Hi all,

( I originally posted this in the mods forum, then realized it actually belongs here.)

I'm working on a mod where I need to grab the reference under the crosshairs from beyond the usual distance--preferably without revealing its name. The first part is easy enough. I simply extend iActivationPickLength until GetCrossHairsRef returns the reference. However, since this can take a few frames, the activation icon and the name of the target reference flash briefly on screen, regardless of the speed of the script--which is a bit tacky.

So I have been trying to figure out a way to hide the HUD reticle and information for just those few frames. It seemed possible, since I was aware, for example, that TNO hides the sneak eye and enemy health bar in his HSB mod. My first move, then, was to take a peek inside that mod to see how he did it. That, of course, led me to MenuQue's mqSetMenuGlobalFloatValue function, and I thought I was making headway.

So I read the MenuQue documentation and the primer on Oblivion XML posted on the Wiki, and have been tinkering around for a few evenings. I thought my next move might be to figure out how to hide these menu items manually by changing the settings in hud_reticle.xml. If I could do it manually, after all, then maybe I could do it in my script. But alas...my XML-Fu is so weak, I can't even seem to do it that way. If I understand it correctly, the HUD reticle actually copies many of its visual properties from HUDMainMenu. So as a work-around, I tried setting the reticle's y coordinates off-screen, for example, or setting the alpha to 0, but in-game there is no effect.

So I clearly have no idea what I am doing. What I thought would be a simple mod has turned out to be beyond my--admittedly--very modest modding skills.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

(BTW: I personally use the DarN UI, but of course would like to design the mod such that it would work with the Vanilla UI as well.)

Cheers!