diospadre

With the advent of ACE the other UI thread has degenerated into the incessant posting of minor variations on the same UI. If anyone else out there is like me, they basically stopped following it at page 55 because it had turned into a me-too contest instead of a helpful resource.

This thread means to combat that. If your UI has an interesting layout, useful new mod to show off, a feature you think is absent or underused, or some enhancement you coded yourself and want to show off, please post a screenshot and write something to clarify why you are posting and how people can use what you've done to better their own UI. Please do not post your UI if it looks essentially the same as everybody else who uses ACE except your RDX bars have polka dots and are sorted by the girls who are fucking the loot officer/those low on health/everyone else. You can go back to the other UI thread for that. You can post your improvements on someone else's UI that has been posted here, but please, lets not end up with the continued posted of minor variations on a UI. It's boring.

I'll start things off with my UI. As it has been for months, it is very similar to Silverblood's (isn't it ironic)?



I like to keep my UI smooth without jarring transitions. To accomplish this I use Discord Art to create the Tooltip borders and backgrounds which lay underneath all of the UI elements on my screen. It keeps things consistent and looks pretty nice in my opinion. I won't give you my DART layout because exporting settings from all the Discord settings is a huge pain in the ass, and you can achieve the same effect with 3 minutes of tinkering on your own.

As for features, my bars do something that I don't believe any addon does. The top right action button (currently occupied by Blackhand's) displays whatever trinket I currently have equipped, and whatever cooldown it may currently be subject to. A similar affect can be achieved with TrinketMenu (which I do use and keep invisible solely for the mouseover trinket selection menu), but I like that my way fits right into an action bar button. If anyone else isn't afraid of some memory usage and still uses Discord Action Bars, I'd be happy to post how I did this.

So the ball is rolling, let's see some new stuff and not 25 pages of the same old boring UI reposted ad nauseum.

 

◊ Drauk

Whats that buff mod ?

Fun is for casuals

 

diospadre

NOT FUNNY

 

• moz

what's your spec?!?

Though really, this is going to be an awfully short thread since most frequent raiders are using 90%+ of the same mods/configurations.

 

◊ Praetorian

This is a valid thread. Don't be dumb. The other thread exists mostly as something for people to passively browse through looking for artistic inspiration now, but it's not really a useful place for discussion. This doesn't have to be an active thread, because maybe there really are no new ideas out there, but if there are, then let's hear them.

 

Phlis

Derail:

What about Addon's we'd like to see, as opposed to whats already out there? As a hunter there are few addons I actually feel I need. A trinket swapper, Tracking Assist, and a Range finder, are basically it besides the standard raiding mods(CT, KTM, DM, CdC). However I can see room for improvement in other areas:

Incoming Damage over Time: A mod that measures incoming damage, and then averages it out over the course of the fight through two methods, first the amount of time you've been in combat vs damage taken since combat started. This gives you a general idea as to how much healing you need directly at the moment to stay alive for the next for seconds, at least. Second, compares the averaged damage to the percent of the bosses health left. This will give you and idea of the amount of healing needed to survive the entire fight. Especially with the change to HoTs it could announce something like "I need another Rank 5 Healing Touch in the next 10 seconds" or another similar statement to the raid. Something based off this could then inform your healers which spells would be most mana effiecent for the remainder of the fight, barring huge spikes. Essentially a pre-emptive emergency monitor. It could be expanded so that when a healer targets a player they can get an idea of what rank spell would be best to use on say Hunters or Mages who take less spike damage and more periodic damage.

Pets in Raid: A mod that adds pets to the raid bars. Yes healers hate looking at bars. Yes it's more bars for healers, specifically, to look at. But, if pets are becoming raid viable, and therefore more acceptable targets for heals, then they need to be easily selectable. Make them the same color as their masters, well a lighter or darker shade, whatever. They should stand out and be clickable as raid targets. That, I think, is one of the main problems with hunter and lock pets, and soon Mage, Shaman, Priest and Druid pets as well, they are impossiblly hard to target for heals. Just add them to the raid frame, some how.

 

Antiarc

Hm. Most of my "clever" things are event-triggered stuff. My layout is a fairly standard ACE'd layout.

