I love being feral, but last night as my guild killed bloodboil in BT i found myself straining to click as many threat buttons as I could to pull it off the tank. This is when I found that my UI sucked. Ive always been looking for a UI that i like but can never find one.

Some of the mods Im running right now are:
Cartogrpher (Love this mod)
Gatherer(Love this one to)
Omen
Autioneer (Going to be deleted soon causes to many problems)
Scrolling Combat Text (Love this one as well)
Scrolling Combat Text: Damage (Love this way better then the blizzard one)

I wish I could post what my UI looks like right now unfortunately Im at school. I will post a pic of my UI when I get home through. But if anyone can help me. Id like to keep the few addons I listed above. But Im looking for something that will make my life easier, not just with know how much threat I have, but also something with some cooldown timers. Im such a noob when it comes to building UI's. It will take me hours and It just wont feel right.

This is not the thread you're looking for.

UI Help Center

The raid frames has always been my biggest problem. Played since release so I've used quite a number of different raid frame mods. More recently I've been placing Grid middle bottom, my cast bar near that (I use /stopcasting macros), then my frame and target frame on either side. Cooldowns on top of my player frame. These are the ones I need to see in a glance, and it's been working pretty well for me.

It's similar to your old UI pic there, without the black bar (I ditched that a while back). Here's a pic: http://i15.tinypic.com/6p71374.jpg

The only thing I'm still mulling over is my frame and target frame. Without Grid and a target, my player frame is just kind of out there. I'm relatively happy currently with this set up however.

hi , in 2.3.2 i have problem with rolls for loot.I dont want xloot.And need move my deafult loot(roll) window to another position , but move anything didnt work coz he say its incompatible... some tips or help plz :?

Try bongos rollbar, it allows you to move / scale the roll windows.

HALP.

Ok, sorry for that lame intro, but I've been trying to sort this out by myself for ages now and I just can't seem to find a setup that works for what I need.

First of all, some background. I was Resto for a damn long time and I found it pretty easy to configure a good healing UI. A few months back however, I made the switch to Enhancement and thus needed a good working UI that was suited for melee. I came up with this:



I'm pretty content with how this worked out, albeit it has it's issues.

The problem that I am facing however is... During the week and normally the majority of my time I spend as Enhancement. During the weekend and on other occasions however I spec Resto for Arena. Now this is a problem, my UI is tweaked for melee DPS and thus I find it very hard to get a good layout that works for Arena. I need a lot more information about what's going on in PvP then I do in PvE.
I come here to ask around to you people what you have found to be vital information in a healers' UI for PvP. Moreso, I'd love to get some ideas how I can solve this whole melee <-> healing thing. How can I sort my UI to be optimal for both roles?

Illundai, I'd enable a pitbull party frame for arena so that you can keep an eye on your party members while in arena easier to see and heal then..and also what Erzy suggests is good. I assume you use Proximo to target or keep an eye on Arena opponents and have a focus window on your weakest arena members?

You could keep that or Grid where Omen is now..It is only enabled in Arena so it will not interfere with your raid UI

Perhaps get a party frame similar to what Halykon has in his UI in another thread..

To me, you have condensed the entire concept behind UI design into the simplest possible terms, and this is a marvelous thing. UI design truly IS about the way people interact with information. There is no one single best design. There is only what works for you right now, and what doesn't.

The 'best' UI is the one that provides the individual user with the most efficient amout of information that they need, while providing the easiest and most functional access to their tools. Some people use keybindings. To them, they don't need the access that button bars provide. Some people prefer a mix of keybindings and clicks. Some people exclusively click. It makes no difference HOW they play if the quality of play is what it needs to be.

I prefer a combination of keybindings and action bars. Having a visual display of what I use works very well for me. Most of the time I use the keyboard, but there are occasions that I use a combination of clicks and keys. Whatever you use, your UI should function intiuitively. It should be seamless and provide easy access to the critical information you need, whatever that may be and whatever form it may come in. I think we all agree on this.

