ChatMod - A "More Tabs" UI modification

Basically, this gives you two rows of 10chat tabs each, one on top of the other, for a total of 20 tabs.

Files Modified:
Interface\Themes\Default\Defs\UIChatWindow.def
Interface\Themes\Default\Defs\UICoreControls.def
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_1.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_2.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_3.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_4.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_5.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_6.png

The two defs store the necessary modifications to the chat window itself. The icon images are placeholders for the graphics (since I could not figure out how to add additional graphics and have HZ load them).

Preview Image:
http://dragonspires.org/ChatMod.jpg

Nullsoft Installer Version:
http://dragonspires.org/ChatMod.exe

Zipfile for the paranoid:
http://dragonspires.org/ChatMod.zip

just installed it, and works nice:P

Zip file was installing the new graphics to the wrong location. Fixed.

**glomps Sil**

Yish! Very nice, I can finnaly get rid of one of my chat windows. :)

Also, fps improvment with one less chat window :3

Great idea Sil [:)]

*dances happily* no more miscellaneous tell windows! yay!!!

Thanks Silowyi! :)

This is not working for me at all. Need some help on getting it going. I have 2 sets of chat windows - does that make a difference?

Bump for answer

still need help ~bump~

Saharas, try using the exe to put everything in your overrides folder. For some reason, recently, any of these changes made to the actual files are causing full scans and overwrites.

If it still doesn't work, let me know and I'll go through more stuff you might try.

Just wanted to say that a friend confirmed it today. She too was having issues with the mod working by installing it directly to the Horizons folder. Told her to install in the override folder and it is now working properly for her.

Put it in override and regular folder. Nothing still. [:(]

Bump !
(random words to fill space)

Hey, Amon, LaughingOtter, Reyem, Velea, somebody devish, could we get this mod added to the live client?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saharas

This is not working for me at all. Need some help on getting it going. I have 2 sets of chat windows - does that make a difference?

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I'm having this issue too... I'd really like to get this to work. :P

What I did was uncompress the zip file to my desktop and open it up to see a Resources folder and a text file. I also opened up the Horizons Resources_override folder. Then I copied the Resources folder from the zip file into the Resources_override window.

Ok, with today's patch this needs a LITTLE fix to make it work.

1. From your resources>interface>themes folder, copy the color themes except for default. Paste them into resources_override>interface>themes
2. Open the newly copied theme you plan to use. There will be a UIFonts.def file there.
3. Open the chatmod folder (the one that was created by either the exe or zip file) and navigate to resources>interface>themes>default>defs. Copy both the .def files there and past them into the theme window that has UIFonts.def
4. Log in.

I LIKE this mod. When I first installed it, I couldn't tell if it was working or not. So I'd like to add a few notes to this old post.

Normal game behavior only allows 8 chat tabs (that's all the channels you're joined to, plus any tells you receive).
If you were to receive a new tell while having 8 tabs present, then the new tell would appear in a popup chat dialogue, instead of adding a new tab. So with this mod installed, you will NOT notice anything special until your 9th to 20th tab (otherwise 8 tabs is the max!).

This mod lets you get 20 tabs (10 on top, 10 on bottom), see below? Without the mod, 8 tabs is the max.

http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/a...psfca17301.jpg

You might have heard of the Chat Mod before. It's been around a long time. Its a downloadable .EXE installer program (ChatMod.exe) file that modifies a few files in your MAIN GAME (Resources) FOLDER. The .EXE installer does not have an uninstall option either. So if you happen to find the ChatMod.EXE program on the internet, then note it modifies the files listed by the OP:

Files Modified in your RESOURCES folder:
Interface\Themes\Default\Defs\UIChatWindow.def
Interface\Themes\Default\Defs\UICoreControls.def
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_1.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_2.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_3.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_4.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_5.png
Interface\Icons\Numbers\Icon_6.png

The .EXE installer is confusing. It doesn't give a clue to what files were modified (I installed it before I found this post). There is no uninstall option either. But note, you can uninstall the .exe changes (to main game folder) by clicking Troubleshoot Button (Game Launcher), then tick the Full Scan option.

