Ventrilo Overlay lets you see who is talking to you
Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:40 pm
Ever wished you could figure out whose voice in Vent belongs to which character? Want to know at a glance who just connected to the server or entered your channel?nnWell, say hello to the Vent Overlay! nnBasically, this cool function of Ventrilo puts a little box over everything on your screen that feeds you information such as who is speaking, who connected to the server, who entered or left the channel, chat messages from other vent users, and more.nnThis is what it looks like:nn
nnHere's info from the Vent website:n
nnConfiguring the overlay information is pretty self explanatory.nnNow, moving the little box around your screen is a little more involved. First off, you can't drag/drop it whereever you want. You are limited to the basics: upper left, upper center, lower right, center middle, etc, etc. You can bind a key to move it to one of these positions without going back into vent. For example, I use my backslash key for that. Here's the step by step on how to do it:nnStep One: Open up Ventrilo.nStep Two: Find the part where it says bindings (under server), and click the "arrow"nStep Three: Click the button that says "New" and a box will pop up. Add in what ever name you want it to be and press "OK". I used "Sample" because of the guide.nStep Four: Now, down at the bottom, there will be a button that says "Add". You will click this.nStep Five: in the new box "Edit Hotkey/Function", you want to click on the radio button for "Overlay", and then click in the box at the bottom that says "Keyboard: Add" Punch your preferred hotkey and click OK.nStep Six: Back in the Overlay tab under Setup, make sure you set it to "Manually Position"nnWhen you start Vent up, make sure you pick your bindings file in the bindings drop down box. Sadly, it's not automatic, but it's fairly easy to remember being right on the first page.nnEnjoy!
nnHere's info from the Vent website:nnnSetup is very simple, pretty much all you have to do is turn it on! After connecting to the server, click "Setup"on the right side. Then click the Overlay tab, and click the check box for "Enable Overlay Support".nnHardware Overlay is a technique by which a program can display information on the computer screen but does not require access to the normal desktop nor does it require interaction with or modification of any full screen application like a video game. The following quote from the Microsoft Developer Network describes it best.nnnnAn overlay surface is analogous to a clear piece of plastic that you draw on and place in front of the monitor. When the overlay is in front of the monitor, you can see both the overlay and the contents of the primary surface together, but when you remove it, the primary surface's contents are unchanged. In fact, the mechanics of overlays work much like the clear plastic analogy. When you display an overlay surface, you're telling the device driver where and how you want it to be visible. While the display device paints scan lines to the monitor, it checks the location of each pixel in the primary surface to see if an overlay should be visible there instead. If so, the display device substitutes data from the overlay surface for the corresponding pixel.
nnConfiguring the overlay information is pretty self explanatory.nnNow, moving the little box around your screen is a little more involved. First off, you can't drag/drop it whereever you want. You are limited to the basics: upper left, upper center, lower right, center middle, etc, etc. You can bind a key to move it to one of these positions without going back into vent. For example, I use my backslash key for that. Here's the step by step on how to do it:nnStep One: Open up Ventrilo.nStep Two: Find the part where it says bindings (under server), and click the "arrow"nStep Three: Click the button that says "New" and a box will pop up. Add in what ever name you want it to be and press "OK". I used "Sample" because of the guide.nStep Four: Now, down at the bottom, there will be a button that says "Add". You will click this.nStep Five: in the new box "Edit Hotkey/Function", you want to click on the radio button for "Overlay", and then click in the box at the bottom that says "Keyboard: Add" Punch your preferred hotkey and click OK.nStep Six: Back in the Overlay tab under Setup, make sure you set it to "Manually Position"nnWhen you start Vent up, make sure you pick your bindings file in the bindings drop down box. Sadly, it's not automatic, but it's fairly easy to remember being right on the first page.nnEnjoy!