Everything else is personal preference and aesthetics.

-Tug Brice

My UI is currently a major mess, mostly because I've changed out a bunch of addons.
One addon though, stands out above all the others in importance: Flexbar2.
The buttons' borders in Flexbar turn green if they are a buff to you and if the buff is active (EG SnD is up, the button is green. If it falls off, it goes back to grey.) They turn red if the ability on the button is a debuff and that debuff is on the target. It currently can't tell if it is your debuff, but it's still great for seeing if I need to re-apply my rupture/hemo/etc.
Unlike most crappy "action bar" addons, Flexbar is a button addon. There's no limit of 12 buttons per bar, there's no limit of 12 bars, there's no limit of 120 buttons. You make as many buttons as you want, arrange them however and wherever you want, scale them to whatever size you want, and set their keybindings almost however you want (; is a delimiter, haven't figured out how to bind it yet. I think I have to go code in an escape sequence to the keybind interface...)
Oh, and it's / command based. You can bind your buttons in groups, eg /fb bind button=11-20 binding=q;w;e;r;t;y;u;i;o;p
My main action bars look exactly like my keyboard. The buttons are bound to my keyboard. Some buttons are bound to Ctrl/Alt/Shift or combinations thereof. How? By holding that modifier and dragging the action onto the button. When the modifier is released, the unmodified button shows. When it gets pressed, the button shows what the modified action is. So almost all of my actions are immediately around my hands. My important actions are under my movement keys with a shift modifier (vanish, cheapshot, blade flurry, cloak of shadows).
Buttons can, of course, be hidden and still work. I use a mix of keybindings and clicks (binds for commonly used functions, bind+click for 2 functions in rapid succession that aren't normally near each other, clicks for other functions (eating food, opening tradeskill windows, etc) but Everything is bound.

The other 3 addons I feel the most useful are Pitbull, Grid (for party/raid frames) and ArcHud.

This post will be a brief rationale behind my recent layout changes; maybe some of you will find it beneficial when setting up your own UIs.

What I didn't like:
I found with the layout I'd been using since TBC release that I was having difficulty staying aware of what was going on around me, particularly in arenas when I'd have to backup heal on my shaman. I would look down at the party frames, and even though I could get a general idea what was happening on screen based on my peripheral vision, I would still feel somewhat disoriented when I would glance back up. I also noticed that the most frequent spot I look at aside from the center of the screen, is the left side of the Target unitframe. Given its location on the screen, I realized I was focused on a point that wasn't very optimal as far as paying attention to the game world was concerned.

How I fixed it:
I took a very 'no duh' approach to solving my little usability dilemmas: "What can I see when I'm looking at X?" Obviously I can see the entire screen in my peripheral vision, but the actual area I can focus on at any given time is much smaller (probably even smaller than I've illustrated). For the sake of comparison, I'll do a Before/After with my old layout, and my new one:

Old | New

When staring at the center of the screen, here's what I can see in both cases (click for full size):


Staring at the left edge of the target frame yields this:


And if I'm using Clique to heal the 2nd party member, this is what I can see while watching their bar:


After the change, I can see a lot more information while I'm paying attention to the game, and visa versa.
Less 'minimal'? Sure.
More functional? Definitely.




Some misc modifications:

-- Relocated my focus frame/casting bar beneath my own unitframe (see here) so I could monitor it without having to divert my attention away from anything else.

-- Larger player casting bar to compensate for it being detached from the player frame; still visible while looking at the character.

-- Audio cues added to notify me when I've been Kicked or Pummeled so I know if someone fell for a fake cast.

-- Totem bar unhidden to allow quicker access to unbound totems, or to swap the totems around into bound slots depending on the situation (holding alt changes the page).

-- Map left near the center/bottom of the screen; I can't watch the map and avoid running into things if it's in a corner.

-- Opacity of out of range frames reduced further to make the distinction more obvious.

