Modding the EC on a low level?
I prefer using the default UI, but I would like to be able to edit some of the 'action' icons to give me more choice, not the ones to perform the action, just the ones you pull into a hot bar to represent your macro - something like swapping one of the number icons to be a red coloured fishing skill icon to use for a lava fishing macro.
I have no knowledge of where to even start! Any chance of an idiot's guide from someone?
I have no knowledge of where to even start! Any chance of an idiot's guide from someone?
Comments
The beauty of UO's custom UI is that if you want to override just one thing you only need the appropriate directory structure and that one file.
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
What TimSt and Petra have worked out above is great way to replace an icon. Like with most things in the EC, there are multiple ways to do the same thing.
Rather than replacing a file, I'm going to post some instructions for how to add custom icons to your macro icon selection.
To edit/create the icon files, you might want GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulator Program. I see that both Petra and I are using it. The button/icons in the EC are saved as ".dds" files, which GIMP can interact with. For reference, "dds" stands for "direct draw surface", and now my knowledge of dds is exhausted.
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First, go into your EC install directory, into the UserInterface folder, and unzip "default.zip" to somewhere you can keep a copy of your un-modified UI files, like your desktop. Your EC install directory will be something like:
C:\>Program Files (x86)>Electronic Arts>Ultima Online Enhanced Client>UserInterface
Since you are already in the EC install UserInterface folder, create a folder for your custom UI. We'll go with Petra's UI from earlier in the thread.
Within the Petra's UI folder, create two (2) additional folders: Icons, and Source. Within the Icons folder create another folder named Petra's Icons. Don't worry, I'll post a picture of the directory structure in a few steps. For right now it should look like this:
Petra's UI
---Icons
-----Petra's Icons
---Source
To add icons to the list of macro icons available in game you will need to change information in two EC files. Go into the files you unzipped from "default.zip". Go to Default>Icons and copy icons.xml into Petra's UI>Icons. Then go to Default>Source and copy MacroPickerWindow.lua into Petra's UI>Source. Your directory should now look like this:
Petra's UI
---Icons
-----Petra's Icons
-----icons.xml
---Source
-----MacroPickerWindow.lua
That's it, you've setup your custom UI to be able to add icons. Now, let's make and add an icon.
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In your default files, in Default>Icons>actions, you will find the grey button background, "blank2.dds", that is used in all the default EC's hotbar icons, etc. Open "blank2.dds" in your editing software.
Next we need an image to put on the background. Since Petra wanted something with fishing, and she has mentioned being a 69 year old grandmother a couple times, we'll find something typical of a 69 year old woman with 3 three kids and a fishing theme.
No judging.
Now, we'll resize the pic, merge it into the background button, and save it with a name we'll remember (CB_Pirate.dds) to Petra's UI>Icons>Petra's Icons.
That should do. Directory structure should now look like so:
Petra's UI
---Icons
-----Petra's Icons
---------CB_Pirate.dds
-----icons.xml
---Source
-----MacroPickerWindow.lua
Directory structure as an image:
With the button/icon created, we'll edit icons.xml (in our custom UI folder) to tell the EC what number to associate with that file (Notepad will work to edit the .xml). As you look through icons.xml you will see a ton of numbers. We want to make sure any number we choose will not interfere with previous numbers. It's easiest to go to the bottom of the list and start with a higher number sequence, as in the highlighted line in the image below:
Notice that not only have we input the number, 900000, but we've also input the directory and the filename "Icons/Petra's Icons/CB_Pirate.dds". We've also assigned a name "Happy Pirate" that may or may not show on mouse over.
Finally, we'll tell the EC to actually call the icon we've assigned number 900000. Open MacroPickerWindow.lua (Notepad will work) and add the number 900000 to the list of numbers, as in the highlighted line below.
We're done. Save the files and load the client. At the login screen choose Petra's UI from the Custom UI button. If you've followed the instructions correctly, the new button/icon will appear at the bottom of the list when selecting a macro icon.
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I hope people have fun with icons (which are technically called buttons depending on where you are in UO's code).
Good luck!
"Now people can freely modify"? Yup, now, since its creation, thank Heavens it's new then!
Fabulous... wish if there is a generic guide to create a custom search for anything in the game, from jewelry box, house, bods etc...
We are all getting old.
ESRB warning: Some Blood. LOTS of Alcohol. Some Violence. LOTS of Bugs
I will continue to just change out a few image files. My reason being, if either of the files you mention are updated 'at source' by the team, those changes will not be reflected in your UI and you will have to update. I touch no 'functional' type file, so am, to all intents and purposes, still using the default UI.
For general information, there were several UI's developed when EC first came out, you can see images from some examples back on Stratics. Pinco so outstripped them though that the others gave up, also some are no longer playing, so the places they hosted them on for download have gone.
I had to learn about .dds files when writing for Stratics. I needed to convert the files from .dds to .gif in order to include them in regular browser pages. For that I needed to be able to read them. Hence Gimp. At the time I had to search for a gimp plug in to do it. That's how pages like the one on 'weapons specials' and the one on 'buff-debuff icons' have the appropriate images on them.
@gay to the best of my knowledge no one has edited the EC to re-create the particular cheats you mention. Not even Pinco. Perhaps there's a reason for that?
The short wall tiles were posted to this forum (by someone other than Pinco) prior to being added to Pinco's.
The Kingdom Reborn floor tiles are, I believe, Khryo's work.
I could be completely wrong on who developed them, I don't have Pinco's installed at the moment to check. Pinco actually gives credit to both developers, either when you click the install button, or somewhere else in the UI. That why I remember they were developed by other people.
Pinco also provides the option to hot-swap custom icons, and gives credit to those icon's original developers.
As I've said before, if you create a usable mod, Pinco can add it to his UI so the whole community can use it. In this way, Pinco's is really more of a mod manager.
The entire point in developing and releasing a mod-able client is so that...you know...players will mod it.
Why aren't any of these talented people working for UO?
He somehow thinks the inherent advancements of EC are cheats, and that modding the UI is also a cheat. I would say its someone else who might be misinformed, as it were.
Because they probably have real jobs and careers.
And you clearly only read what you want to read. You're a joke with no substantial opinion or applicable knowledge to weigh in with.
I think in order to define something as a cheat it has to provide both an advantage over others and be outside the product pipeline. If it was within the product pipeline, anyone would have access to it. You might have found it first and not shared it, but that'd still be legit. Other players could still discover it.
For a long time the CC + Unapproved provided a significant advantage that you couldn't access from within the product pipeline. That's where a lot of the "cheating CC" stuff comes from.
The EC has mitigated or eliminated those advantages. Many players might not realize the EC can do all that, but 'tis so.
All the "CC players are using XXX to do something, that's cheating!" needs to stop. The actual functionality of "doing something" most likely exists in the EC as well. With mods, the EC "something" can probably far surpass whatever people think is the "cheat" in the CC + Unapproved.
The only real "cheating" would be that the Unapproved portion of CC + Unapproved is outside the product pipeline, but if it's not giving anyone any in-game advantage, what's the point?
Many players would probably appreciate additional knowledge about how to script things in the EC. Especially the default EC for those that don't use Pinco's.
BTW, you know me not, so don't presume to define, it goes above your station.
Now you can go bickering to the next thread you perceive as needing your injection of ignorance and negativity. Your post history is there, always a beacon of unfriendliness.
It is I who couldn't care less, we are indeed, not equal.