By Remiel

Introduction to the UI

The Horizons user interface (UI) consists of multiple windows which can be customized in virtually any way to fit your preference. Menus can be dragged, minimized, made transparent, or even closed all together. While some menus have their own unique options, all windows have a set of global properties which can be accessed by clicking your middle mouse button or mouse wheel (or right-click depending on your configuration) over the window and selecting properties:

Window Transparency	This controls the visibility of the window. Left is full visibility, and right is none.
Border Transparency	This controls the visibility of the border around the window.
Show Title	Check this box to show the window's title bar.
Show Border	Check this box to show the window's border.
Auto Hide On	If this option is checked, the window will disappear when the mouse is moved away from the title bar. Hovering your mouse over the title bar will make the window re-appear.
Locked	When checked, this option will lock the window in its current position, preventing accidental movement.

TIP: Most major game windows also have a "?" button in the title bar. Clicking this will give you access to an in-game tutorial system which contains a wealth of information.

TIP: A good way to get a quick list of all the major game windows is to click the blue launch button located at the bottom left corner of Horizons. Each of these main game windows is discussed further on in the guide.

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Movement And The Camera

Moving your character forward, backwards, or turning left or right can all be done with the arrow keys on your keyboard. The camera window is a great way to look around your character while moving. You can walk forward with your keyboard and at the same time, turn the camera around your character, zoom in and out, or switch between first or third person views. While this is a good way to get some great views of the game, it is not an ideal way to play. Most people find that free-look is the way to go. For instance, walk forward and backwards with your arrow keys on your keyboard. At the same time, hold your third mouse button (or mouse wheel) and move your mouse. This will force your character to turn with precision according to your mouse movement. It is similar to a first person shooter control scheme in that aspect.

The camera window also contains buttons to: lock the camera, take screenshots, or zoom in/out. Zooming can also be done by scrolling your mouse wheel up or down.

TIP: Use the Third Person View button on your camera window to reset the camera to it's default position.

TIP: Press the num-lock key on your keyboard (or equivalent binded key) to auto-run. Very handy for traveling long distances.

Actions

Actions are broken down into two categories. Those that require something to be selected and those that do not.
Recall, Stop Action, Create Item, and Sit/Stand can all be performed at any time.
Attack, Gather, Trade, and Greet require something to be selected (single left clicked)

TIP: Once you are familiar with the icons on your actions window you can switch it to a simplified mode to save space. Right click on the window (or middle click depending on your configuration) and select simple mode.

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Target, Compass, and Effects

Compass Window
	This will change dynamically according to what direction your are facing in the world. You can also right click on this window and select 'show position' This will show your world coordinates in real time. (The equivalent of typing '/printpos' or '/loc' over and over)

Effects Window
	This shows you what effects you currently have on. The effects can be both negative (e.g. rend armor) and positive (e.g. Gift Of Power) It will also show you what stance you are in.

Target Window
Nothing selected Blighted Dim Wisp	This window shows you what you currently have selected (single left clicked) Can be anything from monsters and NPC's to resources and buildings. Also the only way to identify what level a selected creature is. The arrow on the top right of the window will tell you what direction the selection is from your position.

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Inventory

You can open your inventory by selecting it from the launch menu or pressing the "I" key (default keyboard key) This window shows all the items that you are carrying as well as the amount of money you have.

Currency in Horizons is invisible (allot like it is in real life) It is reflected in the numbers at the bottom of your inventory screen. From right to left, the coins are: Copper, Silver, Gold, and Mythril. A thousand (1000) copper coins make one silver coin. A thousand silver coins make one gold coin. A mythril coin is worth a thousand gold coins.

There are multiple ways to view your inventory. By default, the grid view is show (graphical icons) By clicking the list view button on your inventory window, your items will be shown in text form and can then be sorted by name, size, or type.

Right-clicking an item in your inventory will bring up a menu that allows you to examine it, delete it, or equip it. You can also scribe spells, formulas, or techniques this way. Instead of right-clicking to perform actions on an item, you can also single left click an item and then click one of the 5 buttons located at the top right of your inventory window.
Double clicking on items has other effects. For instance, if you are carrying a container, double clicking it will bring you to it's inventory. Press the level up button (located on the top left of your inventory window) to return to your main inventory.

TIP: Drag an item from your inventory onto a chat window. This will instantly create a link for other people to click that will tell them the exact properties of your item. Very handy if you're a merchant.

Status Window

The status window shows your both your max hitpoints and your current hitpoints. It also tells you what adventure school (aqua colored bar) and/or crafting school (purple colored bar) you are in as well as a graphical indicator of how much experience you have in each school. You can also check how close you are to reaching your max capacity. This window, like most other windows, is dynamically re-sizable, meaning the bars will all resize themselves with the window to a certain point.

TIP: Right-click on the status window and select simple-mode to save desktop space.

