Beginners Guide to TLOs and DataVars¶

Introduction¶

Top-Level Objects (TLOs) are basically "built-in" global variables that contain information from the EQ client.

Usage¶

In order to use these built-in variables, you need to pick a Top-Level Object to start with, and then "build" the variable by adding one or more DataType members of that TLO. It's best understood with some examples. Note: TLOs and members are all case sensitive, so enter them exactly as seen.

Example 1: Mana Percentage¶

Say you want to display your current Mana Percentage in a HUD or use it in a macro.

First off, you look through the list of TLOs and pick one that best suits the information you're looking for. The Me TLO looks like a good bet.
Opening that page, you see that the Me TLO has access to the character datatype and the spawn datatype. The character datatype contains information about your own character, mostly things that only you will know (eg. how much mana you have, what spells you have loaded, etc). Since your character is also a spawn in the EQ world (ie. other people can see you and interact with you), you are also able to access the spawn datatype, which gives information that other characters in the same zone may know (eg. your location, your race, your class, etc).
Since we're looking for your Mana Percentage, this is something that only you can know, so choose the character datatype page.
This will display a list of all the members that are available to character. In the front of each datatype is an italic word, which is the datatype that the member belongs to. It may seem a bit confusing right now but should get easier as we progress to more complex examples.
Scroll down the list until you find a member that looks like it will give us what we need. The PctMana member looks good.
The int in front of PctMana shows that it is an integer. Since we're expecting a number, this seems correct.
Click on the int link and you'll notice another table similar to the character datatype. This table has all the members of the int datatype. Note that the bottom line of the list is **To String_, which is the default for the datatype. The default for the_ int datatype is the number. Since we're just looking for the number, we can stop here.
So now we can "build" our variable. Remember, all variables start with a $-sign and are surrounded by braces { }.

We start with our TLO:

${Me

Then we add a period to indicate that we want to include a member of Me:

${Me.

Now we add the first datatype, PctMana:

${Me.PctMana

Now PctMana is an int and the default for int is just the number, so we don't need to add any members of int. So we can close off the variable now:

${Me.PctMana}

To test this variable, you can echo it in the EQ client. So typing the following will echo your mana percentage to the MQ2 chat window:

/echo ${Me.PctMana}

Example 2: Class ShortName¶

The next example deals with getting your class short name (the 3-letter abbreviation of your class).

Find the most likely TLO again. Again, the Me TLO looks best.
Find the member you would like to select. To find the members of Me, go to
Character
Scrolling through the members of Me, Class looks like the best candidate.
The class datatype has a default of "Same as Name". Looking at the Name member, we can see that it is the "long name" of the class (eg. Enchanter). We're actually looking for the short name, so we need to find a member of class found here Class. Funny enough, ShortName looks like it will do the job.
ShortName is a string datatype and the default for this datatype (surprisingly) is the string, and since we're looking for a 3-letter string, this is perfect. So now we've found our endpoint, we can build the variable as before.
Start with the TLO:

${Me

Add the first member

${Me.Class

Since we need a member of Class, we add another period and the next member

${Me.Class.ShortName

We've now arrived at the end of our variable, so we "close" it here

${Me.Class.ShortName}

Again, to test, we echo the variable and see that the result is what we expect.

/echo ${Me.Class.ShortName}

Example 3: Comparison using a string¶

For the next example, we will use the variable and compare it to a string in an if statement. Let's say we want to echo something if we're a bard, and something else if we're not.

We'll be using the same ShortName example as above, but since we don't just want to echo the current short name,

we have to go a step further.

Go back to the ShortName member and you'll see that it is a string datatype.
Under the string datatype, you'll see the Equals member. This is the one we'll be using. Equals is a

bool datatype, which means that it doesn't have any members. It will return 1 if true and 0 if false, which is

good enough for our test.

In the following example, I'll be using an /if statement. For the purposes of this example, you don't need to understand how they work, but they're the staple of MQ2, so it's a good idea to have a look at the Flow Control page and familiarize yourself with /if and its friends.
Returning to the example though, let's build the variable. We'll start with where we left off in the previous example. Since we want to access a member of ShortName, we won't close it off:

/if (${Me.Class.ShortName

You'll notice that the Equals datatype has square brackets after it, which means that you need to enter something between the brackets. This can be another variable or just a string. For this example, we're checking if we're a bard:

/if (${Me.Class.ShortName.Equals[BRD]

Remember that we're using ShortName, so we need to include the 3-letter abbreviation. Since this is the end of the variable (Equals is a bool), we can close it off:

/if (${Me.Class.ShortName.Equals[BRD]}

But this is actually an /if statement, and we need to close that off to, so lets make it echo something if we're a bard.

/if (${Me.Class.ShortName.Equal[BRD]}) {
  /echo Catch me if you can!
}

We'll flesh this out a bit more by echoing one thing if we're a bard and another if we're not:

/if (${Me.Class.ShortName.Equal[BRD]}) {
  /echo Catch me if you can!
} else {
  /echo Nerf bards!
}