Cheat sheet Overlay Toolkit - Lailloken/Exile-UI-Legacy GitHub Wiki

Feature Overview

• customizable overlays with single-hotkey access and seemless switching

• high customizability: size, position, segmentation

• easy management: create, import, and edit cheat-sheets without additional software

• create advanced, tooltip-like overlays for almost any mechanic in the game

• access 3rd-party web resources or apps without alt-tabbing and managing windows

User Interface & Settings

• this feature has its own section in the settings menu, with UI and sub-feature options as well as interfaces for managing cheat-sheets

• feature-specific hotkeys:

  • arrow keys: move image-based overlays across the screen

  • F1/F2/F3: reduce/increase/reset overlay-size

  • space: reset segmented image-overlay, reset advanced-overlay highlighting

  • TAB: show the complete segmented image-overlay, quick-access for the most-recently activated overlay

Setup: General

Using Sanctum and Betrayal as examples, the following sections will show the different overlay types, how to set them up, and how to use them. These steps can be used for other mechanics as well, simply by replacing the league-specific elements.

• this feature has to be enabled in the settings menu
  

• the default method of activation is ALT + omni-key, but it can be changed to CTRL + omni-key or SHIFT + omni-key

  • adding a modifier-key to the omni-key is a precautionary measure to keep the regular omni-key and this cheat-sheet hotkey as responsive as possible

• in the settings menu, there is a section to create new cheat-sheets

  • enter a preferred name, select a type (images, app, advanced) and click 'add'

• a new section will appear as soon as at least one sheet has been added
  

  • red highlighting on a name indicates that additional calibration has to be done (the same as with screen-checks)

• each sheet has its own screen-check that needs to be calibrated, which enables a single-hotkey user-experience

  • in essence, this is where you "tell" the script which cheat-sheet to activate when you press the hotkey while something specific is on screen

  • clicking 'calibrate' will open the Windows snipping tool with which an area of the screen has to be captured

  • in this example, a cheat-sheet for Sanctum will be set up, so the screen-check has to be calibrated with something from the Sanctum UI
    

  • click 'test' to see if the screen-capped image can be found on screen

  • the name in the list will remain red until a test has returned a positive result

• after successful calibration, pressing the cheat-sheet hotkey while the Sanctum map is open should show this tooltip near the cursor
  

  • this means the cheat-sheet can generally be accessed and is merely missing content

• right-clicking a cheat-sheet in the list will show a context-menu with additional options
  

• clicking 'edit' will open a new configuration window
  

  • refer to the help tooltips for more specific information on the available options

Setup: Image-based Overlays

• right-click an image-based overlay in the list of available sheets, then click 'edit'

• the section under "import image-files:" shows a list of numbers starting from 00

  • these are 'slots' into which images can be imported

  • slot 00 is reserved for 'segmented' cheat-sheets, which will be explained further below

  • the lowest free slot will be highlighted green

  • clicking 'paste' will import an image file or image data from the clipboard into the slot

  • clicking 'snip' will open the Windows snipping tool with which screen-caps can be imported directly

  • long-clicking 'preview' will activate the overlay in order to show what the current configuration looks like

• this image will be used as an example

  • you can either right-click the image in your browser and select "copy image", then paste it into slot 01

  • or you can copy it from your local storage (if you have downloaded it), then paste it into slot 01

  • or you can click 'snip' and screen-cap a smaller area if you don't want to use the whole image

• after importing the image, slot 01 will show additional options, and slot 02 will be highlighted as the new lowest free slot
  

  • long-clicking the 'del' button will delete the image from slot 01

  • the white field next to 'del' is an optional edit-field into which a single letter can be added: this letter serves as a hotkey to access or switch to this slot (more on that further below)

• if you now press ALT + omni-key (or whichever combination you chose) while the sanctum map is open, the image will be overlaid in the center of the screen
  

  • while the overlay is active, you can use the arrow keys to change its position, F1/F2 to resize it, and F3 to reset the size

  • size and position settings are saved and persist across sessions

• if multiple slots have images loaded into them, there are different ways to access and switch between them while the overlay is active:

  • pressing a number-key that corresponds to a given slot (or a letter-key that can optionally be assigned)

  • right-clicks will switch to the next slot, long right-clicks to the previous one

Setup: Segmented Image-based Overlays

• as mentioned earlier, slot 00 has a specific function because it alters how an image-overlay behaves

  • slot 00 is 'anchored' to the overlay, i.e. it will always be displayed (not matter which slot is active)

  • it is reserved for headers of a table or similar illustration and can be moved to the very left or very top of the overlay

  • so this means: instead of accessing an image and displaying in the overlay by itself, you access images and add them to the overlay

• to illustrate this, slot 01 from the previous section will be deleted in order to create a segmented Sanctum cheat-sheet instead

  • clicking 'snip' on slot 00 has a different effect, i.e. it opens a snipping widget instead of the Windows snipping tool
    