CHAT

Chat Basics

By default you have two chat windows in Horizons. The left most window will display System messages as well as general chat from players in your vicinity. The Right most window will by default display information based on what is happening around you. An example of this would be if you are taking hits from a monster or if someone near you casts a spell on a monster.
If you click on a chat window and say something, the game will remember this. From then on, you only need to press ENTER to automatically select the last chat window you used enabling you to quickly say things to other players. You can also enter commands from any chat window which are preceded by a forward slash "/"

There are also a few different ways to say one thing. If you just type a message and hit enter, it will be broadcast to people only in your immediate vicinity. To SHOUT something, type this:
"/shout Hello"
This will broadcast "Hello" to anyone within the vicinity of shout.

The following is a list of a few text chat commands:

TIP: To get a list of all current commands, type "/help"

TIP: You can create an alias for any command in-game along with it's properties by using /alias. For example, if you frequently message a player named BobTheFighter, and you want a quick way to message him, try this:

/alias tb t BobTheFighter

Now, to message BobTheFighter, you simply type: /tb Hey man what's up?

You can also insert special variables into your chat messages.
Example: "Hello, my location is %L%"
Output: "Hello, my location is 12345, 48234"

The command we used was %L% This will insert your real-time coordinates into your chat message.

Another example:
Example: "I'm standing next to a really big %T%"
Output: "I'm standing next to a really big sand golem"

That command was %T% which will insert whatever you have targeted (single click selected) into your chat message. Feel free to experiment with variables by replacing the letter inside the "%_%" with different letters.

Chat windows have a feature called Tabs. These are handy for chatting with another player privately or communicating in player channels. Think of the tabs as multiple chat windows in one. You can easily add or remove a tab by clicking the "+" or "-" buttons.
The other buttons on the chat window are self explanatory, as you can hover your mouse over each one to find out what it does.

TIP: Press Shift+UpArrow to scroll through messages you have already sent.

Emotes

There are also a number of animated emotes which must typed out individually or assigned to hotkeys. Some of the emotes are dynamic according to your race. To perform an animated emote, type a forward slash "/" followed by the emote name. Below are the emote messages as are performed by a half-giant.

Chat Settings

Right-click on a chat window and select settings.

By selecting or deselecting an option on this list, you can tell the chat window what you want it to display. All chat-windows in the game work this way. For instance: Open a player channel and take a look at the settings for that chat window. You'll notice that only the Player Channel option is selected under the Player Channel Tab. By selecting other options from the list under the System Channels Tab, you can control what text the chat window will display. Simple enough right?

When creating a new Chat Window Tab from scratch (by clicking the "+" button), you must define what text you want that window to display. You do this with the Settings option for that Window/Tab. Notice you can also control what title you want that Tab to have.

Note: In Chat Settings, under the Player Channels Tab, the only player channels that will be listed are ones that you have been in before.

Knowledge Windows

You can open your knowledge window by selecting it from the launch menu or pressing the "k" key (default keyboard key) The knowledge window is divided into: spells, formulas, and techniques.

Spells

The spell window shows you what spells you currently have scribed. By checking a filter, you can view only certain types of spells. Checking the 'flame' filter will show only flame spells. Custom filters can be added by clicking the "+" button. Filters can also be removed by selecting the "-" button. You can also do a search for a spell using the search box at the bottom of the window.
Right-clicking on a spell will offer a few options, such as: cast spell and remove spell.
TIP: Drag a spell icon from this window to your hotkey bar for quick access.

Formulas

This window will show you all your currently scribed formulas. It is also a quick way to create something. For instance, simply select a formula from the list and click "Create." Providing you fill the necessary requirements, the item will be created. The search functions work the same as they do in the spell window.
TIP: You can drag formula icons from this window to your hotkey bar for quick access.

Techniques

This window shows your currently scribed techniques. Search functions here work the same as they do on both the spell and formula windows.
TIP: Right click an icon to un-scribe it.

Character Windows

General

The General window tells you what your current adventure and crafting school is. It also lists a bunch of information about your character, such as: Your race, gender, guild, property, bind location, available training points, deathpoints, and statistics.

Schools

The schools tab gives you information about every school you are in or have been a member of. In Horizons, you can join any school you want to and at any time. You will, however, only keep a small amount of the school oriented abilities or spells when switching schools.

TIP: Float your mouse over a school on the list to view a detailed summary of your standings in that school.

Skills

The skills window lets you know what skills you have and where you stand in each skill. Skills are divided into adventure and craft types. Float your mouse over any skill on the list to view a quick description of what that skill does.

Abilities

The abilities window will show you all of your usable abilities. Some of the abilities on your list are reflective of what school you are currently in. If you were to switch schools, some of the abilities might disappear from your list, where new ones would be added. On the other hand, some abilities will always stay with you. Stances are a good example of this. Float your mouse over any ability to view a detailed description of what that ability does.
TIP: Drag any ability icon from your window directly to a free spot on any hotbar. This will be your primary method of quickly using abilities and spells.

