only glow after you have finished the prerequesites for it, such as reaching an appropriate level for the quest, having completed a different quest, or having a certain item on you.

* When you see a person's name in your chat box, you can click on their name to select options such as send them a tell. This can save having to spell complicated names if you want to respond to someone.  This can also be used to report someone (like plat sellers) - click their name and select "Tell" to get /tell [name] in your chat line.  Backspace out the word "tell," type "report," and hit enter - report sent without having to work out what the heck that name is!

* For those of you who are keyboard averse, you can run forward by holding down both mouse buttons at the same time, and auto-run by clicking the 3rd mouse button/scroll wheel if you have one.

* Be careful who or what you double left click on. By default, double-clicking on an item in a merchant window will buy, sell, or repair it as appropriate to the window (you can turn this off under Options > User Interface > Game Windows). Also, the default double click action for many NPCs is attack, not talk. If you wish to talk to them, right click and choose hail from the menu, or target them and press "H" to hail. If you double click on them, you will attack them and they will probably serve you up your butt on a platter.

* Consider creating multiple chat windows or tabs and filtering the content of each. You can do this by right clicking on your primary chat window and selecting "new chat window" or "add new tab". You can right click on each of the windows created, select "Chat Options" and filter the content that the window will display. This is an excellent way to ensure that important communications, like the group leader yelling "EVAC!", don't get lost in battle text.

* Server-side chat filters automatically block most spam-type tells; instead of getting the message, you will get a one-line notice that [name of person] is sending you a tell, with a link to click if you want to receive the message after all.  If you do not want to see even this notice, right-click your chat window, pick Chat Options, and uncheck the box under Chat Text > Private Chat > Spam

* Type /channellist to see a list of all server-wide chat channels you are in. Next to each channel name will be a number in parenthesis; use this number to talk in that channel. For example, if one of your channels is Level_10-19 (2), you can chat in that channel by typing /2 [text]. This command will not work if abbreviated (/chann will cause an unknown command error message), but can be tab-completed.

* Which chat channel you are most active in usually changes as you level.  Use /setchannelnumber [oldnumber] [newnumber] to change the channel number, so your most active channel is always at the same number

* You can use Alt+Enter to switch between full screen and windowed mode.

* You can lock UI windows to prevent them from being inadvertently moved or closed. To do this, right click on the window, select "Window Settings", and check the "locked" box. If you need to move them around later, you can always unlock them temporarily.

* You can set windows so you can click through them to something they may be covering (a mob, treasure chest, party member, etc.). To do this, right-click on the window, select "Window Settings", and check the "Click through enabled" box. This can also be done with windows that only show up temporarily, such as Heroic Oportunity window or the casting timer, so long as you right-click the window while it is showing.

* The Heroic Opportunity (HO) window can be unlocked and moved while a HO chain is progressing. Just start it up, right-click on it and unlock the window. I recommend moving it to a prominent place on your screen. This way, it is very clear when a HO is occuring.

* By default, many of your game windows are not hideable. If you wish to hide things like your quest journal helper, maintained spell effects, or Player window, go to Options > User Interface > Game Windows, and uncheck "Keep Main HUD Windows Visible." You can then toggle these windows on and off using the key settings found in Options > Controls > Window Keys.

* If the game is too dark for you, you can turn up the gamma on your video card, or buy a torch. You can actually carry two torches, and the light they produce stacks! Torches are not consumed. To change your gamma settings, go to Options > Display > Color Correction and adjust the overall gamma slider.

* There are specialized chat channels that you can join. Right click on the chat window, go to "Chat Options", and you will see pre-set channels for your alignment and for your level range. The traders channel is particularily useful if you are looking to exchange crafted goods or find new commissions from other players. You will automatically join the channel for your level range as you go up in levels, either tradeskilling or adventuring.

* It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a white (even) con and a grey (trivial) con because the colors are so close, and this can be a deadly mistake. Fortunately, you can change them! Go to Options > User Interface > Game Colors, and you should see a list of the various con colors (towards the bottom of the list). Consider changing either the white or gray to brown, purple, pink, light blue, or tan.

* If your play server is down, the game will try to make a best-guess at what your characters look like to show you at the login screen. Sometimes this guess does not include your latest updates, or even all your characters, so don't panic if someone's missing or the level or clothes are wrong.

* The game's user interface is highly customizable. While it is not trivial to hand-modify your own interface, it is quite easy to utilize modifications that other people have made publically available. Some of the mods I have found to be the most useful: an inventory screen that displays your attributes, a compass that displays the name of the zone you are in, an exp bar that shows both your adventure and tradeskill exp at the same time and has a decimal readout, a larger quest window, and an in-game Info Center with useful information about zones, classes, and quests. See the end of this guide under "Other Great Resources" to find more information about modding your UI.

* You can copy and paste text into your chat window from outside EQ2 by using the conventional Ctrl-C (to copy) and Ctrl-V (to paste) key combinations. Just make sure you click on the chat window text entry area or hit Enter first to activate the cursor there. This is useful for say, copying a URL out of your browser and pasting it into your chat box to tell someone in the game about a cool website. This works in a limited way in reverse - you can copy text from the chat line of your chat window and paste it into a window outside of the game.

* If you try to send a simple emoticon msg like ":)" or are trying to start your msg with a slash but you don't actually want it to be treated as a "slash command", use the / chat command, such as /s for say or /gu for guild. The game then treats everything on the line as just text. Just putting a space before the text will keep the game from assuming it's a command, but the : or / symbol will be automatically removed along with the extra space when the chat is sent. If you start every chat msg with /t or /gsay or some other /-specifier this may not be relevant. But if you are like me and constantly change the default chat mode button in the bottom left corner this may be helpful.

* Options customizations can be saved and loaded in the Options window  This allows for quick changes to most settings, particularly good when going from taking screenshots (with high graphics resolution that can bog performance) to casual grouping (when moderate visuals usually won't affect gameplay) to raiding (when maximum performance requires low graphics due to the sheer number of people and effects in a small area).  NOTE: the Options > Controls customizations often revert to default when you enter the Options window, and these settings DO NOT SAVE.  If you've changed any of these, verify those changes are still in place before applying/exitting the Options window.

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