Customize UI in EO Tutorial?

[MikeLeeSon]

I'm just trying to find a decent tutorial for customizing the UI in EO2.3\. Does anyone have one off hand, or can give me some pointers? I've been looking online for a good tutorial aaallllll day, Napoleon.

[hisherwin]

pointers

* You need vb6!
* You need brain
* You need ui plan
* Customize it on VB6

[DMF]

heres a better question , what your aiming for? same layout as current?(if same layout then just replace images..)

if not you will need vb6 and look see wht needs moving or changing..

[hisherwin]

EO2.3 means dx7 , so you can't do transparency so keep in mind that..

[MikeLeeSon]

Well I can't say exactly what I'm looking for, but I can generalize. I would like pop-up up windows instead of the character screen, inventory, etc being on the right side of the screen, and a movable chat window, rather than a static chat-box frame in the lower left.

Other than that, I'm really just looking to give it a more open feel, and more up-to-date looking bars.

I know I need VB6 - I'm looking for a tutorial on how to do this through vb6, not a grocery list of things I need.

I suppose what I'm looking for is a tutorial so I can double-check myself to ensure I'm doing things correctly. I have a basic understanding of vb6, but I'm new and don't want to go through the trial-and-error, if possible.

[DMF]

from what yo usaid you want a "Full Window" UI with movable picture box's .

all is possable. full window is bbit complex xD even harder if u were to render the UI. but other then dat its nothing hard

>! ```
>! Option Explicit
>! Private Declare Function ReleaseCapture Lib "user32" () As Long
>! Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long
>! Private Const HTCAPTION = 2
>! Private Const WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN = &HA1
>! Private Const WM_SYSCOMMAND = &H112
>! ```

then put this is the "picture Box's" Mouse_Down

>! ```
>! ReleaseCapture
>! SendMessage hwnd, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HTCAPTION, 0&
>! ```

to make it full window you resize the picture box, there are tuts for that so it works right.restis adding the UI to it.

hope that helps.

[MikeLeeSon]

I… I love you...

Lol, that's great! Thanks! If there's a tutorial for further customizations, though, I would appreciate any practice in customizing before I really get to work.

Thanks again, DarkMatchFlame.

[DMF]

gui is basic…. never say u love me >.> i only except it from 1 perosn.

in dx7 its much easry todo. but rendering the gui takes alot of work to restablize.

[MikeLeeSon]

So here's another question… since I haven't started work yet, is there a better version of eclipse that would give me cleaner, more open feel (and perhaps be easier to use)? I suppose I'm asking, would you suggest another version of Eclipse?

I just saw this UI and it's perfect. Any suggestions?

**Attached Thumbnails**

[](http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/community/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=812)

PS. I realize that probably isn't Eclipse, but whatever version of eclipse would help me reach this… awesome

[MikeLeeSon]

I just saw this UI and it's perfect. Any suggestions?

[MikeLeeSon]

PS. I realize that probably isn't Eclipse, but whatever version of eclipse would help me reach this… awesome.

[Daneta]

looks awesome

[abhi2011]

> I just saw this UI and it's perfect. Any suggestions?

Seeing from the map tiles I think that is Silverdale's. Use that UI and you will most probably be sued. 

EDIT: And Silverdale was an extensive remodel of the Mirage engine. The same of which Eclipse is based on.

And it is possible to make and use that UI in Eclipse.

[MikeLeeSon]

Might you know of any tutorials or suggestions to help me create something like this?

[Zeno]

I can't recommend any tutorials, but I can offer some advice and explanation.

First, for some good news - customizing the UI in EO2.3 is very user-friendly. It consists mainly of click-and-drag resizing or moving of game elements. The actual graphics are changed by replacing the files in the graphics/gui folder.

The not-so-great news is that your GUI will not be able to have transparency or be draggable without so much fregging about that you'd've been best to just switch to DX8\. If you're not concerned about that (really - not a big deal) then carry on.

So, first off - you should make a layout of the GUI you want and get to work making the image files for it. Look at the existing GUI files for an idea of what to do. Basically, everything is rectangles. GUI files are loaded in modGeneral sub loadGUI. If you replace a file with a new file (and keep the same name), the game will do everything for you. If you're not changing any sizes, that's all you have to do. Use Photoshop, GIMP, or your other favourite picture editor to create the GUI. Aim for something clean that translates the theme of your game. I recommend you search outside this forum for general graphics tips.

If you are resizing or moving certain aspects, that happens in the relevant form (such as in frmMain, where the main GUI is). You can click and drag to move anything. If you simply click (and then unclick), there will be 8 blue boxes that appear around the item. You can click and drag these to resize. You can also edit height and width in the properties to change the size of the picture, or top and left to change to position. These are conveniently at the bottom of the categorized properties.

Best of luck. Hope this helps.

[abhi2011]

If you are concerned about transparency or want to use a engine that uses DX8 because it has better features, then I would suggest that you learn how rendering takes place in the client for DX8\. [This](http://directx4vb.vbgamer.com) site helped me a lot on DX7 as well as DX8 for VB6 and helped me get started. It has tutorials on the entire DX library for DX7 and DX8.

[MikeLeeSon]

Awesome suggestions, guys. Thanks for the help!