Defenses

The defenses window will give you a summary of all your defenses. Armor is the amount of protection you receive from the physical armor you are wearing. Ethereal Armor would be the amount of protection you might receive from a spell or ability. Evasion is how well you can dodge non-magical attacks. Magic Defense is your ability to dodge magic based attacks.
Below the summary is a list of defenses. Items that will show up here are buffs from spells or abilities. Group Flame Resistance and Safety are examples of defensive based buffs that would show up here.

The Options Window

Options-Key Bindings

You canchange any of these to any key you want, as long as they don't conflict with one another.

Options-Video

I would recommend leaving the advanced options set to the way they are unless you know what you are doing. If you want to increase or decrease your graphics on an overall level, just adjust the graphic detail setting.

Options-Audio

Disabling 3D audio may help increase performance on some computers.

Options-Camera

Options-Options

Most options here are self-explanatory. One option of note however is Movable 3D Window. The 3D window that is being referred to here is the main game window. Even though it's the main game screen, it's still a window. After checking the box next to Movable 3D Window you can right-click on the game window to bring up the properties for that window. From there you can resize the main game screen to whatever you like. Some people may prefer this arrangement in order to avoid the clutter that the other windows make.

Hotkeys

Hotkey Basics

Familiarize yourself with hotkey bars, as they are your primary method of healing, accessing spells, formulas, and special-melee attacks. From your knowledge or ability window, you can drag any icon to a blank spot on your hotkey bar. This can be a spell, formula, or ability. The hotkey bars' default position is vertical. Right-clicking on one will offer you the option to place it horizontally.     Right-click on any hotkeybar and select 'new hotkey bar'   This will create a duplicate of the bar you just right-clicked on. Now, click on the up or down arrows at the top or beginning of your new bar and it will cycle through available bars. Notice the numbers 1 and 2 on the image below. You can have up to 10 different hotkey bars on your screen at one time.

To remove an icon on your hotkey bar, just right click on it and select 'clear hotkey'

Macros

Horizons offers a unique macro system. You can create macros in-game to do a variety of different things. We'll create a sample macro below that will remove the user interface, wait a second then take a screenshot, wait one more second and finally re-place the user interface.

Right-click on an empty spot on any hotkey bar and select edit hotkey.
This will open up the hotkey editor.

There are two lists on this screen: Action Type and Action Details.

STEP ONE:
The first step to creating our screenshot macro is to select the drop down arrow on Action Details. We then need to select Toggle Interface.

After you select Toggle Interface, click on the "+" button to add it to our macro list.
If we left this alone as it is now, our hotkey would remove the UI completely and do nothing else. Alas, this is not good, we must continue.

STEP TWO:

Now we need to scroll down the Action Type list and select Wait (seconds). You will notice after selecting a new action type, that the action details list changes. In this case it is how long in seconds we want the macro to wait before continuing. Type 0.5 which is of course, half a second. Click the "+" button to add this event to the list. Note: You may have to increase this to 1.0 depending on your computer speed.

STEP THREE:

Switch the Action Type back to Action, and now select Screen Shot from the Action Details list. Don't forget to hit the "+" button to add this event to the list.

STEP FOUR:

So far our macro does this: 1.) Toggle UI  2.) Wait half a second 3.) Take a screenshot
Next, we want to have our macro wait another half a second to allow the screenshot to be taken properly. So repeat Step Two.

After you've repeated step two we can return the user interface back to normal. So repeat Step One.

Your macro should look like this:

Notice I've also added a tooltip. This is what my macro icon will say if I hover my mouse over it.


You should also add an icon for your macro. If you don't, there will be nothing to click on your hotkey bar. Once you've added a tooltip and an icon for your macro you can click on SAVE

Click on your new button on your hotkey bar and watch the magic work! Screenshots are saved as .PNG files which are saved in the screenshots directory within your Horizons folder.
Default Directory Tree: C:\Program Files\Artifact Entertainment\Horizons\Screenshots

Now you can Submit those beautiful screenshots (minus UI) to Horizons Stratics to be considered for placement on Daily Vision!

The In-Game Map

Map Basics

The default binded key to open the map is "M" You may have to go into Options-Key Bindings and map the default key.
There are quite a few buttons on the map but you can easily hover your mouse over any one of them to retrieve their function. Notice where it says "Istaria". That can be changed if you are on a starting island.

Other Windows

Player Search

There are tons of filters here but for the most part is should be fairly easy to use. Type in the players' FIRST name to search for them. In Horizons, all first names are unique, and last names can be shared. You can also search by the type of player (i.e. school) and even narrow down their rating.

Player List

Think of the player list as a built-in instant messenger. You can add a group and then add a player to that group. This should be second nature for all of you. Once a player is added to your Player List, you will get a message whenever that person logs in or out, unless they have themselves hidden.

Note: Use the players first name here when adding them to a group.

Quest Windows

Every time you receive a quest from an NPC, you can check the status of that quest by opening the quest menu. The default key is "q" or it can be accessed from the Launch Menu. Click on an arrow next to the quest to reveal your detailed progress on that particular quest.

Horizons will keep track of every quest you have ever completed.