The Journal

[ingsmsico]

the UO journal needs some tweaking. some text cannot be read. not sure about other players but I use it extensively

btw, I am in regular UO client, not sure what the story is with SA client. if someone could post a screenshot of that journal I'm curious what it looks like

 

[imperterritus]

In the enhanced client, you have an always-on, multi-tab chat pane:

Each tab can contain one or more channels. The pane background (bg) goes transparent after a short amount of time, including the tab title buttons. Even when the bg is transparent, it's text will eventually fade to transparent also, after one minute. Each line has it's own timer, so it feels pretty mature. E.g., say you're crafting and got three gains about 17 seconds apart. The first gain line will fade to transparent first, but you'll still see the 2nd two, etc.

All text in the pane can be refreshed simply by putting the mouse over the chat pane. It is scrollable, maybe for the whole play session. Not sure how much it actually buffs.

 

[MalagAste]

Good luck with that.

I've complained about the default color of the emote being completely unreadable in the journal for over 6 years now to no avail.

It's a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I keep partying people begging them to please change the color of the emote since EA/DEV's refuse to do anything about it.

 

[imperterritus]

Good luck with that.
...

Well, technically they have fixed it -- just not in the classic client. If you have old hardware that won't run the enhanced client (EC), I don't know if there is a solution. Otherwise, you can stop being peeved by it tomorrow.

Text colors within the chat pane of the EC are no longer set by each player. Instead, each channel has its own color, and these are modifiable by you. I.e., you can see the colors you want, without making it hard for other players.

 

[ingsmsico]

Well, technically they have fixed it -- just not in the classic client. If you have old hardware that won't run the enhanced client (EC), I don't know if there is a solution. Otherwise, you can stop being peeved by it tomorrow.

Text colors within the chat pane of the EC are no longer set by each player. Instead, each channel has its own color, and these are modifiable by you. I.e., you can see the colors you want, without making it hard for other players.

from the looks of it, that UOSA journal is insufficient for my needs and instead of being a reason for switching to UOSA it would be just another in the long list of reasons I can't. do you really have to switch tabs all the time to see the different messages? can you remove it from the game window? can you resize it?

I like the idea of be able to toggle a key to go into chat mode like in UOSA, instead of having to hold shift and type with caps lock on to avoid hitting macros. I really wish they would add a chat toggle into UO.

they may have implemented some nice things in UOSA, but it really doesn't help me since there are other game-stopping reasons I can't use it, and only a few annoying things about UO

 

[Nastia Cross]

If there was an option in the EC to use Classic client graphics, I might be all over that. Unfortunately for many of us, the graphics is what keeps us using the EC.

 

[imperterritus]

from the looks of it, that UOSA journal is insufficient for my needs and instead of being a reason for switching to UOSA it would be just another in the long list of reasons I can't. do you really have to switch tabs all the time to see the different messages? can you remove it from the game window? can you resize it?

Heh, I think you have misunderstood something basic. The EC chat pane is extremely flexible.

1) No, you do not need to switch tabs all the time. Each tab can have as many or as few channels as you like. By default, the Journal tab has the most used channels already present.

2) No, you cannot remove the chat pane from the game window. You don't need to, which is why I explained the fading to transparent, above. Note that the game pane can be resized within the game window, so if it really, really bothered you that they overlap, you cold move the chat pane completely off of the game pane.

3) Yes, you can resize it and reposition it. You can make it as large as you want, but I believe it won't go any smaller than three tab-buttons wide and eight lines high. (At least on my 1920x1080 screen that's as small as it goes. I suspect on smaller screens it would go smaller, but I don't know.)

4) The "chat mode" key is <Return>, unless you use chat in compatibility mode, in which case it is like the classic client with no special chat mode.

 

[ingsmsico]

3) Yes, you can resize it and reposition it. You can make it as large as you want, but I believe it won't go any smaller than three tab-buttons wide and eight lines high. (At least on my 1920x1080 screen that's as small as it goes. I suspect on smaller screens it would go smaller, but I don't know.)

in UO I expand my journal to the full height of the window and set it to the left of my game window, I can see far more than just 8 lines.

for example, in UO, if I mash my all names macro, I can do a split second scan of the journal to see who is on-screen. with the Eclient, that would clearly not be possible.

the UO journal does need changes, it would be nice to be able to widen it and adjust colors. also I would like to get rid of the scroll graphic so I can tuck it in nicer and I would also like the ability to "lock" it on the UO desktop.

4) The "chat mode" key is <Return>, unless you use chat in compatibility mode, in which case it is like the classic client with no special chat mode.

this Eclient feature needs to be implemented in UO

seems to me that neither UO or Eclient journals are up to snuff, but I would hope development time be spent on the UO journal, rather on the Eclient journal.