I'm running Bongos (not Ace, I know), and rather like its attachable scripts function. I've got it set up to:

- Swap my #2 action to BS or SS depending on whether my MH weapon is a dagger or not. Combined with Stancesets, this makes for one-press switching between backstabbity and face-bashity modes.
- Attached a little script to show my hat depending on if I'm PVP flagged or not. The DD hat is too ugly to look at most of the time, but it has a great psychological effect in Battlegrounds. It's also a nice little indicator of my flag status.
- On my warrior, I have a big Battle Shout button set up in middle of the screen, just off center. Bongos makes it visible if I have >= 10 rage and don't have the BS buff. It's hidden otherwise (actual real hidden, not Discord "fully transparent but still clickable" hidden). It serves more as a "you don't have BS up, dumbass" indicator than anything else - I have BS bound to a key combo, so I just use that to cast it. It makes worlds of difference in ensuring that I don't let the buff lapse.

I use Sprocket for my consumables, tradeskills, and mounts. I particularly like it for consumables - it's great to have the bar off screen, but popped up and accessible via mouse gesture.

I have my basic action bar stuff visible, but on my rogue at least, nearly 100% of my play is driven through keybindings and mouse gestures. It makes for very quick responses to most any action, and doesn't induce reaction lag due to me having to stop moving, look for my skills, and click 'em. Beyond gestures, that's not really much of an addon thing, but it's a rather significant change from the stock UI.

I have a few addons I've written to provide a one-hit, accurate measure a target's AC and damage reduction, and an incoming heal tracker and parser.

I couldn't find a quick, light way to put borders around the chat frames like in Dio's UI (and there was no way I was installing the DART behemoth just for that), so I wrote a tiny little addon that just adds a border frame to chat windows.

 

spronk

I've leveled to 67 in the beta and I'll say those who are mod-mad may want to start toning down. A lot of mods simply won't work in the expansion anymore. I believe you cant programatically swap buttons in combat so all the rogues/warriors who like to do that...

It was very, very painful the first few days playing with the default UI. However it made me go and dump most of the mods I currently play with (Necrosis etc), I did get bartender2 and a few others but even so they don't work as flawlessly as the built in UI. For example I use ag_unitframes for party frames, but there is a visible delay when getting new targets and still strange behaviour when in combat.

The mod I am currently debating dumping is SCT - its gotten to the point where a bunch of text flying around the screen is of debatable use. Does it really matter if I hit for 1k or 2k, crit or non-crit? The only things I really need to know are whether special procs are up and whether I need to re-apply dots/debuffs.

 

Sri

nice, need to check out Bongos! :)

Thx Antiarc - always wanted something that would auto-hide abilities/hotkeys if they are active and/or unable to be used.

 

Antiarc

Sri, be advised that I'm doing it by just dumping lua scripts into its script-attach function. It won't give you a pretty point-and-click interface that lets you do it - you'll have to get your hands dirty with some code to make it happen.

However, it is possible. :)

Edit: And yes, I'm going to be sad when BC breaks my button swap. I will come up with bindings to work around the problem, but it's ever so convenient. :(

 

Nurru

Despite my long list of mods, I'm fairly certain if I just had Bongos, Autobar and a unitframes mod that wasn't terrible then I would be mostly satisfied. Oh, and Itemrack. But I'm pretty sure I could live without that considering how often I forget I have it.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Fugazi

Ya right now I use discord to make my hotkeys dependent on my target (Friendly, Hostile). It helps me a ton because I can all the heals that I don't queue/click on the same hotkeys as my damage spells. I'm probably going to be stuck using a set of shit keys to get most of my stuff hotkeyed, which is going to be a pain since I already use alt keys for self casting.

 

Pyros

I removed most of SCT info besides a few particular stuff for each char a long time ago. It was just spamming too much. I keep parry/dodge checks on my hunter for mongoose/counter attack, combat tags and overpower/execute messages on my warrior. Could probably remove the addon all together and use something lighter for those, but well SCT isn't making me lag so it's fine.

As for the incoming dps mod, there was one that probably still works. I had a hard time finding it tho, and have no idea where it was. The name is CombatStats, however it's NOT the combatstats on curse/wowinterface, it's something less known, and it gives dodge/parry/block/miss rate, amount blocked, damage taken, all registered by mob type/boss(so you can see how many crits you took in your dps tanking gear on the last 3 mc clears, or what's the miss rate of bosses). It also has a little window with Incoming DPS that I used on patchwerk to find out how many healers minimum I'd need to keep me up, while MTing. I wonder if I have still have it in my US wow interface dir, if you want it might upload it somewhere.

