Summary
I've been trying to put this together for a long time... it's a compilation of all the UI pieces I've done around this site, plus a few that haven't been worth an upload of their own.
Most every window on the main screen has been reskinned or altered in some way. The basic theme is removal of ornamentation and backgrounds, and use of bright contrasting colors to in many cases make indicators still readable but smaller.
Feature List
Target, player, defensive target, group windows, encounter window, minions window all reduced in size and redesigned and given transparent backgrounds.
Experience window shrunk in size to match the player window. Experience window is made of 10 twists that fill vertically for easier experience estimation. Experience changes to whatever activity you are currently engaged in. Experience bar changes color to indicate which experience is is showing. (Yellow for adventuring, Purple for crafting, Cyan for Harvesting, Green for diplomacy.) Mouse over the experience text disply to bring up the equipment selector buttons (The buttons are color coded same as the experience bar.)
Bag bar is shrunk to same size as player window and experience bar. Added crafting utility bag and diplomacy bag to the bag bar for easy access.
Hotbars are reduced in size. Added 10 banks to the third hotbar, changed key-bindings to be more like eq2 style (first hotbar 1 to =, second ctrl-1 to ctrl =, third hotbar alt 1 to alt =; add shift to the mix to switch hotbar banks).
Spells on you have text names and duration on them coming down the left side of the screen.
Crafting window redesigned, highlighting the 4 stages more, dust cap technology(tm) prevents accidentally skipping the add catalyst step. Recipe hotbar allows you to store 100 commonly used recipe macros in whatever organization suits your fancy.
Clock and compass window shows you the current time on Telon and your local timezone and a representation of the sky for quick reference. In addition shows you distance from your waypoint if you have one selected.
LFG window shows at a glance if you've left LFG/LFM on and a single click allows you to toggle your status. (LFG/LFM indicators are always correct, sometimes the check-boxes on the LFG page do not show your actual LFG/LFM status. I've tested this pretty extensively, and am pretty sure of my indicators accuracy. Feel free to post if you disagree.)
Cast bar, assembly progress bar, object interaction bar, harvesting bar, and breath bar all reskinned to match the progress bars used in the rest of the interface. Cancel harvesting button removed from the harvesting progress bar (Just right-click on the bar to cancel harvest. In addition, right-click on the cast bar to cancel whatever you're casting (Ever hit recall at the wrong moment?) All bars except breath pop up in same location as the cast bar so you only have to reposition cast and breath bars.)
Connection monitor shows FPS, Ping, and packet loss counters without mouse-over.
Consolidated all the window toggle buttons into a single menu button.
Version History
Version 1.1.0
Fixed 3 bugs (rest xp wasn't showing in the 0-10% bar, the object interaction bar was showing up 150 pixels to the left of the castbar, and crafting and diplo bags being broken in the character window)
Added Mother's LFG Indicator window.
Version 1.0.1
Fixed a bug in index.xml related to the universal map plugin thingie... should work now.
Installation Instructions
To install:
1) Unzip the mod file into your Vanguard/vguiassets/shells folder, which will make a folder called Vanguard/vguiassets/shells/mothers.
2) Open that folder and the folder inside it called bin
3) Select all the files in that folder (Ctrl-A)
4) Copy those files (Ctrl-C)
5) Browse to your Vanguard/bin folder
6) Paste the files (Ctrl-V). Tell it "Yes, you do want to overwrite user.ini".
7) Open vgclient.ini (Doubleclick it)
8) Find
Code:
[UI]
ShellName=Default
9) Change it to
Code:
[UI]
ShellName=Mothers
10) Save (Ctrl-S)
11) Load, and play Vanguard
12) Use /uiload 1600x1200 or /uiload 1280x1024 or /uiload 1024x768 to set the window positions... they should give you a good starting point for adjusting to your comfort. (The 1600x1200 is the actual positions I play at, others were just whipped up for this package and could require more adjustments.)
13) Head to
my thread and post how much you enjoy it, or more likely what bugs escaped that need to be fixed.