Talk:Graphical user interface

didnt know where to post this, but i noticed that Area Net are looking for a Text/Voice/Video Chat Engineer [[1]], so i guess they might be introducing Voice/Video Chat to Guild Wars 2.....maybe.

anyway where should ipost this 24.79.131.199 11:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say post it here. — ク Eloc 貢 07:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

What? We have no idea what the UI will look like. -- Armond Warblade 08:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Skill Bar (In Combat)

Just noticed in videos of the March 2012 CBT, that the skill bar changes colour when in combat, see the image to the right. Should this be mentioned in the article?

BrentNewbury 21:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Comical to me

I just wanted to point out that the user interface page started as of today but there are comments here from february2008. I'm assuming that the page was deleted before but the talk page was left as a remnant. It made me giggle Venom20 01:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Picture

A lot of people tend to work better with pictures, so i was wondering if there was a high quality full screen video that we could annotate as an example without an unslightly company tag on it. Ideally I would want fairly little action on the screen, but it would be nice if we could include a targeted enemy complete with a condition/effect on it while the player is using a skill and has an effect on itself as well. I found a few videos, but all the high quality ones have some company tag on them.--Corsair@Yarrr 04:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Curious

Are the boxes above the health ball boons? if not anyone know what they are 69.171.160.59 03:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

The bit above the health bar is the effects monitor. So, yup it shows the boon icons but it also shows icons for any conditions you might have as well. -- Aspectacle  03:49, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Clean, Full-Screen Shot

Hello. Forgive me...this is my first post, and I'm very new to the wiki-world. If this formats horribly...sorry.

I was wondering if someone has access to a single, excellent screen shot showing as many components of the interface as would be useful without being too cluttered. Annotations would follow and would be extremely informative. Anyone with the resources and know-how, I'd love to see this happen. Thanks!Sliphorn 06:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It is possible to do, but it would be a lot faster if you would just look up a few high quality gameplay videos and learned from those. The interface itself hasn't changed much, except for the Event Assist, which is mostly the same as your quest log. Only the menus have changed dramatically, but that would be difficult to show in a screenshot. On a side note, just remember to indent your comments with : and you should be fine, since you already know how to sign. Eive 06:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

You would add the annotations? That could be really cool. Some of the clearest whole images of the screen I've seen have come from the high resolution of this video [2] but it has the playmassive overlay in the corner. Josh might be another option as he has upload partial screenshots in the past - like this one. We could ask him nicely if he could provide the wiki with a whole screenshot for annotation. -- aspectacle  07:21, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Now I'm confuzz. Is Sliphorn asking for or offering annotations? And are you talking to me or Slip, Aspectacle? I obviously need to get some sleep. Eive 09:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Aimed at Sliphorn. I'm not sure what they were after, but I'm crossing my fingers it was an offer of some cool input. :) -- aspectacle  10:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

At first I had assumed they were requesting, but after rereading it, I'm not so sure. Clarification OP? Eive 10:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Regarding Josh, contacting him is one thing, but we're never sure whether he's actually there, thus messages can get lost. We already asked a lot of Josh in the past, too. - Infinite - talk 11:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I really wouldn't worry about this right now. GW1's interface was very strongly changed at the last month before release, so whatever is currently there on GW2 is more likely a placeholder than the final interface. Erasculio 20:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the indent tip. I'll work on this some more and get it going. As for the annotation, I would like to see someone, but not me, do this. I have neither the required info & knowledge, nor the skill, to take on that type of project. And I think the observation that the current setup is likely a placeholder is correct and valid. Still, it would be nice to see things with as much clarification as possible. Sliphorn 05:47, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

PS-Sorry for the confusion my initial post caused. Feel free to keep providing tips for me also so I can improve my editing. Sliphorn 05:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Movement Keys (keyboard shortcuts)

Am I the only one who cannot find an article or paragraph on the keyboard movement keys or the list of shortcut keys?? And does running, jumping, and dodging at the same time perform a mid air flip? Rudhraighe 23:16, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Controls, though page needs updating. There is this video which should help to that project. 23:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you I did some work on it i hope i did not mess things up too much. Someone will need to do some cleanup and then link this page Controls back into User interface somewhere please. Rudhraighe 03:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Is ['] Cycle Equipment the same as Weapon set switch (Weapon Swap)??

