June Waypoints

New friends are like new adventures. You never know what lessons they will teach you.
                      -Unknown

The new TLE server has generated a mountain of buzz despite a somewhat rocky opening day. A lot of players ended up staring at the login screen for several hours on Tuesday, which made it seem more like an expansion release day. But it's all running smoothly now with a server full of nostalgia-minded players digging that fresh-off-the-boat experience.

Speaking of 2004, veteran players will remember the old cartography parchment style from the original UI. I encourage you to drop the vintage Drakah Theme skin pack into your game for a few days, whether you're racing to max level or just stopping to smell the murdunk oranges.

Ghost Window

One complaint that we hear far too often in general chat and on Discord is that a player's Examine windows have disappeared. Nobody needs that, especially when you're trying to bid on an item in a raid, or viewing a piece of uber gear in the auction channel.

A new Examine page in the upcoming utility functions much like Bank, Bag, Chat and Hotbar pages. You can rearrange the windows graphically, or swipe another character's window layout. But the most valuable feature is the big Reset button, which will move all of this character's Examine windows back to their default locations without disturbing any of your other settings.

Change the Channel

Like quite a few other players, Darq Side member Ayel is still using the URL Helper to move in-game web links over to his Windows browser. He noticed that the notifier drops its private channel into whichever chat tab it finds first. Not great if you like to hide your URL links on a separate tab. What's worse, if you try to move one of your channels to another tab you'll probably end up in Chat Channel Hell™ and often the rest of them will get clobbered in the process.

On the Chat setup page in the upcoming utility, you'll soon find a new widget that lets you move your channels around between chat tabs at will. Much simpler and more reliable than the in-game controls.

What a Load of... Hotkeys

Hotkey Sets offer a lot of flexibility for complex UI layouts, and they provide relief for the 10-hotbar limit. If you swap Ascension classes around or if you have special sets for raiding, soloing, etc., the Hotkey Sets feature turns an otherwise painful process into just a couple of button clicks. We touch on the subject in the Icon Bar tutorial, but there is a new choice coming your way that I think you're going to like.

Normally when you load up a hotkey set, you expect all ten hotbars will be replaced by a full bank of 120 spells, macros, etc. But what if you only want to replace, say, Hotbar #10 -- or maybe just one or two individual hotkeys -- leaving everything else intact? Well, you can do it. And we'll have a new control in the window manager that gives you a choice to load complete or partial sets over the hotbars.

Stayin' Alive

Tradeskilling for the first few levels carries a bit more excitement than later on. I remember in the early days getting exploded or sawed in half or incinerated by the tradeskill devices when I failed to manage my power. And what about those embarrassing announcements when you get one-shotted right in the middle of the Ironforge Exchange.

Darq Sider bluja000 asked if we could find a spot for a set of health and power bars on the Tradeskills window for characters who need to keep an eye on those basic stats. She already has the prototype in hand, and I haven't noticed her running back to her alchemist's corpse lately.

DarqUI 2K/4K

Group 22 is in progress, and the first installment may already be on the server by the time you read this. Coincidentally, the next DarqUI Tip of the Week will offer an in-depth look at this essential component.

Thank You

We are gratified to welcome quite a few new members to the Darq Side this month, overwhelmingly due to interest in the new special server and to players who prefer 4K resolution. Many of you are brand-new to the UI, and when you have a chance I hope you'll take a look at some of our in-depth tutorial videos and the growing list of premium features. There are literally dozens of ways that DarqUI improves your game time no matter which screen resolution you use.

For new and seasoned members alike, our goal for you is always first-class everything for just a few pennies per day. Your support for the Darq Side translates directly into more time to make continued improvements and explore new ideas, the majority of which come directly from our members. You should know that a good percentage of the game's population around the world is using DarqUI and benefitting from development made possible by you.