DarNified Forum - Configuring the UI

Configuring the UI

The ui has a lot of configuration files located in Oblivion\Data\menus\prefabs\darn. The settings in them contain all kinds of variables meant to control the ui's appearance. This post aims to help you configure the UI using these.

What you'll need

1. A good text editor. You can use Notepad, but an editor with syntax coloring is highly preferable. DarNified UI is made with Notepad++.

Notepad:

Notepad++:

Spot the difference? Wink

2. Patience. For any setting not included in the in game settings, you'll need to exit the game, edit the setting and start the game again. If Alt-Tabbing Oblivion works for you, you can Alt-Tab out, edit, Alt-Tab in and type 'reload menuname' in the console. For what to type for menuname, look in the <class> tag for the menu you need to reload:

Code

GeSHi (xml):
<class> &StatsMenu; </class>

The Stats Menu can be reloaded with 'reload statsmenu'. Exiting and restarting the game has been my way of doing this ever since one of the patches made it crash on Alt-Tab... You'll get some experience in what values to use however, so the restart count has sunk somewhat in concert with my experience.

Config files

The files are usually named similar to the core file they belong to, ie the HUD (hud_main_menu.xml) is configured by editing hudmainmenu_config.xml.
This is a list of the menus and their config files, listed alphabetically as found in the prefabs folder:

Code:

Barter Pack - barter_config.xml
DarNified Books - book_config.xml
Common Controls - common_controls_config.xml
Chargen Pack - chargen_config.xml
Dialog Menu - dialog_config.xml
Enchantment Menu - enchantment_config.xml
Enchantmentsetting Menu - enchantmentsetting_config.xml
Info Menu - hud_info_menu_config.xml
HUD - hudmainmenu_config.xml, hudreticle_config.xml
Subtitles - hudsubtitlemenu_config.xml
Inventory Menu - inventory_config.xml
Level Up Menu - levelup_config.xml
Lockpick Menu - lockpick_config.xml
Magic Menu - magic_config.xml
Map Menu - map_config.xml, map_template.xml
Message Menu - message_config.xml
Quest Added Menu - quest_added_config.xml
Recharge Menu - recharge_config.xml
SigilStone Menu - sigilstone_config.xml
Skill Perk - skill_perk_config.xml
Sleep/Wait Menu - sleepwait_config.xml
Spell Making Menu - spellmaking_config.xml
Stats Menu - stats_config.xml
System Menus - system_config.xml
Training Menu - training_config.xml

As you can see, not all menus have config files yet.

Some of these have multiple config files:
- map_template.xml deals exclusively with the map icon associated with each location.
- hudreticle_config.xml deals with the crosshair and sneak eye.

In game settings

I've placed in game settings in the last page of the Stats Menu. Any setting for a menu that has no visible menu page (ie. hud, info menu, etc) will be here. These settings are found in hudmainmenu_config.xml. For other in game settings like the ones in the world map, their settings are in the config file belonging to that menu (map_config.xml for the map).

Settings page:

On the settings page you'll find a help text at the bottom explaining what that setting does. At the end of it I have placed the name of the setting as it appears in the config file in parenthesis. Example:

Say you want to change the distance at which poi icons on your compass starts showing up.

1. You place your pointer over the setting "POI Reveal Distance".
2. At the end of the help text, you'll see (_reveal).
3. Fine tune the distance until you are satisfied and make a note of it: _reveal = 8000.
4. Open hudmainmenu_config.xml with your text editor.
5. Find _reveal.
6. Change the value inside the tags to your new one:

Code

GeSHi (xml):
 <_reveal> 8000 </_reveal>

Now the game will use your new value for POI icons in the compass every time you start it.

For toggle settings, the values for on/off will be 1/0. Do not use &true; or &false; for these. The in game controls need these to be 0 or 1 to function properly. &true; and &false; is the equivalent of 2 and 1 respectively.

For position controls, there are always two settings to adjust. The first value in the control will always be the horizontal value (x). Here's the default Sneak Eye position:

Code

GeSHi (xml):
<_sneak_x> 305 </_sneak_x>
<_sneak_y> -18 </_sneak_y>

General info

XML, much like HTML is written using tags.

Code

GeSHi (xml):
<x> 666 </x>

Here you see an x value of diabolical proportions.

The end tag is always exactly like the start tag with a "/" character in front of it. Whenever you make a change in the config files, you always change the value inside these tags.

The comments in these files will list the defaults, and that should give you something to fall back on if you've messed up somewhere. These also give you an idea of which values it will take. Any x/y parameter will be in pixels, toggle values will be 1/0 or true/false, strings will be plain text, and alignment values for text elements will take center, left, or right.

If you're playing around with different textures, the paths you see are relative to Data/textures/menus. For meshes (ie. <nif>) the path is Data/meshes/menus.

Should you at any point in time find that these configs don't let you do enough with the ui, you can take plunge and dive into the core files like I did when BTMod emerged and DarNified UI was born.

As far as possible, I have made comments in these where I have changed something:

Code

GeSHi (xml):
<!-- DarN 112 -->

This comment shows you which value used to be here (112). I havent been able to comment absolutely everything though, so you might want to have the Bethsoft originals unpacked for reference.

When adding your own custom tags, be sure to use an underscore before the tag: <_new_x>. The game will ignore it otherwise. The exeption would be the <userX> tags which the game will use, but you'll loose it's descriptive nature if you do.

If anything is unclear, wrong, or simply not explained here, don't hesitate to post.

Happy configuring.

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