Just an observation to begin: given your explanation, I don't understand why you positioned your casting bar the way that you did. It seems like you would want it higher up (perhaps above the party frames) so that you really wouldn't have to look anywhere else.

[begin rant proper]

I think that, in discussing interfacing in general, a distinction needs to be made between functionality and accessibility. The functionality of something questions whether or not it can function for its intended purpose. You don't make your UI more functional, because the UI functions in precisely the same way it did before. You've made your UI more accessable to your particular playstyle.

Now, why do I think that's an important distinction? Obviously people who are reading this thread are ready to min/max the hell out of their interface. Accessability is something a lot of folks don't really think about until after they've set up their interfaces. When I started making my side-oriented interface, I started with the assumption that it was going to be accessable to how I play.

I've realized that my height relative to my monitor situates my eyes at directly the vertical center of the screen. So, it makes the most sense for me to put my esesntial UI elements on the sides of the screen rather than spreading them out across the bottom. Since I've elemenated a lot of what you have on your interface, it gave me a lot more freedom to set it up how I wanted.

I'm not particularly thrilled with the way my UI ended up. But I had to consider that while leveling I needed access to my minimap (for mining), and that my unit frames were probably not that important. I think my 70 UI is going to mirror a lot of what Halkyon has done...but obviously better looking and more fabulous (this is, of course, after I steal his textures).

Hal,

I wasn't a fan of the latest layout until your explanation. Now you said you are using it with arena's in mind. I am assuming you are running proximo or something similar. My assumption would be that you are keeping that around your targets debuffs?

How does the loss of screen space around the center middle in your current layout effect the usability? Do you end up with several dead spots, when doing things like the bombing run daily's?

Yep, that's exactly where proximo is (for the time being at least). The unitframes do get in the way slightly during menial tasks like bombing runs, but then again, where they were previously wasn't much better for that sort of thing either. It's a small price to pay for pvping "mo' bettah".

Hal, what totem timer are you using? Is that Numen?

Too true - the distinction really is semantic, because the end of 'functionality' and 'accessibility' is 'functionality as such.' Which leads me to another question - do you click, and if so how much/what?

Edit: I was looking through my screnshots to link something on the general forums, and found a UI which I actually REALLY like (maybe more than my current UI). Obviously this UI is geared towards PVE healing, and not arena or PvP at all. If I ever find myself in a position where I'm healing PvE again, I'll probably return to it:
http://omgphatloots.org/UI/Saeto2.jpg

I really like how centralized everything is, and how peripheral concerns are moved...well...into the periphery. The placement, size and color of YATA is such that I can still get it when a totem has run out and needs to be replaced. Obviously if I was doing something more PVE-y I'd want to centralize that to keep tabs on something like Grounding.

I don't click at all if I can avoid it. I have some lesser used totems/abilities on the bars just for the rare situation when it can carry the day. The primary reason I have buttons visible/grouped together is for the sake of checking range and watching cooldowns. It's personal preference more than anything, I just prefer looking at buttons to see if they're on cooldown rather than use timer bars.

I've never played a dedicated healer before, but I think I'd do almost precisely what you did in that screenshot if I were going to be playing whack-a-mole in a raid!

Gotwood with a different border.

Hal:

What font, unit frame, and bar texture is that?

As to the UF, if that is indeed pitbull, I'd like to know how you got the black pixel borders.

Quaunaut:
That is, indeed, pitbull. Hal's using one of his custom textures there. He's mentioned the font before but I can't recall which one it is.

If you want to do the pitbull border thing, check out http://tdmog.uttx.net/index.php?seit...=6&topicid=868 near the bottom. Zork goes over how to get the Tooltip border on pitbull.That, or you could use eepanels. I think the tooltip thing would be easier, though.

I'm a bigger fan of a central location for info. However, the idea of stacking space intrigues me. I use MiniChat to keep my chatbox down to one line unless /g, /p, /ra, /r, or /s go active, in which case it auto-expands to fit the speech. On top of this chat panel, my actionbars are auto-hidden and reappear when I press a keybinding (the semicolon key).

