Yeah, no, it's a UI blog.
Video Tutorial - PitBull4
I was going to open this blog post by saying that PitBull must obviously be the most popular UnitFrame addon available, but it looks like xperl has about 3 million more downloads than Pitbull (of course, that might be due to PitBull not being primarily distributed by Curse until late last year). In any event, PitBull is an incredibly popular UnitFrame addon for World of Warcraft; and a new version is about to be let loose on an unwitting public!
Ckknight, among others, have been developing PB4 for quite some time, and almost every 'review' of the mod that I've read has been overwhelmingly positive. The major change for end-users is probably the configuration menu - hence, the Tutorial. You can read more about the addon on it's project page at WoWAce, located here. That page lists these major changes:
These changes, especially the configuration changes, are a mixed blessing for end-users. On the one hand, setting up the user interface can be much less time consuming; on the other hand, the new configuration menu is not necessarily intuitive and takes a considerable amount of getting used to.
That said, I've been using PB4 for several weeks and I'd give it an A+ in terms of usability, performance, and features. I've produced a little tutorial video which I'll post below. Effectively, I go through the options menus and describe what is similar to and different from PitBull3. It should be comprehensive enough that a new user can learn the basics of the addon simply from watching the video.
YouTube - PitBull4 Tutorial - Part 1
YouTube - PitBull4 Tutorial - Part 2
Ckknight, among others, have been developing PB4 for quite some time, and almost every 'review' of the mod that I've read has been overwhelmingly positive. The major change for end-users is probably the configuration menu - hence, the Tutorial. You can read more about the addon on it's project page at WoWAce, located here. That page lists these major changes:
- Documentation is written before functions
- Much easier for third-party extensions.
- Options will be much, much simpler. In 3.0, there's about 200 panels that you can mess with, it's overwhelming. I want to bring this down to somewhere around 10.
- Layouts are defined deterministically and unit groups use the layout rather than ad-hoc layouts on a per-unit basis. This will make setting up your unit frames far, far easier.
- Due to some decisions made, 4.0 is actually more configurable than 3.0. As a layout designer, you will have a lot more control over how things look. You can have different fonts on the same frame, different textures, more precise positioning, and a whole slough of other things.
- CPU Efficiency will be taken much more seriously.
- It uses Ace3 instead of Rock.
These changes, especially the configuration changes, are a mixed blessing for end-users. On the one hand, setting up the user interface can be much less time consuming; on the other hand, the new configuration menu is not necessarily intuitive and takes a considerable amount of getting used to.
That said, I've been using PB4 for several weeks and I'd give it an A+ in terms of usability, performance, and features. I've produced a little tutorial video which I'll post below. Effectively, I go through the options menus and describe what is similar to and different from PitBull3. It should be comprehensive enough that a new user can learn the basics of the addon simply from watching the video.
YouTube - PitBull4 Tutorial - Part 1
YouTube - PitBull4 Tutorial - Part 2
Total Comments 3
Comments
|
Cool video, I haven't really been keeping up on addons so I had no idea that PB4 had been released but I've been using pb3 for as long as I can remember.
|
|
|
|
# Documentation is written before functions
Hey it only took 5 years for addon authors to actually start following industry standard design principles! |
|
|
|
|
You can't ask guys working for free to have the same quality [requirements as] industry.
Even in industry, it's rare that [documentation] is [written] before the code, time is a big factor and sometimes you just don't have sufficient time to do things [in] the best way. (sorry for my english...[edited by sov for clarity]) |
|
Updated 04/24/09 at 12:08 PM by Sovereignty |
Recent Blog Entries by Sovereignty
- I Don't Love it (05/28/09)
- Min-Maxing Your UI | Part Two: Design (05/05/09)
- Min-Maxing Your UI |Part One: Introduction (04/22/09)
- Video Tutorial - PitBull4 (04/12/09)
- Action Bars Are Important, and So Are You! (04/06/09)
