They are incorporated herein for entertainment purposes only.
To get the most out of the DarqUI raid and group windows, please take a few minutes to read through all of the instructions.
The utility that comes with the raid and group windows must be unzipped before using it. Double-click "Start" inside the folder to open the main page in your browser. I strongly suggest using Internet Explorer to run the utility even if you usually prefer Firefox or something else. Click the flashing yellow security protection bar and allow the blocked script to run. Even though the program runs in a web page, it is completely self-contained on your computer. Neither the EQII game nor the Internet will be accessed in any way while using it.
On the main page you will see four color-coded blocks which represent three configurable spell sets as well as the standard cures. You can set up just a few spell slots or all of them depending on what you need. Later, you will transfer the choices you've made into the UI files using Windows Notepad.
Before you start setting up the quick-cast buttons, it's important to understand why they are valuable. Although you could put just about any spell or command onto a button, the ones that will benefit you the most are those that normally require you to target another player before casting. Without the quick-cast buttons, you have to switch your target to the other player, cast the spell, then switch your target back to the first player, or to whatever else you were doing.
But using the quick-cast buttons, the targeting is done internally so you can keep one player (or the enemy) targeted while you cast the spell on another player without changing targets. This can dramatically improve the efficiency of your gameplay depending upon your class, your role, and the spells and commands you choose.
When deciding which spell sets to set up, your gameplay habits should be considered. If you have multiple alts, you may decide to make a set for each of them. If you do most of your grouping and raiding on a single character, you may want to set up the raid window with sets for pre-battle, during battle, and recovery after a wipe. The sets are easily switched from inside the game, so you can have as many as 9 different targetable group and raid-wide spells on-screen, with another 18 just a few mouse clicks away. Now let's set up a spell set step-by-step.
Select a Subclass: The easiest way to begin is by selecting the adventure class of the first character you want buttons for. By default, Set #1 in the utility is pre-loaded when you log in to the game. When you choose a class from the dropdown list, one or more of the slots will be filled with preconfigured spell names and icons. You can stop there, or continue fine-tuning the spell set.
Name: The name of the spell set is automatically changed to the subclass you chose in the previous step. If you prefer a different label, type a unique descriptive name in the space provided at the top of the spell set. This will be displayed in game for easy reference. Keep it short, preferably one word.
Order: Each preconfigured spell has a shortcut on the "Order" dropdown. You can use these to change the order of the spells in the game window. If you decide to leave one of the slots empty or set up your own spell, choose the blank choice from this dropdown menu to clear it. Caution: Set up the spells in the order you want prior to customizing anything in the spell set, because switching the order will revert any icon and text changes you have made in the slots that you move.
Exact Ability Name: Whether you are setting up a new spell or using the preconfigured ones, check the spell names carefully because they have to match your knowledge book precisely or else they won't work. This includes the Roman numeral Level designations.
Fifth Item: You will notice that the fifth item in each set is exclusive to the group window. This is because the raid window only displays the first four spells in each set. If you are setting up spells for the raid window, be sure to keep this in mind. It does no harm to set up the fifth spell either way. Both windows use the same data; the raid window simply ignores spell slot #5.
Icon and BG: The spell buttons are actually a composite of three parts: button, icon, and background color. The background color generally depends upon the legal target of the spell. Almost all of the preconfigured spells are either gold (for group or raid ally) or purple (for group allies).
If you are setting up a new spell or command, click the icon to open a menu of resources that are available in game. Scroll through the icons and pick the one you want, which will select it and close the pop-up window. Next, choose the correct background color from the BG menu. You will have to wait until you are in game to see the icons overlaid on the backgrounds. The utility can't give you a preview of this.
If you are setting up custom spells, you may prefer to leave some or all of the buttons with numbers instead of choosing icons. Simply leave the numbers in place when configuring, or choose a blank choice on an individual button from the Order drop-down, or select "Custom (Clear)" from the subclass dropdown to reset the entire block of spells including any text in the text fields.
