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Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

Moderator: MiRai

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Arch

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Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 8:54 pm

Post Tue Oct 21, 2014 12:42 am

Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

So I use multiple layouts depending on what I am doing that play session.

First off this is for original Everquest.

I run 3 4:3 monitors at 1280*1024 and I have my toons running this layout for grinding and normal play.

Image

With this layout the the left and right split screen regions are 1280*512 and the center swapping regions are running 1280*984 (to avoid task-bar)

This config works exceptionally well for me and I have the UI for each toon configured the their respective regions. This is great for boxing because I have these UIs set up with very minimal visible screen and mostly set up as places to click buttons.

Here is my problem there are other times (inventory management and tradeskilling) I use a full screen swapping layout for all of the toons but when I change the ui for the full screen setup it WRECKS the UI layout for my primary split screen layout. :evil:

I know the problem is because the way EQ stores the UI layouts and because ISBoxer forces everything in windowed mode which means even though the resolutions of the regions are different the ui configs for all of the layouts are being stored as windowed mode.

My question is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening or am I just outta luck?

I thought about the virtual file thing but I could not figure out how to make that work. :?

My Config http://www.privatepaste.com/656e5abe78
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MiRai

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Post Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:35 am

Re: Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

First... Might I ask why you've broken up your regions into their own swap groups? If I'm reading your Window Layout correctly -- and I may not be because it's incredibly late -- putting each Region in their own Swap Group forces them to render at a smaller resolution, and when you swap to them they are actually changing resolutions which is why your UI is changing along with it.

Arch wrote:My question is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening or am I just outta luck?

Well, I'd say you have three options:

1) Move all of the Regions back to Swap Group 1 so that they all use the same Reset Region. This will likely cause distortion/stretching on any Slot not currently in Region 1 because your resolution and region size will not have the same aspect ratio. However, since all of your in-game resolutions will now match you're likely going to have to "fix" your UIs on the slave screens.

2) Recreate your entire layout using dxNothing and Video FX. If you not familiar with either of these then there's a bit of work involved to setup a working layout -- Especially one as intricate as yours would be. Taking this route may also mess with the look of your layout because, again, the aspect ratios will not match.

3) Disable swapping on each Region of your left and right monitors so that they don't jump to the main region.

4) Extra Bonus Option - Leave it as it is and never swap windows again.

Everything I said could be wrong since I don't play EverQuest. :)
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bob

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Post Tue Oct 21, 2014 4:30 am

Re: Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

Yearch.

I'm with MiRai. Use Video FX to create the two different layouts.
If the side monitors were both dxNothings, you could have your squishy side views as VFX Regions, but you can also use VideoFX to "pull" the view of the UI controls at normal size and place them over the top of the squishy view of the full screens (you get to see whats going on and have your buttons too).

You could then use a hot key or menu to tear down the playing side view VFX regions and rebuild as the trading full sized VFX regions without the game performing resolution resize, but then you'd only have 2 of them, so maybe some hotkeys or menu to switch them around (although you could also just scroll between your full sized stacked layout too which would all be on the centre monitor).


A couple of links on Video FX. This first one helped me immensely understand the possibilities of dynamic VideoFX regions. Yes it is WOW, no it is not what you specifically need want (well not all of it anyway), but boy, should it give you an idea of the possibilities.

Advanced Video FX: No Holes - viewtopic.php?f=35&t=3695

This other one I found later, and it was also a good read, but I didn't really need it at that point after going through the first one.
Managing video fx via mapped keys - http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/3455 ... d-Tutorial


In my setup, I have small VideoFX views of all the game windows, and then I pull specific controls out from those game windows via VideoFX and layer them over the top of the small views so I can see activities and other status specific to that character (I use a lot of virtualised key maps during the Activate Character Set process to get it to dynamically build a view based on the character class). There are also other actions which can occur on swapping the main screen toon (I just SHIFT+ roll the mouse wheel to scroll through them on the main region), which can force a VideoFX rebuild (I did a Swapping to Hot Region type Window Layout using VIdeoFX - although I gave up using that in the end because I changed to a different layout).
Last edited by bob on Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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firescue17

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Post Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:12 am

Re: Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

As mentioned, the ONLY way to do it *in EQ* is with Full Screen Stacked and VideoFX. You can't swap window resolutions on the Fly.

Virtual Files won't work either. ISBoxer does not virtualize UI_[character]_[server].ini so even if one logs out entirely and launches a new resolution, it's still necessary to to redo the in-game UI.
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Arch

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Post Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:17 pm

Re: Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

OK I have tried setting this up with Video FX ... GIANT PITA. and to actually do what I want I still have to create viewports in the UI to get the visible areas on the split screen the way I want.

The actual UI:
Image

I'm only swapping regions 1 and 2. 3-6 are static.

I'm not wanting to change resolutions "on the fly" I choose from the different layouts when logging in and if I want to change then I log out and back in.

I wish there was the ability to virtualize UI_[character]_[server].ini per layout and honestly I was surprised to find that you can can't.

I guess that my only option is to go old school and replace the UI files manually each time I log in using a different layout.
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gSe7eN

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Post Wed May 27, 2015 7:35 am

Re: Multiple window layouts and Everquest UIs

I'm a little late to the party, but have you tried pressing ALT + Enter in EQ after you change layouts? Make a hotbutton in EQ that reloads the GUI or do it manually in options. That's how I always dealt with the issue when I used to do what you're doing. Took seconds and did what I wanted it to do.

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