How to Revert back the UI

Posted by Emilari (I made the steps that are required in bold the rest is part of his post but can be skipped if you know the folder location. I also don't use a custom UI so if you are maybe just copy the 4 files into the current folder since if they are missing it reverts back to the default style we are trying get away from)

Step 1: Log out of EQ. (this isn't needed I was able to do it without logging out)

Step 2: Load the patcher, but instead of logging in, click the little "Advanced Tools" gear close to the bottom left corner.

Step 3: Click "Open Game Directory."

Step 4: Open the "uifiles" folder in your EQ directory.

Step 5: Create a new subfolder. Mine will be called "EmilariUI" for the purposes of this example.

Step 6: Open the "default" subfolder and copy the following 4 files to the new subfolder created in step 5: EQUI_Inventory.xml , EQUI_QuantityWnd.xml , EQUI_SelectorWnd.xml , and EQUI_StoryWnd.xml.

Step 7: Log into EQ.

Step 8: type and enter "/loadskin UIFolderName 1" in a chat window. (IE: /loadskin EmilariUI 1)"

The space and 1 at the end is important to retain the position all your windows load in; if you don't add it, you'll have to reposition your windows.

I'm confused.
In order to use a custom UI you create a 'subfilder' "EmilariUI'' and put custom files into it, the game borrows the missing files from default.
So you want to use files from default into an empty custom ui folder, then break it from loading because it has a space in the name?

What does this do?
Do you use saved backup of these 4 default folder files? What am I missing here?

Wouldn't this be the same as /loadskin and choosing default?

And for keeping the position of windows, make sure Keep your Layout is pressed before 'loadskin' is pressed.
So default.. keep your layout in, loadskin

I have not looked into why this works but I am assuming that there are some kind of file in the default that tells it to use the new version which doesn't affect the files you are copying and that by copying the original files to the custom it will use those and not load the new version.

Her* post.

Ok... so... the default UI prior to the patch is SUITE engine and "Default 2.0" (Drakah maintains Default 1.0 over on EQInterface). The default UI post patch is a combination of the SUITE engine and the new Gameface engine... it's "Default 2.5" now, and will be "Default 3.0" when the port is completed and the old SUITE engine is disabled later in the year.

Default 2.5 has some major bugs attached to it (some are game-breaking for AMD/Radeon graphics users), but because it's 2.5 and not fully 3.0 with the old SUITE engine disabled, at this point we can force EQ to revert to Default 2.0 using only the old SUITE engine while we wait for the bugs to be fixed.

The Gameface (ported) windows at this point are: Inventory, Quantity, Selector, Story. These four windows no longer pull from your uifiles folder. They pull from the new uiresources folder with the default UI.

All other windows still pull from the uifiles folder.

There is no space in my example "EmilariUI" - because as you said, spaces in the folder name will break it.

The old Default 2.0 now unused xml files for the Inventory, Quantity, Selector and Story windows are still included in your uifiles folder. You don't need a saved backup because they haven't gone anywhere; they're just not used in Default 2.5... so nope no saved backup needed at this point.

No. To force EQ to revert back to Default 2.0 to give the devs more time to fix the bugs, these formerly Default UI users will now be Custom UI users until the SUITE engine is disabled (or they revert back to Default 2.5).

Since many Default UI users haven't played with a Custom UI before, I laid out basic instructions on how to get one up and running to help solve their "OMG EQ is broken post-patch" issues:

Players should be able to do step 8 as listed above, or they can use the "Load a Skin" window as you're showing here. The "Space 1" thing only applies to the actual /loadskin command itself (it has the same function as the "Keep Your Layout" button).

Essentially, we're using a custom UI to mimic last weeks default UI. The custom UI as described above is pulling the old now unused default files as a new custom UI, and pulling all the other windows from the default UI like one normally does with a custom UI.

My fix has worked for many people, though one kindly pointed out that for anyone that likes to use the golden EverQuest cursor, you'll also need to put the Cursor files in your new Custom UI folder; otherwise it pulls your operating system's default cursor. These files are: arrow.cur , ew.cur , ibeam.cur , move.cur , nesw.cur , ns.cur , and nwse.cur . For some reason the default EverQuest cursor isn't pulled when a custom UI is in use.

Is this solution a permanent solution? No, absolutely not. Is it a temporary solution to allow the devs more time to fix some major issues with the new engine and allow players to continue to be able to play? Yes.

Much love to Cloud the Third and Emilari for finding and letting us know about this temp fix for the screw up by Daybreak's unskilled and/or uncaring devs!

Hey Daybreak! Hire some competent devs/programmers with communications skills will ya? You were told, apparently by a well known UI person, that these UI 'downgrades' were NOT ready to leave Test. So what happened? Who said to hell with it, full speed ahead and damn the customers? Give them their pink slip!

I have seen some people even after doing this still having issues. One of the issues is the windows are still are on top and the other is the new windows are completely white.

I would love for someone with one of these issues to try something and let me know what happened.

1) You have uifiles/customfoldername with the 4 files listed above.
2) Duplicate the default folder under uiresources and rename that folder the same as the customfoldername for the ouifiles folder.
3) Go into customfodlername/img and open up A_InventoryBtnNormal.png and using paint make it green and save.
4) Do the /loadskin customfoldername 1 command and see if the inventory button (second from the left) on the window selector window is green.

If it is green that means unlike most of us the new UI is still loading even though you added the 4 files under uifiles/customfoldername.