Is ['] Cycle Equipment the same as Weapon set switch?? Rudhraighe 13:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

compass zooming

You can zoom in and out with the compass. I suppose the 2500 range is the default? --El_Nazgir 20:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Heading Level

Current Heading leveling is wrong. I'm pretty sure the 2.8 Compass is not part of the 2. Heads Up Display. Traditionally, "Heads Up Display" is non-interactable information displayed on top of something else (such as a windshield); if so damage dealt and skill effects are "Heads Up";the Skill Bar et tal are elements. llandale 09:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

By that logic, the skill bar and chat box are also not part of the HUD. I don't agree - the HUD is everything that is overlaid on your view of the game world, whether it's interactive or not. Maybe "traditional" HUDs that we have in the real world right now are entirely non-interactive, but that's only due to limitations of the technology. —Dr Ishmael 13:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

[HUD] "A head-up display .. HUD is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints." I think the word "Display" in HUD gives it away; which I suggest has the characteristic "informative". 'Transparent' is key. Technogy is advancing, there are certainly transparent pop-up information-centric displays that also provide some interaction. Your definition allows you to say anything on your computer desktop is a "HUD", including the GW game client window. In any event, a sub-division is suitable (instead one of 15); perhaps "Fixed Elements", "Moveable Elements", "Pop-up ..err.. pop-out Transparent Elements" (HUDs); ... or I'll let someone else name them... llandale 05:09, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Interface Types

I think the Visual Interface should be the primary focus here, with keyboard shortcuts that interace included. Other keyboard only actions such as "Other critical functions" should be listed separately. So maybe level 2 headings Panels, Elements, Heads-up, and Misc. llandale 09:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

What are the different chats?

Could someone tell me what the different chats do?

Guild is the represented guild. (So new people, when you join your guild, don't forget to click to represent your guild, otherwise you won't be able to participate in chat)

NPC, whisper, combat, emotes, game messages... obvious.

But what is the difference between party, team, squad?

What is the difference between say and map? Lorazcyk 23:12, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it should be part of the User Interface page. Thanks. [[subst:unsigned|}}

Party chat is for your current party members. Squad chat is for a squad led by commander, if you have joined one. Team chat is for your side in PvP. Say can only heard in a relatively small area, while map chat can reach whole zone/map (like Queensdale). Mediggo 22:25, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Lorazcyk 23:12, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

GUI or UI

Shouldn't the name of this page be "GUI" instead of "UI"? Turtle Slow Joe 13:17, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with this move - of course it's "graphical", it's a video game. There's no need to complicate the article name with that qualifier. The GW1 wiki has this article at user interface, as well. —Dr Ishmael 14:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I don't want to cause trouble, but the GUI is in the category UI. In the category UI are all the subcategories. So if you name this category UI then it's just a collection of all the subcategories in the UI category. So I'd love to change this page into a GUI page if I'm allowed. This page contains double information (like controls) so I wanted to clean it up. Turtle Slow Joe 14:06, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Controls and sounds cues (like shouts or boon and condition remarks) are not graphical. It should remain as user interface. GUI is part of UI, and I think splitting them to two articles would just be unnecessary. Mediggo 17:36, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

We have a page for controls, maybe we just need to shift some content around to the appropriate location. —Dr Ishmael 18:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The panels and such don't belong in the HUD category. HUD is what you (normally) can see all the time. Such as skill bars, health bars, etc. GUI also contains the menu panels, guild panel, etc. Lextoc 07:13, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Seems like then this thing mis-called "HUD" would be the "Graphical User Interface", demoting "HUD" to just those messages that pop up. llandale 23:40, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

