Custom UI that I've been working on
 

I've been working on a complete new UI since almost a year ago now. I've mainly been trying to make the new UI system bearable with my 640x480 res, my eyes can't take any smaller, and the new default UI is all 500 windows all burying each other at that res. <shudders> Also it looks too modernish for my tastes for EQ. Have been trying for something similar in look/layout and feel to the old UI.

Actually, the one I've been making has been "almost done" for a few months now, just have a few more windows and some cleaning up to do in a few areas. :D I keep finding more stuff I wanted to redesign. :rolleyes: I've finished the two main screens though (the screen that's up most of the time and the inventory screen) so just going to show off what I have so far. :cool:

Planning to work on it some more this next week or two, and I believe it'll be ready for public beta release soon. I already privately released it to two friends back in May, one who's been following my design attempts since near the beginning, and one who jumped me that he wanted to use it. :)

I designed the generalized window borders and tinted the default window pieces to coordinate better with my design yesterday (for the windows like options that I won't be redesigning from scratch), and also started work on the merchant window, but don't have any screenshots of those yet.

Anyway, the pictures:

Bags
Bank Window
Inventory Screen
Main Screen
Spellbook
Trade Window

looks good .. its all in what you want it to look like.. if you like it then thats good enuf'..

One the best 640x480 UIs I have seen.

I must say that the "Spellbook" screenshot reminded me of medding with the book open. /shudder

Thanks. It's really turned out a lot better than I ever imagined it would when I started, so I'm very pleased with it. :)

Aye, I remember those "staring at the spellbook" days well. Been playing for three years now. The people starting nowadays are spoiled silly - they don't even have to crack open their spellbooks anymore 'cept for a quick scribe of new spells. :p

Just finished up a bunch of leftover windows and miscellaneous stuff... doing one final quick check on it to make sure I didn't miss anything obvious, then issuing the public beta release. :)

After the beta release I'll be going back over my older windows and seeing if there's any changes I want to make, fixing a few small issues (most I can't do a thing about because it's hardcoded stuff :( ), and keeping an eye out for anything I may have missed.

Windows updated this time around:

-Added tint to Verant's default graphics and created simple black border to allow stuff I'm not redoing to blend in a little better.
-Air Gauge
-Buffs (Slight tweak)
-Casting Gauge
-Give Window
-Group Search Window (Slight tweak to fix major problems with Verant's default at 640x480)
-Guild Management (Slight tweak to make it fit on 640x480 screen)
-Item Display
-Loot Window
-Merchant Window & Quantity Window
-Note Window
-S.D. Buffs (Slight tweak)
-Tracking Window

This has been about a year in the making, so nice to be so very close to being done now. :D I've sure come a long way since the early days trying to work on this when all I accomplished was non-stop headaches. With these latest windows, almost every single one worked the way it was intended to on the first try, after 60-150 minutes of work, and at most needed minor adjustments. :) Of course, these were the easier windows too... ;)

New Screenshots:

Air Gauge
Cast Bar
Give Window
Item Info Window
Loot Window
Merchant & Quantity Window
Note Window
Tracking Window

And yes, I made way too many tester chars... :p

Good job Jen!
I knew the first time you let me see this UI (I think not too long after you started) that it was gonna be one of the best looking "old style" UIs out there

- Lefusgar

Do you have a very small monitor or is it more of a vision problem?

I hope this didn't come out like a rude statement because I'm really trying to be. I'm just very curious as many games coming out will be minimum 1024 resolution.

Does running at 1024 with /chatfontsize 4 or 5 still hurt your eyes to read?

I think its lovely, and gosh, brings back all those old school memories! will certainly be using it on my second acct (I run 2 accts from one low memory *256ram* PC - the smaller the screen size, the better, it seems, even with dual monitors)

Just wish it was sized for 800 by 600... but still great :)

Hi there, Lef. :)

Aye, I believe you got buried in the concept pictures, pictures, code, aspirations, frustrations, headaches, and all that from near the beginning of my project. :) But you asked for it... *giggle* Sounds like you had more faith in me than I did, after I kept slamming into so many hard-coded brick walls. It still shocks me that I actually managed to make something out of this, from the first 3 simple little windows I think you saw... though maybe there were one or two more added before you saw it. ;) I'm assuming you got your custom patch e-mail from Sunday, or you wouldn't have known to come here. :)

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My monitor is what I believe most people would consider small, 15". To me who's first computer had about a 8-9" visible monitor it's huge. lol A few months ago when my 7 year old monitor started acting up, I chose to replace it with another 15" one though, because I have a 17" one at work and had to push it way, way back on my desk to be able to bear it. And my desk at home doesn't have that kind of space. My eyes just don't like having a huge screen right in front of them. So all things considered, it's more of a vision problem.

As for the games coming out with 1024x768 or more minimum resolution nowadays, it does bother me somewhat, but it depends on the game. I can stand short periods at 800x600 or 1024x768, much tinier I can barely stand at all. Sim City 4 is one of them, but I'm fine with it, and Sims was 800x600 or 1024x768 years ago, also ok. I think it depends how tiny they make text, and how much reading is involved. EQ requires a lot of reading, pretty much. With all the font sizes set really, really big I can probably stand a higher resolution, but I'm most comfortable at 640x480.

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Thanks, Vixyn. :) I would probably have been ok if I'd made this for 800x600 or 1024x768 from the beginning, if it let me make the font sizes large enough, but since the amount of work involved was positively daunting I decided to be safe and go for the resolution I knew my eyes could stand. Plus, I just loved the old UI and wanted to make mine as similar as I could manage to. :cool:

This UI looks INCREDIBLE! ;) :) :D :cool: I LOVE IT! I'm going to download it now! THANKS, Aletheria!

I love it! I've been looking for something like this for a long time, as my system is 4 years old, and I run into quite a few lag problems. I reduced my viewport which took care of most of the probs, but the screen looked terrible, lol.

I just hope it still works, as I notice it's been 4 months since it was put up.

Thank you!

Very nice - from the screenshots it looks like it does a good job of capturing the feel of the old 640x480 UI. /clap

I love the look & feel!

i would love a ui just like this but with the original eq ui gfx.. that would be dream come true