  • this widget has a help-button with additional instructions

  • this widget can be moved and resized, and it serves as a more accurate way of doing screen-capping
    

• the widget was moved over the header of the Sanctum table in order to screen-cap it as image 00 (as mentioned earlier: 00 is reserved exclusively for headers)

  • clicking 'snip' again will now screen-cap the area underneath the teal part of the widget and import that image as image 00
    

  • there is now a dropdown-list with the options "top" and "left" to determine where to anchor that part of the image

  • while the widget is active/focused, the arrow keys can be used to move and resize it

• this process was repeated four times (once for each floor) to screen-cap images 01 - 04
  

• these are all the imported images:
  

  • if you now press the overlay-hotkey while the sanctum map is open, the overlay will activate but only show the header (image 00)

  • pressing the number-keys 1 to 4 will add the corresponding images to the overlay, which means that only the most relevant information will be on display (thus making the overlay more compact)
    

  • pressing space will reset the overlay to only show the header

  • holding TAB will temporarily show the whole image (until released, then revert to the previous selection)

Setup: App-based Overlays

• "overlay" is used very liberally because this type is not an overlay in the narrower sense

  • rather, the script uses an open window on your system an activates it on demand, putting it in front of the game-client

  • I implemented this more as an after-thought – one could call it "glorified alt-tabbing" – but it could still be useful in some situations

• right-click an app-based overlay in the list of available sheets, then click 'edit'

• the lower half of the configuration window looks different for app-based overlays
  

  • you have to specify the window title of a window you want the script to activate

• for this example, this syndicate web-app is used

  • when opened, the window title of your browser is "Syndicate Cheat Sheet - Path of Exile Tools"

  • it's sufficient to only copy the first half of the title, but it is case-sensitive, so make sure to copy the text 1:1

  • you can click 'test' to see if the script activates the correct window

  • NOTE: the window title of browsers changes depending on which tab is active, so it's best to open these websites in a separate window, or to create 'browser apps' that are launched in separate windows

  • optionally, you can specify an .exe or shortcut file that will be launched if the window isn't already open

• pressing the overlay-hotkey while the syndicate board is open activates the browser window with the web app
  

Setup: Advanced Overlays

• if at least one advanced cheat-sheet has been created, a new set of options will be displayed in the settings menu
  

• advanced overlays rely on additional screen-checks because they are specific to individual "objects" in the game

  • instead of displaying, for example, a whole table of information, these only show information for one specific entry (Sanctum example: one room)

  • these objects have to be compiled in a list

• right-click an advanced overlay in the list of available sheets, then click 'edit'

• the lower part of the configuration window for advanced overlays contains an edit-field into which these objects have to be entered
  

  • in the case of Sanctum league, these objects are the individual room types

  • you don't have to copy the in-game names of the objects 1:1, but it's often better to not abbreviate too much since the list is sorted alphabetically

• added objects will appear in a list below, and the entries can be clicked to edit the actual overlay-texts
  

  • an object can have up to four individual text-panels which will be displayed above the cursor when the overlay is activated

  • you don't have to use all four panels, the overlay will skip empty boxes

• long-clicking 'preview' will activate the overlay and show what it looks like with the current settings and texts
  

  • text-panels can be highlighted by hovering over them with the cursor and pressing 1 to 4 (the colors can be customized in the settings)

• pressing the overlay-hotkey while the Sanctum map is open will show a tooltip "no match" near the cursor

  • this is because the script only 'knows' about the object but doesn't 'know' what it looks like on screen

  • to calibrate an object's screen-check, hold right-click and press the overlay-hotkey while hovering over a 'chambers of inscription' room on the Sanctum map

  • this will activate the Windows snipping tool with which to screen-cap the name plate of the room
    

  • if snipping was successful, a small window will open, asking you to link the screen-cap to an object
    

  • this window can also be used to add new objects to the list as you progress in game, so it's not strictly necessary to go to the settings menu all the time

• after selecting the corresponding object and clicking 'save', the overlay-hotkey should activate the sheet and also recognize the object that is being hovered over
  

General Usage

• pressing the overlay-hotkey while a specific in-game UI is on screen will activate overlays

• overlays activated this way can be customized in specific ways, depending on the type of overlay

  • refer to the 'user interface' and 'setup' sections above, as well as to help tooltips in the tool itself

• there is a secondary, quick-access hotkey to pull up the most-recently activated overlay

  • after an image-based or advanced overlay has been successfully activated, TAB can be held down to bring it up again

  • this differs from the normal activation in that this quick-access doesn't allow for repositioning or resizing the overlay

  • in simple terms: it shows the previous overlay again, for the duration of the key-press

  • image-overlays will be shown in the position you have set up, advanced ones will show at the top edge of the screen

  • pressing SPACE in this mode will clear the TAB-key and disable the quick-access until the next overlay activation

Remarks

• this feature is somewhat experimental in nature and is built around being highly flexible

• if everything goes as planned, I will use this as a basis for new league-content