 

panny

(click for big)

My UI was made mainly for PvPing as a supporting Priest, but I only raid on her now. The thing I like the most about my UI is that all my information is located in the middle of the screen, starting from the bottom. The ArcHUD might seem really jarring, but it actually saves me from having yet another frame in the middle of the screen, and I soon got used to having my health displayed so prominently. Having the minimap at the bottom makes things alot less cluttered because even though it doesn't take up that much space, I found I would ignore things in that upper-right corner.

I have two main groups of spells. The bottom one has three rows of my 'regular' spells and the top has my short cooldown spells/trinkets/engineering hats. Having my short cooldown abilities on prominent display is very useful, and since the buttons are small, they don't get in the way so close to the centre of the screen (all hotkeyed of course).

My hotbars are done with Flexbar. The top two rows of the main group are split into hostile and friendly spells. Depending on my target, it'll map my keys to the row and shade the other row. I found this very useful for when I still PvPed. Right clicking on a button will cast the rank 1 or group buff version of the spell, which helps save space. I can probably can similar functionality using a less intensive mod, but I've decided to wait until all the UI changes come through.

I use Theorycraft to display the amount of times I can cast a spell before I go out of mana. You can also have it display HPS/HPM/total heal, etc, but I generally know my spells relative HPS/HPM/total heal, but knowing the number of Flash Heals I've got left in me is better than looking at a blue bar and trying to perform a few calulations in the heat of battle.

Antiarc: You use Sprocket for the mouse gestures? (Wasn't really clear) How do you use them? It sounds pretty interesting.

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

Gort

I'll ask the silly question. What's the little gadget doing the latency/money/durability/time info on the bottom of your combat log, Dios? If that's just one addon, the idea of being able to throw FuBar + stack of FuWhatevers out the window makes me salivate somewhat.

 

Ahiru

I believe things like button-swapping will only be disabled while you are in combat. So something like "Replace SS with Riposte when I parry" is broken, but "Replace SS with BS when I swap to my daggers" is okay if, say, you plan to use your dagger for the next encounter, but not if you plan to be switching weapons within the fight.

By the way, panny, what addon gives you those small raid bars at the left of your screen?

 

Gort

Looks like PerfectRaid.

 

Aloaya

I think you are referring to Satrina's CombatMonitor, now unsupported (to my great dismay) but still available from http://satrina.wowinterface.com/portal.php

I use the last non-beta version, as I like having the dump functionality.

 

deets

I often browse through the monster thread from time to time to get new ideas, but this thread seems rather promising. There are too many derivative UI's posted. I'll save bandwidth by not posting my screenshot, but I will comment on some puzzling things I see repeated over and over in people's UI shots.

I primarily play druids and shaman as characters with equal parts organized pvp and raiding. All these character UI's have some common thematic elements: maximize visibility of the world frame, have common spots for information, and locate critical information in easy view. Given these goals, I often see things that trouble me, but hey, it's just my opinion. I try to maximize the available view from the level where you're character stands up to the top of the screen and only put absolutely vital information in that region.

1. If every ability on a bar is hotkeyed, why is the bar still maximum size? Might as well scale down the bars where you know every binding by heart and put in the bottom corner of the screen or hide it altogether.

2. If you run a HUD, why is your (self) player unit frame the same default size (if not larger) and containing redundant information? I run icehud, as I like the customizability of it. It is only used to display my life and mana bars as well as their text value and health % (to avoid the nasty execute). I have my player frame reduced to a small bar that serves the purpose of changing to master looter, leaving party, etc etc. Also, I find it kind of odd that people have to be reminded what class and level they are. Might as well hide that element and make the frame smaller still. Also, do you really need truly massive hud bars? Set them so they are big enough to be meaningful and quickly referenced, but no larger. Not to pick on Panny, but since he/she/it posted check out what I'm talking about here.

3. Critical info placement. I place my target frame with a much smaller target of target underneath it at top dead center of my UI. Enemy casting bars form below this area and just above where spell alert SCT pops up. It's somewhat redundant, but I need to have some sort of alert when a non-targeted player is firing up a heal or a big spell and needs shocking. Cool downs for trinkets and abilities are done with the mod creatively named cooldown on the same level but to the right hand side of the screen. Timers for totems are below. This groups target life, target of target, and hostile cast info all in the same place which is in logical line of site of the action going on in the middle of the screen. It's clean and very functional on a widescreen monitor. Might be a little crowded with normal aspect ratios.