WHITE BUG
For those who are seeing white see if there is now a green square on the selector window.
- If it doesn't then try opening that file and saving it as a jpg instead of png.
- Open up the main.css file in the uiresources/customfoldername and search for background-image: url(./img/A_InventoryBtnNormal.png); change it to url(./img/A_InventoryBtnNormal.jpg);
- Do the /loadskin customfoldername 1 command and see if that makes a green square show up
- If none of that works try right clicking the window and select background and click texture (this will stop it from trying to load a graphic file from the background and will make the window white. Then right click and go to tint and try to change it to anything other than 255,255,255 which is default white and see if you can see the new color.

I don't have a computer with these 2 issues so hard to test stuff on my computer and find a work around =/

When doing this revert, I also have the issue of the mail button always being yellow like there is a new message when there is none.

I was able to fix it and get rid of the color by changing the window selector file. To fix this problem open up the EQUI_SelectorWnd.xml file in your customui folder and you will see the following section. If yours is like mine it shows under <Button item = "SELW_MailToggleButton"> section all the A_MailBtnNormal are set as A_GotMailBtnNormal. You can copy the below and into the file then run the loadskin command again and it will go away. I don't know if this is from the patch or something else but both SELW_MailToggleButton and SELW_MailNewToggleButton are pointing to the gotmail icons instead of the normal mail icons. The example code below is the corrected version so you can just copy and overwrite the <Button item = "SELW_MailToggleButton">...</Button> section in your file and ignore the second part which is just there to show how they were originally using the same icons as the <Button item = "SELW_MailNewToggleButton">...</Button> section.

Code:

    <!-- Mail Button -->
 
    <Button item = "SELW_MailToggleButton">
        <ScreenID>SELW_MailToggleButton</ScreenID>
        <RelativePosition>true</RelativePosition>
        <Location>
            <X>420</X>
            <Y>0</Y>
        </Location>
        <Size>
            <CX>26</CX>
            <CY>26</CY>
        </Size>
        <Style_Checkbox>true</Style_Checkbox>
        <TooltipReference>Mail</TooltipReference>
        <ButtonDrawTemplate>
            <Normal>A_MailBtnNormal</Normal>
            <Pressed>A_MailBtnPressed</Pressed>
            <Flyby>A_MailBtnFlyby</Flyby>
            <PressedFlyby>A_MailBtnPressedFlyby</PressedFlyby>
            <Disabled>A_MailBtnDisabled</Disabled>
        </ButtonDrawTemplate>
    </Button>
    <Button item = "SELW_MailNewToggleButton">
        <ScreenID>SELW_MailNewToggleButton</ScreenID>
        <RelativePosition>true</RelativePosition>
        <Location>
            <X>420</X>
            <Y>0</Y>
        </Location>
        <Size>
            <CX>26</CX>
            <CY>26</CY>
        </Size>
        <Style_Checkbox>true</Style_Checkbox>
        <TooltipReference>Mail</TooltipReference>
        <ButtonDrawTemplate>
            <Normal>A_GotMailBtnNormal</Normal>
            <Pressed>A_GotMailBtnPressed</Pressed>
            <Flyby>A_GotMailBtnFlyby</Flyby>
            <PressedFlyby>A_GotMailBtnPressedFlyby</PressedFlyby>
            <Disabled>A_MailBtnDisabled</Disabled>
        </ButtonDrawTemplate>
    </Button>

Moving the default UI XML files into my custom UI folder fixed all the issues I had. Thank you! Emilari & Cload the Third!

Thanks for the fix. I unsubbed my accounts last month because I saw the UI modders pleas and advice were being ignored, so I figured I'd play something else for a few months while the UI issues got sorted. Glad to see there's a workaround for folks to get up and running.

I have never used a custom skin/ui until now...having to load the old UI lol. But this worked great! Bags back in front of inventory and no flickering. THANK YOU!

Aye, thanks for posting - am now able to play again!

Still angry that this workaround should even be needed. =/

Thank you so much, works like a charm.

Thanks, this worked great , the only thing im having an issue with now is since doing the workaround, my cursor is always white, like im in a browser window. I tried copying the EQUI_CursorAttachment.xml file into the new file like the others for the fix, but this didnt fix the cursor after loading the skin. Do you have an idea of what I would need to do to fix this? Its not a huge issue, but I keep losing track of the cursor now, as Im looking for the Golden one?

The boxes to buy items is still showing white and no way to select how many of an item you want to buy

Copying over these files should fix your cursor: arrow.cur , ew.cur , ibeam.cur , move.cur , nesw.cur , ns.cur and nwse.cur .

Emilari - Any idea for the buying and selling boxes still being white even after going to the old UI? And thanks so much for showing us the white inventory screen fix!

You're welcome! Unfortunately I'm not sure on what might be causing the buying/selling bug; it's not an issue my system is having so it makes it difficult for me to troubleshoot. As far as I'm aware those files weren't touched in the patch client-side so it's likely a weird bug on DPG's end. Hopefully one that gets addressed sooner than later.

Its amazing how much trouble this UI is causing, every section of the forums has a thread if not multiple asking them to take the servers down to revert it and since that hasn't happened now people are having to go through this to try and revert it themselves.

All the boxes for buying etc look just like the white inventory window before I did your fix. Odd it fixed one and not the other. I know the baz is seriously empty and this could be why. Hope they find it soon

I know in the new UI file section there is a window called GroupWindow.html which is odd because it still uses the original group window file. I know at least one person has said their group window was white so there has to be something with the new changes that are causing some of the white windows even though the original UI file is still being used. I have not been able to find anything in the files themselves that would cause it but I am guessing it is some kind of issue relating to the graphic card being used.