HUD Layout

Alright, now let’s talk about HUD Layout. HUD means Head-Up Display, and it refers to all the menu and user interface you see on your screen.

Extra note: When you want to take a screenshot without seeing the interface, you can hit the button: Scroll Lock (ScrLk) on your keyboard once, and all HUD will be hidden. If you hit the same button again, they will come back. If you use Notebook computer and don’t have Scroll Lock button, you have to manually set a Keybind (assign shortcut keys to commands) in the Keybind menu.

To access HUD Layout menu, you must look at your main menu (the row of small buttons that are red and gold) and use the “System” button.

The “System” button will bring up a small list. There, you can see some menu have its own Shortcut Key already assigned. They will show the name of button as a reminder for you when you want to use shortcut key. Now, select HUD Layout.

This will bring up a transparent overlay, telling you where things are. Usually, the default HUD setting is cumbersome…. Now you can rearrange everything to your liking. You can either use the mouse to grab and drag any window in HUD Layout setting, and move it to anywhere you want. But if some HUD frames are too close to each other or overlap, and you cannot grab the one you want, you can use this pulldown menu to make the wanted HUD frame become selected, then you can drag it to the spot you like.

There are 4 slots to save HUD Layouts, this is useful if you have different HUD Layouts specially designed for different situations or different dungeons. If you want to copy a HUD Layout from a slot you saved, to a new slot, you have to use the gear (cog) button here.

And select the original slot, and select the destination to copy. Now, from example screenshot below, your slot 4 will have same setting as slot 1.

If you select other unsaved slot, it will show default HUD Layout, like this.

Now, don’t forget to hit “Save” button before you exit the menu.

Some elements of the HUD can be dragged and dropped on play screen without having to go into HUD Layout menu. Hotbars, for example, can be grabbed with your mouse cursor (if you didn’t disable drag and drop for Hotbars.) You have to aim for the Hotbar’s number in front of the row, right click with your mouse, hold and move, then release the mouse button where you want it to stay.

Same for the Chat box. If you grab and hold the first tab, you can move the whole chat window and reposition it.

If you grab on other tab of chat, however, when you drag it, it will pop out and separate from the main chatlog window. You can float it anywhere, so now you can read 2 chat tabs at the same time. If you want to put it back together, you have to click on the X button to close the float window.