core and noghtfall differences
 

Are the differences between core and nightfall significant? Maybe from the size of the files, core is a select few default ui window replacements? While nightfall is a full on install? Drums author no longer plays and will only do neccessary updates, no more feature adds this year. After xmas he will end even that so I need to go back to profit or try fetish.

"Fetish Core" is what I decided to name my efforts to keep the Fetish UI updated. I wanted to make a clean distinction between it and the original work by Zonx; previously I was posting occasional updates as patches to the old install, but as time went on it just didnt make sense to keep things as a two-step process (downloading the original and then applying the patched files). There was also another person that was planning to work on some other things that was potentially going to use a different name, but that never panned out.

The downloads labeled "Fetish Nightfall" and uploaded by Zonx are out of date and no longer usable. "Fetish Core" is the full UI, but I intentionally do not include certain files for better future-compatibility; the windows use the layout the default game provides and get automatically reskinned to match the Fetish color scheme by the way the game's UI works. The main one is the persona/character/inventory window. SOE changes that window incredibly frequently and with little to no notice; by not including the file for it, when the default game updates it you're automatically using the new version (and it just gets reskinned to the fetish colors automatically by the game engine). Thats where the "Core" name came from, the fact that I'm maintaining the core functionality while trying to make it less tedious to use a custom UI with SOE's current UI update cycle.

tl;dr: To use Fetish, download the UI named Fetish Core (currently at version 12.5.1). All other versions are long out of date and will not work properly.

Thanks, for once I read the entire post as it told me that certain windows would stay default. That way I would not be surprised. I see ui development goingthe way it did in eq1. As the years go by people get tired and so the authors just have to stop going.

That's pretty much what has happened in EQ2. Of the "Featured" interfaces, they're all either currently maintained by a new author or shut down (or in the case of Drums, going to shut down). The game's been out a long time, people move on and often there's someone who wants to try and keep their preferred UI going.

As for some windows in Fetish now being the default layout, there's usually enough hard-coding behind them (Character window, marketplace, etc.) that they can only be changed so much to start. Honestly I can think of no major feature that I'd otherwise include in any window that's left using the default layout, so just tweaking things like spacing doesn't become worth the hassle to me or to the users, who have to rollback to default and wait for a patch whenever SOE decides to randomly change the window anyway.

In times past, major UI changes were kept mainly in the monthly or quarterly (GU) patch cycles, with usually at least some time on the Test server for maintainers to update their UIs in advance. That hasn't been the case the past year+, now they make changes in regular weekly hotfixes that utterly break custom UIs (crash bugs at the worst, just loss of functionality at best). When it comes to those windows the risk vs reward for making small modifications to them just doesn't add up for me; I'd rather take the more future-proofed route that means less work for me and fewer issues for folks that use the UI, all at essentially little to no loss in form or function.

BONKS YOU ON THE HEAD


DarqUI_Live