So we'd end up with UI as a disambig page of sorts, and the actual articles being GUI, Controls and audio. Doesn't make sense to me when we could keep all the UI stuff, especially those related to graphic and sound cues, on a single article. Controls could be an exception since it thoroughly documents all possible key bindings. Of course it's true that panels are not part of HUD - HUD consists of all GUI elements initially and consistently on the display. Mediggo 09:33, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to keep the GUI page because, in my opinion, a wiki page should be about one topic with only the info about that topic in that page. But since the categories aren't really used to navigate through the wiki by the 'normal' players it would be a good idea to make a UI page that introduces the subcategories of the UI category, but doesn't contain all the information (just the basics). Lextoc 11:11, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Compass and map

I'd like to move the compass detail information out of this article because I think it provides a lot of information which ends up obscuring the rest of the article. However, this is complicated by the fact the compass and the map window basically provided different interfaces to the same information. They share icons and some functionality. Any ideas about the organisation of the map and compass articles so this information isn't unnecessarily duplicated? -- aspectacle  21:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

My first thought is to consolidate the information as one article at Map with a subsection for Compass. Then the section here would basically be replaced with {{main|Map}}. —Dr Ishmael 22:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

That works for me, but I'll wait a bit to see whether there are any other opinions. -- aspectacle  23:42, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Observer mode

did gw2 have something like Observer mode? watch people WvW is very fun.--151.199.39.38 14:07, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Not yet, probably post-release. :) Mediggo 14:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Not to shatter your bubble into tiny bite-sized pieces or anything, but obs for WvW would be a ridiculously huge amount of data to be stored, even if you restricted it to the last day or so (no fun at all). It was only viable in GW because you had a hard cap on the number of actors (16 players + however many NPCs, all of whom had simple scripts and animations) and matches never lasted longer than an hour and a half or so (significantly less after VoD was moved to 30 minutes instead of 60). I don't see this being a practical element of the game, though I would love to be proved wrong. -- Armond Warblade 23:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

What's with the "N" = North icon for the "compass"?

Well, what gives? North is at the top, and there is no "N" on my compass (BWE2 and after)...

Or did I miss the "switch to old-GW1-style" button somewhere? Cynique 16:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

If you have the map/compass set to rotate, this icon will show. Rotation puts your character's field of view as the top of the map display, and the map rotates when you move to keep it that way. The N icon appears here to help you stay oriented.

Am I blind, stupid, or what? ("Player is watching a cinematic" icon)

So, by now, we've all seen the icon over a player character's head that indicates that the player is watching a cinematic (small film reel). It was one of the first over-the-head status icons I saw on anyone, back in BWE2 when I woke up after the centaur battle, and everyone ran outside to talk to the scout...

I'm looking for the description in this wiki. Since I haven't found it, I see four possibilities:

• I'm blind, and can't see something that's right in front of my face.
• I'm stupid, and can't do a proper wiki-search.
• It isn't there, and should be added somewhere, maybe even here.
• Something else, possibly a combination of the above.

Cynique 05:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Probably option 3. I don't think that it would fall to inclusion on this page, since it's not an interface element, but perhaps we should have a page for Cutscene or Cinematic that would warrant its inclusion. It might also be a useful mini-icon to have at our disposal to use (similar to our dialogue icons). Thanks for bringing it up. Redshift 11:04, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Compass

Probably just me, but this really irks me: That's not a compass, it's a mini-map. --— snograt 19:38, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Very true. Unless the GW2 team themselves have referred to it as a compass, we should change the article. -- Armond Warblade 23:49, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Another thing - I just followed a link purportedly to "radar range", which turned out to be a disguised link to compass, which is a redirect to ...here. So my question remains unanswered: what is "radar range?" — snograt 05:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

In what context? In the general sense, it could be considered the maximum radius of the minimap after zooming out. -- Armond Warblade 22:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The rectangular minimap was originally a circle called the compass, some references to it remain. The minimap is also resizable, and the maximum size changes on your "interface size" graphics option, so I don't think radar range really has any meaning anymore. Manifold 22:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