My castbar sits above this with a target cast bar above that (both are shrunk down considerably). My SLTimex sits to the right of my chatframe and my Minimap is keybound to hide on top of SLT. I need to have SLT up to watch time quite often, so this is not a very debatable piece of information, though I am thinking of returning these two pieces of info to the lower-right of my screen and out of the way.

My UF displays a health bar with absolute numbers for health on the left and absolute mana on the right. No level, class, name, Guild, or anything else except a combat indicator and a PvP indicator on my frame. TinyTip is set to anchor at the cursor so there is no "set" spot for the cursor. My target UF is above my UF with the health text colored to indicate class. The name colors by reaction and PvP and combat flags go up on the sides.

Target of Target goes just above Target, but it is much smaller, shows just a 5-character name limitation, health percentage, and 6 debuffs. Nothing else. Focus goes to the left of that. Since the only pet class I play is a Warlock, iI can safely strip my pet UF of a lot of info, so it goes left and below my player frame. However, it's text only, so it shows a name with health and mana percent. That's all. I'm not at all concerned about buffs/debuffs on the pet until I target him.

The pet actionbar sits underneath my chat log and auto-hides until mouseover.

My biggest problem has always been buffs. I used to use Elkano's BuffBars, but I found that I know what the icons are so there was no need for a bar with the name. At that point, you're dealing with just the icon and a duration text, in which case you might as well just re-use the Blizzard buff/debuff system and resize/reposition to your content. I like the way Pitbull puts the pseudo-clock effect on the icons, though, so I am using that. At the moment, buffs appear on the left side of a frame and debuffs on the right side.

I am also vehemently against FuBar. I do not need to know how much bag space I have free, my XP to level, my money on me, etc. at all times. I can open my bags and check cash and space. I can mouseover my player frame and get XP (<3 Pitbull). SLTimex is my clock. Honor and whatnot is in my player Honor tab (press H, read a number, press H/Esc).

Turn off your bag bar, menu bar, zoom buttons on your minimap, location bar on your minimap (you KNOW you're in Shattrath, you don't need a bar telling you that), day/night indicator (7:48 PM? Night. Next.), every minimap icon around the border except for mail and a BG/Arena queue indicator. Turn off party frames in a raid and use Grid to highlight your party.

SCT and SCTD are kind of weird for me. I typically place beneficial spells and messages on the left (heals, regens, etc.) and damage/debuffs received on the left. Damage to the mob is in the very upper middle. Buff messages appear briefly right on my character's feet.

I'm having a really hard time deciding what debuffs I feel I need to see on a mob. Awhile back I decided that I didn't need to see *any* at all and so I turned them all off and just had Quartz timer bars for my personal debuffs (stormstrike and flameshock being about it). Now that we can see all buffs on mobs and players though I've turned those back on. Debuffs however, I'm still undecided on what I need to see. As an Enhancement Shaman I don't really care about a fireball DoT or a Rend or 90% of the debuffs on a mob, but other than Sunder/Taunt what else do I need to see for PvE? Which debuffs should I want to see for battleground PvP (I don't really arena much)?

For reference I'm probably going with a layout like the one attached below. Current layout is very similar except for the placement of party/focus/target of target/casting frames. SS/SR/BL = Stormstrike, Shamanistic Rage, Bloodlust, the three cooldowns I need to monitor. The black areas are the resized rendered area from Aperture.

If you're not in a leadership or yelling at people position there really isn't much one would need to see in general for PvE that doesn't relate to their own task.

For PvP: the breakable hard-CCs (Hibernate, Poly, Freezing Trap, Blind, Sap, Gouge, Repentance, Chastise, and Seduce), Cyclone/Banish, snares (maybe, Earthbind Totem definitely), and Forbearance (maybe, but rare enough that I'd white-list it). One could argue for Curse of Tongues/Mind-Numbing Poison since Shamans can interrupt casts but that's kind of superfluous if used with a cast-bar on the target frame.