Elitist Jerks - View Single Post

Leaflock · 06/27/07, 11:25 PM

I agree with a lot of the general rules a lot of people have already posted-- simplicity, ready availability of important information, elimination of unnecessary information/pointless frills, etc. I have a couple of my own, though.

1. Centralization of... the viewing area! Some UI setups (and some of the posts here) seem to take centralization to the extreme-- I think it's important to not have to look to far for key information, but at the same time, why is it necessary to free up the bottom left and bottom right corners of your screen? For me, really, all four corners are the least useful areas to keep unblocked by UI. Accordingly, I have Player/Party frames upper left, buffs upper right, chat lower left, and Recount/Omen lower right. I don't need to stare at any of these during your average fight, but they're all important to me to have readily available at some point. The middle of the screen is for seeing what's going on, clicking on mob health bar nameplates, etc.

2. Nobody mentioned it, but... symmetry. A UI is more aesthetically pleasing if it's symmetrical, and a number of UIs posted here are not, surprisingly. If something goes on one side, it looks better if there's something else on the other. It's also for this reason that I choose to keep 4 action bars, clumped in a single rectangle, on my UI. Most mods are rectangular, and it keeps things looking proportional, sticking with parallel lines. The top two action bars are clickables that I'm generally too lazy to open my spellbook/bags for (I think hotkeying itself has a limit of usefulness-- I don't need my stack of Spicy Crawdads ready at the push of an Alt-Shift-Ctrl-Z, but having an icon with a little number indicating how many I have left is useful to me). The bottom two have hotkeyed spells, and swap depending on what form I'm in.

3. My UI depends on having a widescreen monitor-- I've had both, and widescreen is just hands-down better for setting up UI with good viewable space. For one, it lets me scroll sct and sctdamage to the left and right of my character comfortably without obstructing any other UI. Most centralized is NECB, directly below my character, for castbars/debuff durations for cat and bear-- very important for me to see all the time-- so sct and NECB for me make a minimalist (and symmetrical) HUD.

06/27/07, 11:25 PM	#118
Leaflock Piston Honda Hewn Orc Death Knight <Titan> Blackhand	I agree with a lot of the general rules a lot of people have already posted-- simplicity, ready availability of important information, elimination of unnecessary information/pointless frills, etc. I have a couple of my own, though. 1. Centralization of... the viewing area! Some UI setups (and some of the posts here) seem to take centralization to the extreme-- I think it's important to not have to look to far for key information, but at the same time, why is it necessary to free up the bottom left and bottom right corners of your screen? For me, really, all four corners are the least useful areas to keep unblocked by UI. Accordingly, I have Player/Party frames upper left, buffs upper right, chat lower left, and Recount/Omen lower right. I don't need to stare at any of these during your average fight, but they're all important to me to have readily available at some point. The middle of the screen is for seeing what's going on, clicking on mob health bar nameplates, etc. 2. Nobody mentioned it, but... symmetry. A UI is more aesthetically pleasing if it's symmetrical, and a number of UIs posted here are not, surprisingly. If something goes on one side, it looks better if there's something else on the other. It's also for this reason that I choose to keep 4 action bars, clumped in a single rectangle, on my UI. Most mods are rectangular, and it keeps things looking proportional, sticking with parallel lines. The top two action bars are clickables that I'm generally too lazy to open my spellbook/bags for (I think hotkeying itself has a limit of usefulness-- I don't need my stack of Spicy Crawdads ready at the push of an Alt-Shift-Ctrl-Z, but having an icon with a little number indicating how many I have left is useful to me). The bottom two have hotkeyed spells, and swap depending on what form I'm in. 3. My UI depends on having a widescreen monitor-- I've had both, and widescreen is just hands-down better for setting up UI with good viewable space. For one, it lets me scroll sct and sctdamage to the left and right of my character comfortably without obstructing any other UI. Most centralized is NECB, directly below my character, for castbars/debuff durations for cat and bear-- very important for me to see all the time-- so sct and NECB for me make a minimalist (and symmetrical) HUD.