So I thought I would list some of the neat things you can do and setup with the new User Interface. So in no particular order, here is the new fantastic UI stuff...
You can have all of your Bags open at once (including bags in your Bank)
Put your mouse over a Health/Mana/Stamina bar and it will give you the specific % of that bar. Updates Real Time so you can keep it over your Target Window and get an acurate reading of the mobs health as you fight.
If you have a Pet class in your group, you can actually see the Health bar of that characters pet as a little green line under the characters health bar.
When you use the F keys to target your group members, you can target a characters pet simply by clicking a second time on that characters F key. This is great for Clerics who need to target and heal a pet.
You can change any Text color in game and actually be able to choose the color you want without knowing the exact RGB code. Simply go to the Options Window and choose the Chat tab... Scroll down and find the Text you want to change the color for and it will give you a little color chooser window. It will include the normal predefined colors (Such as groupchat blue, Guildchat Green, OOC green, tells purple, etc..)
You can move and resize your "Loot" window and it will stay in the new spot for future looting.
If you Hold down ALT and Left Click on an inventory item or item in a loot window it will not only put up the Stats window for that item, but it will keep it there without needing to hold your mouse button. This is great for typing out the stats of items that drop. You can get the same effect by Right Clicking and holding like normal and then moving your mouse over and left clicking on the stats window that pops up (for those who don't want to reach for the ALT key).
New windows can be created and you can set specific types of Texts to get filtered into those new windows. These windows can then be minimized if you don't want to see them at a specific time. I noticed though that when you Minimize a window and then bring it back up it will be at the same spot you were at when you minimized it, as it will not scroll as new text appears in that window while it's minimized. This requires you to scroll down in that window as soon as you bring it back up. The mouse wheel will scroll whichever window the mouse arrow is over... it does not require you to click on a window to make it active or anything silly like that.
Not only can you change the Screen Resolution, but you can also change the Monitor Refresh rate and the Color Depth (16 or 32 bit).
Windows you create and window positions are Character specific. So for your Melee character you can create a Melee text window. But it doesn't carry over to when you play your Caster. This also means that on some characters you may want a larger text window than in others.
The new Track window is Cool. You can edit your sort and filters right in the window. Also, as you are scanning down (yes the wheel mouse will scroll) it highlights the name your mouse is over in yellow, which makes it easier to see regardless of it's blue/red/white con. It's also resizeable, for those zones with tons of mobs. I believe you can even set a window to filter the Mob_01 is to your left, Mob_01 is ahead and to the left, etc... track spam.
Holding the ALT key while your mouse is over your Buffs window, will show you the name of all your current buffs. Very helpful since the new icons are so different.
Holding the ALT key will also show you the names of your currently memorized spells. Nothing new, but now it works even with your Inventory Window open. It actually works with ANY window open.
When picking up Money you can now type in the exact number of coins you want to pick up instead of fighting with the scroll bar, or clicking the scroll arrow a hundred times.
When you are using Multiple Windows... you can actually set a specific one to be the Default window it will start typing in. Even if you say text that appears in one of the other windows. This can be changed as you go if you want so that if you have a special channel for your friends, and you are having a private conversation and you don't want to "Accidently" say something to the wrong people, you can set up a window that when you type into it will send that to whichever specific chat channel and then you can make that window your default, so unless you specificly click in the text line of another window, all your text will go to that private window. When you do this, if you say type /gu in that window, it will still do a normal /gu and put it into the main window (or whichever window you have set /gu text to go too). You can actually still use all the normal commands from any window, and it will still filter it to whatever window you set that type of text to go too.
HELP... Ever wanted to read through a "How do I do this" help type file while in game. Well now you can. It works very much the same as Windows Help Files work. With links to other help files and so forth. Many of us may never need to use it, but it's nice to know that if there is a feature we are not sure how to use, we can open up the help and get a description.
When you hold your mouse over any icon it will now tell you what that icon is. No more need to Right Click on everything. So when you are checking to make sure you are wearing the right bracer, or that you got the buff you thought you were getting, just hold your mouse over the icon and it will tell you what it is.
You can now see your specific number value of all your skills regardless of how low it is. So you can see that you only have a 12 skill in the Frogluk language.
You can now look at your spellbook and still see the world around you. You can move your spellbook around and such.
You can Edit a Social and still see your text window.
You can force windows to always stay transparent, or to never go transparent by adjusting the Normal, and Faded transparency levels. This also lets you set just how transparent windows will go and how dark you want them to become when you have your mouse over them. Each window can have it's own setting. So windows that don't contain text that might be hard to read at certain transparent levels you can set to always stay very transparent. Or windows that you never want to fade away, you can force them to always stay darkend.
You can also adjust the Tint of each of the windows individually, for those who like to have their special colored windows.
Windows that overlap will actually overlap instead of melding together. Whichever window you clicked on latest will be overtop of the other window that is in the same area. And you can then bring the other one forward just by clicking on it. This prevents windows from being impossible to read if there is another window open that is in the same spot.
Each specific window can be made to go away (totally disappear, not just minimized) using a specfic key or combo of keys. These are set in your Keyboard Options. You will also see that each of these can have an Alternate key or key combo. Since you can actually set the same Key or Key Combo to more than one Command, you can actually make a Key or Key Combo that will make All your windows disappear, or a special select group of windows go away. And then with another click of your keys they can all come back. For example, you could set Clt+Shift+H to make your hotkeys, group window, spells window, text window, and buff window all disappear, leaving only your Target, and Personal Health bar on your screen. For those times when you are kiting, and you really don't want to pay attention to chat. And since you can have a special window for your combat (melee/spells) you can still see when your Dots/snare/root wears off. Then simply Clt+Shift+H and all your windows come back and you can chat, change your spells, check your buffs, or whatever just like normal again.
Skins:
Also with the new UI is the ability to create special skins that change the way some of the windows look. Stream lining the Inventory Window, making your spell gems horizontal instead of vertical. Etc.. Etc... These are all things you need to add in while you are outside the game. There are various web sites that are starting to compile all these skins. Also there are 'mods' as they are called, which are a combination of different window skins and setups that go together to create a certain look, or useablitiy. Some might be special setups to work best for certain classes. Like a special mod for caster types, or one for Melee types. We can keep our eyes open for good ones and share them as we find them.
Feel free to add any neat feature that you saw that I didn't mention here. I'm sure there are some I didn't figure out, or just forgot about when I was typing this out.
---------------This was courtesy of my guildmate, Amica. Lots of good basics.
Also, here is a site dedicated to new mods: http://www.eqinterface.com/
I hope you find some of this helpful, and shows those of you that no longer play what you're missing
appreciate is bro, had seen most of this stuff, but theres more i haven't tried yet =) ...its also easier to check on ur alt xp now as well as its a part of ur inventory...somethin else thats nice too but can't think of it atm...