If you want a blank button face without a number or icon, open the icon picker and choose an empty black slot from one of the icon banks (there are empty icons in the resources starting on page 5) and then choose a background color for the blank button from the BG dropdown. (If you leave the BG set to "SEL" the script will choose black for you.)
Tell, Gsay and Rsay: The next three fields can be filled in to automatically send a private tell, a groupsay, and/or a raidsay each time the spell button is clicked. Please keep in mind that text chat during encounters is generally very spammy even without macro text; having visual information for certain critical spells or abilities can often make encounters go better, but a lengthy, cute saying for every single cast of every spell will quickly wear on the nerves of your groupmates. So be thoughtful about just which of your spells actually needs an announcement every time.
The raidsay field has a special attribute: If you place any text into the Rsay field, the button target's name will be added as the last word in the raidsay announcement. For example, if you type "J Cap to" in the Rsay field, the raid will see "J Cap to Kalanorf" when you press the J-Cap button next to Kalanorf's name. So configure any raidsay text with this in mind.
Cures: The only choices you need to make for cures will be whether you send chat text (tell, gsay or rsay) with each cure. Choose Priest, Mage or Other from the class dropdown to fill in these fields with presets. By default, the Priest presets will send a private tell to the target of each detrimental cure attempt, and an additional raidsay for Curse cures. Mages with Arcane cures will send tells just for those, and other classes will not send any tells, since none of the other classes can cure. If you want the ability to cast cure potions on your character, I suggest my threat window UI mod which has this feature.
Command String: As an option, you can set up a spell button to automatically run an arbitrary command as if you had typed it. This command can contain the reference for the selected button's target using the familiar "%T" mnemonic. The command string can be used together with a spell, or by itself as a simple targeted macro command. Clear the Spell Name field to use the button exclusively as a command.
When you generate the XML data block using the utility, the %T will be converted into an internal variable that represents the button's target. So if you edit the UI files directly, be aware of this. Typing %T directly into the Cmd text field in the XML file will not work. Also, the leading forward-slash ("/") cannot be used in the command string. Simply start the string with the command verb without using the slash character. See the examples below.
Command Tooltip: Because command strings can vary widely from a single verb to a complex string of text, the command function needs its own tooltip. Decide on a short description for the command and place it into this field. This description will appear in light-blue text under the button's SpellName tooltip, or by itself if you have not configured a spell for the button. If you leave the command field empty, the blue tooltip will not display. If you use "%T" in the tooltip, it will not be translated to the button's target.
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IMPORTANT: There are two limitations to the command field:
1) In most commands where you use %T to denote the button's target, the %T should not touch any of the characters adjacent to it. As a best practice, put a single space between the %T and the other parts of the command string so that it will translate the target correctly. 2) If your command string contains an apostrophe or any other characters besides %T, letters, numbers and spaces, you must enclose that portion of the string in quotation marks. Take the following example, an emote, which uses greater than/less than symbols and an apostrophe: em casts <Hyran's Seething Sonata> on %T This string should be typed into the utility with quotes surrounding the part that contains the odd characters as follows: em casts "<Hyran's Seething Sonata>" on %T which the utility will correctly translate in the generated XML data: em casts "<Hyran's Seething Sonata>" on Parent.Parent.T.Value The quotation marks you supply will not show up in the output in-game; they are only used here to facilitate the translation of the non-standard characters. In rare instances like this where you must include quotation marks, be sure the %T stays outside of the quotes, otherwise it will be taken literally and will not translate the button's target. |
Some command string examples:
assist %T
- Assist the selected ally.
em gives %T a dark heart
- Use a roleplaying emote to inform others in the area of certain actions.
tell Baoldor Upbeat Tempo has been placed on %T
- Inform your raid leader of important buff choices.
7 ---- ACT MARKER %T ----
- Places text into chat channel 7 to mark events in ACT for searching later.