To add, the original UI clearly had a compass, so I'm sure it's just retained that moniker as a result. Additionally, you can activate a compass mode where it will rotate as you move about the world and point out north for you. 20:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Print Screen

Is it possible to take a screenshot without the gui? Shift+ printscreen does not hide the GUI --Sonyareanne 05:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Control + shift + h will turn off the GUI. – Barinthus 06:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Missing Icons

Need that commander icon and that waypoint icon which get created whenever you're in a city and ask a guide to mark something on your map. – Barinthus 06:29, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I wish I knew how or I'd do it instead of begging someone to do it for me ha. This page is still missing commander icon and waypoint icon for the compass. Also for the sake of being complete, perhaps include special event icons such as peppermint candy icon marking mysterious presents? Barinthus 05:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I edited a screenshot for the commander icon: , not sure if I did it right, but hope that works for now. Manifold 18:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I have replaced it with the original game texture taken from Gw2.dat - if you want to crop off all the extra space, go ahead. This is the version used as the "floater" above the character's head. I'm currently looking for the 32x32 icon used as the map icon, but it's eluding me. I did find the red/yellow/purple ones, though - looks like they were added around the Tower of Nightmares release. —Dr Ishmael 00:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

option to reset temporary windows

is there one? having difficulty finding it on forums or wiki and the wiki is most appropriate place to display the information. 50.245.236.33 06:59, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Drawing on Compass/Mini-map

Holding Shift to draw white lines on the compass/mini-map (and full screen map) has apparently been, probably inadvertently, disabled, it no longer works. Not sure exactly when the first time I noticed this change but it may have been even as late as the update on the 20th of June (2016) as far as I know this is an undocumented change, if anyone knows of an update note on this subject please post a link to it here. --Skekzyz (talk) 18:56, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

It still works, it's been changed to shift+right click instead of left click. Apparently to make it more 'uniform with other interactions'; or something along those lines. -Darqam (talk) 19:02, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

You are correct sir, I just found that. But is it undocumented? I try to read most update notes and don't remember it. --Skekzyz (talk) 19:24, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah this was not documented by anet. I believe a reddit post quickly complained about the 'disappearance' of this use, before someone figured it out; and then a dev explained the reasoning behind it. (gods I love reddit as a source of info...). -Darqam (talk) 19:36, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Was added around June 16 (maybe June 14): "This is a case of normalizing behavior between the mini map and full-screen map. This was needed so we could reclaim some keys for... stuff. It wasn't the intention that it go out at this time, so that's why there was no patch note." post by ArenaNetEvanL (2016-06-15T19:27:36+00:00), with reporting of this "bug" 2016-06-15T16:59:52+00:00 --BryghtShadow (talk) 19:40, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Barrier health orb info

Not really sure how to word-in how barrier looks to the Health Orb section, but it should probably be added? ~ Fishrock ^(talk) 17:53, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

The Health Orb subsection is a good location, yes. Just one picture of an orb with barrier on it may be enough, as that yellow is a large contrast to the "normal" red. G R E E N E R 17:13, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Needs updating for Rewards Boxes, Mounts, Novelties, Templates, and Future EoD

I was looking for something similarly related to this page which was when the "bouncy boxes" added the right-click feature. As I was reading through this article, it was obvious that it hasn't been updated in a considerable amount of time - at least pre-PoF since Mounts aren't included. Things that need to be added...

1. Update Skillbar graphic
   
2. Mount select (under Skillbar)
3. Novelty select (under Skillbar)
4. Equipment/Build Template select (under Skillbar)
5. Future EoD select
6. The one thing I was looking for and cannot seem to easily find is the reference to the "bouncy chest" part of the UI. I even checked the Renown Heart page. That does not include the "bouncy heart" reward since they updated the automatic pop-up. There seems to be an overall lack of mention of this change in all the pages I've looked at so far.

I will do some updates as I feel comfortable doing them, but I wanted to put this here to bring up the subject so that the intent of the updates is documented. You can message me on the Wiki Discord (Vision.9074) too.

--VisionOfTheWood (talk) 12:19, 13 August 2021 (UTC)