Macro Item Link

The information presented in this page relies heavily upon several comments in a discussion you can find here: https://www.project1999.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-248562.html

Finding Your Character's ini File

You're going to be editing your character's config file in the root directory of your eq install.

The config file is named "<character name>_project1999.ini"

So if your character's name is say "Fippy" the file will be named "Fippy_project1999.ini" (windows does not show file extensions by default, so it might just look like "Fippy_project1999").

Editing the ini File

MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR INI FILE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO EDIT IT

The EQ client only reads the ini file when it initially loads, so in order to see any edits, you MUST save the file AND restart your eq client

Open the file in your text editor of choice. Notepad on windows works well enough for this.

Scroll down in the file until you see a line that says "[Socials]".

If you've already made one or more custom socials in the UI inside the actions box under the socials tab, you'll see lines after [Socials] that look like this:

[Socials]

Page2Button1Name=friends

Page2Button1Color=0

Page2Button1Line1=/who friends all

Page2Button7Name=time

Page2Button7Color=0

Page2Button7Line1=/time

This tutorial assumes you don't already have a macro in the 3rd page, 8th button and will be creating one there, but you can specify any page, any button that doesn't already have a macro defined. Avoid Page1 - it is the pre-populated macros that ship with the game and not specified in the ini file. Pages 2-10 are fair game and there can be 10 buttons per page: button1 through button10.

Anatomy of a Social Macro Definition (SMD)

Fully specifying an SMD requires 3 lines:

line 1: macro name (what shows up on the button you'll click in the UI to trigger the macro)

line 2: text color (what color the name will appear in on the button)

line 3: the custom macro that can include an item link

Anatomy of an Item Link

an item link consists of a 45 character item id, 1 special character used 2x, and a text description which does not have to match the actual item name

specialCharacteritemID descriptiveTextspecialCharacter

Determining the Item's Identifier

1. Search for the item you want to link in your macro on mqemulator.net. Eg, for blue diamond see this page: http://mqemulator.net/item.php?id=22503
2. Note the ID. You can see the ID in the URL and also in parentheses on that page. In this case, the ID is 22503
3. Convert the ID to hexadecimal. You can use a site like http://www.binaryhexconverter.com/decimal-to-hex-converter to do this. In this case, the hexadecimal number is 57E7.
4. 4 digit hex numbers should have two 0s before them, 3 digit hex numbers should have 3. (left padded 0s to 6 digits) and should be padded with 0s at the end so that it's 45 characters total. In this case, the number would be 0057E7000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Generating the Special Control Character

Find/type a hidden/unprinted character called control-R, octal 22, hex 12 (you will need to be able to input unicode hex).

In certain text editors, when typed this will appear as a simple rectangle, other times it will not appear at all. It shows up in notepad and text edit.

• http://www.poynton.com/notes/misc/mac-unicode-hex-input.html is how to switch to unicode hex on a mac - switch to the unicode hex input keyboard and type option-1-2
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input#In_Microsoft_Windows is how to do it in Windows

NOTE: on a windows laptop with no dedicated numpad, you'll need to download a numpad app (I found one in the windows app store, not linking b/c no idea if it's a particularly good one/not riddled with malware)

creating a Social Macro Definition

Copy 3 lines of a pre-existing SMD in your ini file and paste it back into the ini file directly under the "[Socials]" line (if you had no pre-existing SMD's) or logically within the list of existing SMD's.

Page2Button7Name=time
 
Page2Button7Color=0
 
Page2Button7Line1=/time

and edit it to specify your desired (and UNIQUE) page and button.

Page3Button8Name=time

Page3Button8Color=0

Page3Button8Line1=/time

and then edit it to specify the name and the macro with the link you want to embed. You'll need to follow the instructions below to generate the special character and the 45 character item id number, but the end result will look something like this...

Page3Button8Name=selStuf

Page3Button8Color=0

Page3Button8Line1=/auc WTS SpecialCharacter007559000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Ice Forged ShacklesSpecialCharacter MQ

Troubleshooting Your Macro

Ok, you've followed the directions on this Page, logged back into your character, and the link isn't working as intended (very common)

When you click the macro button you get something like:

Fippy auctions "WTS 007559000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Ice Forged Shackles MQ"

This behavior indicates that you have not successfully created the correct special character required by the eq client to generate the macro link. Go back through the steps to do so on this page - you've missed something.

Alternately the link can work but when you click on the link nothing happens or the wrong item pops up in the client. You either pulled the wrong itemID from the internets or messed up the very specific formating - remember it has to be 45 characters long (padded with zeros to the right and left of the itemID you pulled from the internet)