------------------------------
However, this RE-MOD can be easily be added to your RESOURCES_OVERRIDE folder instead. Thus making it easier to uninstall (by deleting the folder/files). For this mod to work from the resources_override folder, will require a modified /resources/Resources/ResourceMeta.def for this to work. So without that, that is the reason this .exe modifies your main game folder. And I totally understand why the .exe installs to main game folder (to make it easy for novice users).

There is a modified ResourceMeta.def that is already included in Map Pack. This allows Map Pack to work correctly from the Resources_Override folder. Without this modified ResourceMeta.def file, map pack would not work from this folder. The same principle will allow this re-mod to work from Resources_Override folder.

I've extracted all the files from the .exe and added it to a .zip file (which also includes modified /resources/ResourceMeta.def) file that will allow this to work correctly from the resources_override folder.

I'm not a big fan of mods that modify the resources folder (main game folder) vs modifying the resources_override folder (which is mainly for mods). It just easier to undo them when they are in the override folder.

So with that said, you can now grab this re-mod in a .zip version (extract to your MAIN game folder - Likely C:\Program Files (x86)\Istaria). Should work perfectly. Requires a game restart.

If you want to test if it works, then just click the + button (Add New tab) over and over. If you can add more than 8 tabs, then its working. You might need to extend (drag) the window to the right to see the first 10 tabs.

Grab MOD_ChatMod.zip from http://IstariaReference.com/mirror - if you want to try the .zip version, that extracts to Resources_Override folder instead of modifying your Resources folder.

If you already have the mod installed and working, then I wouldn't bother switching. This is mainly for new users to the mod. If you already have the mod installed, then this will not behave differently.

I found a bug in this mod. My last .zip was just a copy of the original mod, but with a few tweaks to allow it to work from the resources_override folder. I have replaced the .zip file since my last post.

In the orignal .EXE mod, these integers was changed, which should not have been changed:
int FontSize = 10 was changed to 11 on Line 2565 and 2784.

The original game file is font size 10 (on the same line #'s) and for a good reason.

There is one side effect (I discovered by pure luck/accident).

When you Right click an item in inventory and choose 'Destroy' option, the button will display as 'ESTRO' instead of 'DESTROY' (while this mod is installed).

Now this is just one thing I noticed. There may (and most likely) be other buttons, that the increased font size might trunicate the text.

So with that said, I've editted and replaced the UICoreControls.def file in the previous .zip file with the changes of reverting font size back to 10.

This should fix any trunication of various buttons and other possible unforseen consequences; while this mod is installed.

A simple way to test this, is to right click anything in inventory and choose 'Destroy'. If the button displays "estro" instead of "Destroy", then you will want to replace this mod (assuming you do have it installed currently) with the new .zip file.

I've used the Chat Mod for a long time. I have replaced it now with your version, because now I only have one file where the updater cries it cannot replace it ;D

Works great for me!

Heya,
as of today's patch, the NPC dialogues have been changed to show a split window: One for the chat text, one for the quest list of the NPC.

If you installed the tab mod you may encounter client crashes once you greet any quest giving NPC. There seems to be some conflict with the mod and the only workaround currently is uninstalling it. I'm not into the mod's details and hope someone else is able to fix it.

To uninstall the mod, do the following:

• Stop your game
• Open your istaria folder
• Change into the resources_override folder
• Search for the following files, these may be located in an even deeper path structure:
  
  • themes/default/UIChatWindow.def
  • themes/default/UICoreControls.def
  
  
• Delete these files or move them to a secure place

Once done you're limited to 8 chat tabs, but greeting the quest givers should work again.

