How to sort your windows and text filters

[Vigdis]

Ok so there I was, a one year EQ virgin again. What struck me is how much I fumbled with hotbuttons and chatfilters. Im pretty sure the buttons will come clean with another session or two, but I tought I'd ask the crucible how you guys have arranged your windows.


Right now Im running an improvised setup that goes like this:

Main:
Everything that does not go in other windows

Important chat:
Group, Tell, some channels

Battlespam 1
Spell messages

Battlespam 2
Melee messages


Any advice on how to set up windows and filtering?

Thanks

[runeshaman]

What you have listed is pretty much the same set-up I use. I add a 5th window for raid chat when necessary and also throw "other" to that window on events where emotes need to be watched etc.

[Funi]

Almost exactly the same here. "important chat" is Guild chat and raid chat and melee spam is a very small box out of the way for me to look at on the very rare instance I'm curious about it.

[Scowls]

filter your melee hits down to dmg only and color code them as far as hits on others, and hits to you...and hits from you nd misses if you want. then you can resize that window to be as only 3-4 characters wide. also make it say "miss" only. that minimizes the melee window as small as you can make it while still providing info to who is getting hit and how hard they hit.

you can turn off also of the messages also, like xp, faction hits, spell and melee dmg. i always had 2 chat windows, 1 for general group/raid chat and most of my channels, the other was for shaman chat and tells. i never turned tell windows on though, so not sure about that feature.

ever since UI's become customizable i have always put my chat windows at the top, mostly because there wasnt much to look at at the top of the screen except the sky, and having windows at the bottom made looting harder



thats an old screen shot, but its how i set it up, other than window location, its very similar to yours it looks like

[Vork]

I reserve a window at the top of my screen specifically for tells. I'm terribly busy during raid; as I've taken it upon myself to be the P.O.C. between the shaman, knight, dps, and cleric channels. It's pretty easy to miss a tell when you have 8 channels running constantly.

[Tordail]

I run with one window for each of the following:
- Guild/App Guild chatter channel, serverwide Shaman chat, guild wait list channel (when needed). Window is transparent at top.
- /random, /who, xp messages, shout, ooc, other, spell worn off. Window is transparent at top.
- Spell spam (dot damage, non-melee, resists, etc).
- Me getting hit or missed. Numbers or "miss" only.
- Group chat, Raid chat, Guild chat, Debuff channel, fellowship messages.
- Raid command channel, friends channel, guild Shaman channel, tells.

If it isn't listed above and can be turned off on Options - Filters, it's off.

[Unmei]

Honestly, unless you're a melee class, there's no reason for you to have melee damage anywhere other than your "generic crap" window. It's a waste of a window to devote screen real estate to melee hits as a non-melee class.

[Samanna]

Here's they way I had it set up when I was in a guild with Shaman and Debuff channels:

http://samanna.net/ss/ui.20051221.note.jpg

I have since dropped that window, and have serverwide.crucible where summiteers was.

ps, see the forum for lots of good info on audiotriggers, /viewport, etc.

[Tordail]

[Scowls]

[ThraallFV]

[Brohg]

I vary the number of chat boxes I have open. Raiding gets one more, sometimes two.

Main chat is Say, Tells, Group, Fellowship, Guild, Raid, Shout, Auction, OOC, #channels, emotes, Pet Responses, /who, Other. Also melee: Disciplines, NPC Enrage, Others' Deaths. Also spells: Failures (extremely useful filter, this encompasses resists for all spells, but also mitigation for slows, indicating that slow landed) & Worn Off. Clearly, I do most of my playing from that window

I have a window for melee. Others' Melee (I have others' misses off, but that's it. The collected data for parsing is awesome), Pet Melee, Melee warnings, etc etc. This window also has Non-melee damage, so I suppose it's more accurately called the "not my damage" window. This window is usually kept quite short, since it's only important most of the time to see whether or not it's scrolling. Keeping a window like that minimized is a good way to client crash yourself when you restore it, btw. Don't minimize the melee window.

Window 3 has all the spell stuff going on, Other's Spells, my dot damage, my melee (hits, misses, hitting me, missing me). Focus effects have been turned off for a long time.

When raiding, the guild healer channel gets its own window, since it turns pretty darn spammy during events.

A fifth window pops up during any scripted or simon-says type encounters, for just the "Other" filter.

[Samanna]

I made an audio trigger for "tells you". Absolute necessity - especially when windowed out!

[Vigdis]

Lots of great input here. I will be sure to check out audio triggers aswell! Thanks.

[Amanensia]

If you have chat windows that extend all the way across the screen at the top or bottom (or down either side) use the /viewport command to refit the actual game graphics window to the part of your screen not covered by those chat windows. That prevents problems of sometimes not being able to see the ground right at your feet, and so on, removing the looting problems referred to earlier.

[Vigdis]

Yeah, I used to screw around with viewport back in the days when I had a crappy graphics card. But I will do the same now then again if its recommended.

[Ughbash]

[Kiru]

I have 3 windows across the top, 1 below on the left, another below on the right, and a tall, skinny self-only hit window (I solo a lot) near the bottom, about 1/2 way between center and right. Going clockwise:
Middle left: Guild Alliance chat
Top left: Spam (anything that isn't filtered).
Top middle: Guild chat, heal channel, on-server friends channel.
Top right: Group chat, raid say, raid chat, off-server friends channel.
Middle right: Skill messages, procs, cast messages, wear off messages, focus messages, etc. Note: I have bard spam disabled.



My UI is a customized version of New World that I originally got from EQInterface. It's a minimalistic UI with a small inventory window. I customized it for TBS and use the old spell gems. If you're interested in trying it out, you're welcome to . Just beware to not use tell windows, because you'll never be able to close them unless you edit the EQUI_ChatWindow.xml file and change the line that reads "<Style_Closebox>false</Style_Closebox>" to say "true" instead of "false" (I was sick and tired of having to redo my hit box filters after accidentally closing that window for the umpteenth time).