4. The minimap. I love the square minimap mod for more map area. I also like having the minimap cluster below the centerline of my camera view so I have more visible space. I put it centered and at the bottom of my UI. It takes a little getting used to if you do it the day before chasing pings on Osirian, but now it makes logical sense to me and gives me more visibility to see what's going on around me. I tend to run my camera fully zoomed out and at a slightly shallower angle of attack than most so a clear top part of my UI is really nice to have.

5. Minimap button madness! I see countless beautiful, carefully crafted UI's with neat unit frames, elegant textures, and a sea of misaligned buttons crowding the minimap. Get a mod like visor or discord frame modifier (a discord mod that isn't actually a resource hog) and move/line up your damn buttons. That one drives me nuts.

6. Healbot mode/raid frames/etc. When raiding, I use ORA2's main tank frames and Squishy for quick reference when something's out of control and loose, but typically group my raid bars by class. I have heavily modified a layout in AgUF that makes them rather small with class colored lifebars that contain the name, a small mana bar, and a black area that shows the health deficit in numbers large enough to easily see. Debuffs are coded and out of range targets are greyed. How to do that is all easily explained on the wiki at wowace.com. I'm a click-caster, as in I use clique to cast my heals. I use shift, alt and ctrl as modifiers to determine what spell is cast. I realize that mods like squishy are going away in the expansion, so I have grown accustomed to watching the raid life bars. If you have set up your UI to maximize viewable area, it's not hard to see what's going on and who needs healing. Obviously there are still fights like Vael where you just stare at the raid life bars and hammer fast heals, but I have found no problem putting my raid unit frames on the lower right hand side of my screen, growing up from the bottom, just above my fubar.

Anway, just some thoughts. Short version: trim the redundant information, maximize the top half of your screen's visibility, group similar and critical information, and clean up your damn minimap buttons.

 

Elerion

I'm sorry if this is a derail, but I don't get the logic behind this. I have people telling me all the time I should uninstall Squishy and Decursive since I won't be able to use them in the expansion. Why would someone want to abandon a useful tool right now, just because it's going away in the future? Assuming you're already used to it, you're going to have to go through a short period of adjustment anyway.

 

Malan

Great post Deets. Posts like this make me wish this forum had some sort of Karma/Rating system.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Antiarc

Well, I have a sprocket menu set up with my consumables (heal pots, healthstone, mongoose, giants, bandages, etc). The menu is bound to ctrl-space.

I hold down ctrl-space and the menu pops up. I can swipe in any of 8 directions, release ctrl-space, and it executes the proper action. So, this translates to "ctrl-space, swipe up" uses a major heal. "ctrl-space, swipe left" is a bandage. So on and so forth. Rather than having to find the button I want to click on, it translates to a keypress and a mouse movement, which I find a ton faster to be able to use.

Ahiru: I know that I'll still be able to swap buttons out of combat, but it's in-combat switching that makes it so powerful. For example, when I'm PVPing, I like to have my pokers out. However, if I get Counterattacked by a hunter, I'm going to be rooted, and for some reason, hunters love to melee rooted rogues. I can currently hit ~ and swap everything to my maces and continue beating on him by just spamming "2" over and over again, rather than having to go off and find where I stuck SS. I like to swap to daggers in raids for when I pop Adrenaline Rush, and then swap back to maces for general beatings, as well.

For stuff like Vael, no problem, I can switch before. However, it's not hard to re-arrange buttons manually if I have time to plan the weapon switch out of combat.

 

Phorac

Deets, I love the post, but with how much description you put about what you did for your UI as solutions for the problems you mentioned, it would probably be beneficial is you did post a screenshot of it.

Edit: Typo

 

Nataliah

One thing which I recently did with my UI was incorporate my player frame into my FuBar panel.


When I'm at full health, it looks simple enough - just a bluish FuBar panel with a custom texture. My group number, health, health percent, mana, and mana percent are shown in the lower left corner. It's simple to do with DUF - hide everything else but the bar and some text boxes (move the PvP symbol wherever you like, etc).

However, when I take damage, the bar shortens.



Here's a quick look at the overall UI.


I'm not sure how many people can get away with using this, though. ^_^ There's no mana bar, but I rather look at numbers and percents instead when it comes to mana.

The idea obviously comes from the UIs with the experience bar as the background for FuBar/Titan. Considering I don't need to see my player frame for most of the game, nearly getting rid of it makes the overall look a little cleaner.

 

McInaction

Wonderful post deets.. I think I might have to redo my UI based around those ideas now ><.


Edit: Nataliah that's a really neat idea.