Once you have the spell set like you want it, you can optionally configure the other two sets in a similar manner. Remember to put a descriptive name in the label field at the top of each set.
Select a subclass to quickly populate the buttons.
Click an icon slot to open the pick window.
Add private tells, groupsay and raidsay sparingly.
Quick-cast buttons can contain any combination of spell, chat text, and a macro-like command string. The tooltip above shows a spell + command combination.
Hover your cursor over the button set label in-game to see the currently-loaded spells and commands.
Generate the Text Block: Once you have your spell sets configured, click the "Write My Data" button near the bottom of the application to generate a block of XML text containing your custom configuration data. There will be three blocks of data for the three spell sets, and one block of cure data without the icon portion. (Cure icons are not configurable.) You need to make sure your group and raid windows contain all four blocks, even if you did not configure any spells in some of the blocks.
Update the UI Files: Now navigate to the location where your custom UI files are stored. If you have not already dropped the unzipped DarqUI versions of the group and raid windows into this folder, do that now. The raid and group windows have to be the ones I supplied you with. Your UI folder will probably be something like:
C:\Program Files\Sony\EverQuest II\UI\<Your Custom UI>
If you have generated data for the raid window, locate the file inside this folder called:
eq2ui_mainhud_raid.xml
If you are configuring the group window, look for:
eq2ui_mainhud_groupmembers.xml
Right-click the file, and choose Open With... and then choose Notepad. Be sure to use only Notepad and not Word or WordPad, otherwise you will end up with a mess. Once you have Notepad open with your file showing, go to the Format menu at the top of the window and make sure Word Wrap is unchecked. This will make the file much easier to understand.
Near the top of the file you will see a placeholder block of text that looks similar to your generated data from the utility window. There will be Start and End markers at the top and bottom of the text block to help you find the right area.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Page eq2usescomwndcontrols="true" MaximumSize="320,227"...
<!-- *************** Start *************** -->
... ...
Replace all of the text between the start and end markers
Replace all of the text between the start and end markers
Replace all of the text between the start and end markers
Replace all of the text between the start and end markers
... ...
<!-- **************** End **************** -->
<Page Name="Switches" Visible="false">
<Data Name="TargetColor" Value="#005577" />
<Data Name="TargetOpac" Value="1.000" />
...code continues...
Using standard cut-and-paste techniques, delete all of the text between the markers, and then copy the block of generated text out of the utility and paste it into the UI file in place of the matching placeholder text. Save the UI file.
If you are using the same spell configuration for both the group and the raid windows, open the other file in the same manner, and cut-and-paste your button data the same way you did for the first window. Otherwise, go back to the utility and reconfigure the buttons, generate new XML text by pressing the Write button, and then copy the updated button information into the second UI file. Save the files and log into the game to use your new quick-cast buttons.
Click the 'Write My Data' button to generate XML with your button information.
Use Notepad without Word Wrap to edit the UI files.
Cut-and-paste the data from the utility into the matching area of the UI file.
Once you have your raid and group windows working like you want, you may later find that you want to make some minor changes -- a different spell name, a slight change to the chat text on one of the spells. Since the button utility does not save your data after you close it, it doesn't really make sense to reconfigure all of your spells each time just to make a minor adjustment like this.
If you are already familiar with XML, you will very likely feel quite comfortable opening the UI files and making a quick adjustment here and there without fear. If you have not done much with XML, the format of the data may seem intimidating at first, but don't be intimidated by it. Once you know what you are looking at, you will realize it's simple text and you will quickly become able to make certain adjustments without invoking the utility.
As an example, look at the Notepad window below. You can see the spell set is composed of a "Page" with a label and 5 spells, then immediately after that you see five lines of text with the icon data. Each spell has one line of commands and one line of icon information (yellow areas in the example). If you want to change the label of the spell set, make the change in the Label Value field (shown below with a blue rectangle around it.)