Thanks to Knossos for passing details on the issue :)

I took a crack at fixing this so that it will work again with the new npc chat interface. I believe it's working as it was before. The new .zip file no longer contains resourcemeta.def as it's no longer needed. Unzip to your MAIN game folder and it will automatically unzip to the resources_override folder.

resources_override\resoures\Interface\Themes\Defau lt\Defs\UIChatWindow.def
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Themes\Defau lt\Defs\UICoreControls.def
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_1.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_2.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_3.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_4.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_5.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_6.png


To remove the mod, simply delete these files from the resources_override folder.

http://istariareference.com/mirror/MOD_ChatMod.zip

Thank you, Cegaiel!!!

Knossos

Thankyou finally can begin using this again without losing the Emote button :)

I'm not sure if during my recent server migration or some other issue (new features broke it) or if I misplaced the last fix, but this mod is now very obsolete, based on a recent quality control audit.

A player recently reported that quest links were lost (and likely the "E"mote button was lost) and it was because of this mod.

I have reluctantly updated this mod to be sure players no longer lose certain features.

If anyone has this 20 chat tab mod installed and don't notice any issues, please update with this new release (even if you have this installed and it's still working, Just update it!)

I don't like maintaining this mod because as tech team occasionally adds new features, that uses the 'UIChatWindow.def' or 'UICoreControls.def', the feature won't work properly because of this mod existing in /resources_override.

Very likely this next time this mod gets broke, it will be deprecated, permanently (by me at least and any links on IstariaReference will be removed).

If you've never used the 20 chat tab mod, I beg you don't try it. It'll cause problems in long run. Additionally this is likely the last update.

Any new game updates can potentially be invalid due to having this files in resources_override.

But for the die hard fans who are addicted, I have one last 'fix' for you; here's the latest update to keep everything working properly...

Updated 20 tab Chat Mod: MOD_ChatMod_2017.07.03.zip

I for one (and I expect that I am far from alone among Istaria players) who is more than mildly irritated whenever the single window chat tab limit falls back from 20 to 8 tabs. I monitor several tabs and use several more on a routine basis.

I hope the dev team will reconsider and make the 20 tab chat window a game feature which is not relegated to /resources_override folder and is instead supported in any feature improvements involving the 'UIChatWindow.def' and/or 'UICoreControls.def' files.

Knossos

I think you are correct, Knossos. I've known this thread has existed for a long time, but I looked back and realized this mod has been around since 2005. Wow!

It's survived a long time and due to the popularity, I've submitted a new design to the devs for review. It needs some polishing and I can't guarantee it will make it.

There's a few flaws in the way this mod works, three actually. If we can work out these 3 issues, then it will make it to the game.

If not, then I've at least come up with a new design that doesn't look like a 'hack' job. I'll post this inverted design in future if it doesn't make it.

My suggestion is the bottom image (inverted chat tabs). Hopefully you'll see this in game, if not, I'll post this new look in future.

Stay tuned ...

https://gyazo.com/5de9e303660a20030a653647959e2ad7.png

Many thanks, Ceg. I will stay tuned...

Knossos

The chat modification is now installed on the Blight Client 395.7.0 which was patched today.

To my suprise, it's actually 22 tabs instead of 20 (two rows of 11). Not sure how that happened.
It looks like it needs a slight tweak from a horizontal line extending beyond right border in certain situations.

But I've heard reports of players crashing while patched to blight because of this. You MUST manually delete the files from your resources_override if you're playing with Blight client (either you play on blight server or you use the "Patch to Blight" option in the launcher, while playing on Chaos/Order).



resources_override\resoures\Interface\Themes\Defau lt\Defs\UIChatWindow.def
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Themes\Defau lt\Defs\UICoreControls.def
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_1.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_2.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_3.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_4.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_5.png
resources_override\resoures\Interface\Icons\Number s\Icon_6.png

The files are different (than what's in the last mod update) and the istaria.exe has been updated to support how it handles the tabs.


The mod has been deleted from Istaria Reference and now deprecated.

If you're not going to use the patch to Blight option (or don't play on Blight server) you can keep the files a little while longer. But beware, once the current Blight client is added to Live Shards, then you might experience crashing upon login.