Noraj

There has been relatively little mention of the OpenRDX (Raid Data Exchange) project here on the EJ forums, and I personally think that's somewhat of a shame. For a brief bit of background on what the package is, it was previously a subscription based usage all-in-one raid package with near limitless potential. After a while, however, the original author saw fit to give up the project and turn the code over to the open source modding community.

I would like for this thread to serve as a place to discuss and share the various desktops, bossmods, unit frames, and so forth that the community has come up with and to bolster interest in this powerful mod package.

As a start, here are the official links regarding the project as it currently stands:

• OpenRDX - Homepage
• OpenRDX Forums
• OpenRDX Sourceforge project page
• Main Page - The OpenRDX Project Wiki

Pre-Made Setups (Posted by Xenios)

• Brethren_RaidFrames
• AF_Raid

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

◊ Malan

I'm impressed, you already have more documentation available then Veni ever did.
I kind of miss my RDX healing grid, the Ace Grid just doesn't have the same effect.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Bogeywoman

I've looked through the wiki and the forums. I've heard a lot about RDX in the past, but I still haven't yet gotten a handle on exactly what it offers that other mods don't, besides (a) insane and frankly impenetrable on-the-fly customization and (b) raid castbars. Could someone familiar with the system give a short paragraph or two about what the concrete benefits of RDX are for those of us a little loath to spend a few weeks familiarizing ourselves with an arcane system of mods?

 

• Arawethion

For what it's worth, I still use RDX 6.3.1 on my characters (the last Veni-published version). It still works, and I have everything the way I like it after using it for so long, so there's no real reason to switch away from RDX. Probably what I would use now if I were healing.

I haven't looked into OpenRDX much, because it appeared while I was away from the game. I imagine if it's turning out well (and it sounds like it is), I'll just start using their updates.

Probably won't contribute much, as my involvement with WoW is a bit more relaxed these days, but I can least make sure all of my bossmods still work.

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

◊ Malan

Other than the absolutely crazy level of customization available (if you can dream it, you can build it), the biggest benefit was that people who knew what they were doing could fix other users UIs for them. Or design it all for them. It helped a lot of guilds overcome what they saw as weaknesses in standard UIs or as incompatibilities between their raider personalities and those UIs.

For example if you were forming a brand new guild with people who had never played WoW before and wanted those guys to dive right into raiding, you could build a totally custom UI for your healers, and send it to them in-game.

Or for a guild that desired standardization across the board, RDX can be used to eliminate stupid errors like people not having abilities keybound, things like that. Some guilds desired that every healer use the same raid healing setup, etc.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Noraj

It seems like the people handling the OpenRDX project's main goal is to keep Veni's work up to date and working as Blizz changes their UI and scripting rules. While features are being added, the community has to make a strong case for them before the maintenance crew will actually implement them.

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

◊ Anias

Truthfully, that's probably a good thing.

The biggest downfall of frameworks is feature bloat - once you reach the point where the userbase is using less than say 80% of the framework, you have to ask "why not use individual mods and save 20% bloats". The best way to avoid feature creep is to simply be unwilling to add features that are non-universal. If it's really a good idea, then getting the rest of the community on board won't be too hard. If it's just a neat idea, instead of a needful one, then it probably belongs outside the framework.

To answer the question regarding "what does RDX do":

RDX is a very good alternative (perhaps the only real alternative) to the Ace/Ace2/Rock family of frameworks. The benefit of RDX is that for slightly more advanced users (in terms of coding) you can remove a fair bit of your addon folder/management overhead, and it has a superior (imho) system for handling profiles/complete interfaces as a result. Desktops - RDX's version of the ace2 profile system - are much more widely used in my experience than the Ace2 equiv.

While it's entirely possible to create (for instance) caith or halcyon's UI using either the Ace2/Rock or RDX frameworks, it is much simpler to switch between the two of them in the RDX world. Of course, creating them initially is potentially less intuitive for a new user. (It depends on how well the initial distributor builds their package).

 

Noraj

From what I can tell, the initial RDX package is barebones with nothing extra whatsoever. The toolkit, with no premade birdhouses as it were.That's one of the downfalls for new users under this "new" version of the system.

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

◊ Malan

Right, downloading just RDX only gets you the framework. When Veni was working on it initially and there were dozens of guilds beta testing it, you could grab any number of pre-made setups and then just tweak them for your guild. I did that for my guild on Sargeras, it was my job to find new ways to utilize the RDX engine and then bring that into our guild package. It has a huge learning curve and a very lengthy setup time from scratch, but you can cut a lot of that down by using some pre packed windows and then adjusting them from there.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

lazerpewpew

"Feature bloat"??

Is this something that invented on internet? Because being a software engineer for 7 years, it is the first time I hear something that is against having more features.

Visit my blog @ http://ataxian.blogspot.com

 

Cormack

There's a reason a "minimalist" UI is so popular. Extraneous functions, doodads, and buttons are just as annoying in wow interfaces as they are in cars, consumer electronics, and all sorts of other stuff. You want your device to do just what you want, and not have features you don't use. It's one of the big reasons the Ipod is so successful in comparison to other feature filled mp3 players.

 

◊ Kalman

You're not a very good engineer, then. Features are only good if they're used, and bloat implies that a given feature is relatively unused - for a framework or library, a feature used by less than the majority of users of the framework probably doesn't belong.

http://mmorchive.net

The WoW forums, explained:

 

◊ Malan

So you are in favor of MS Office having a Flight Simulator built into it that can be activated with a certain key combination? You find that useful in your spreadsheet programs?

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Moogul

Someone once said famously (well, not famously enough that I can remember who said it), 'A project is only finished once there's nothing left to remove that can be removed'.

 

◊ Inkm

There's a fine line between 'feature bloat' and 'wide appeal' though.

What a man had to go through for a piece of ass in the modern age was highly ridiculous.

 

• Daboran

True enough, but just go download Nero Ultra version from Ahead Software to see "wide appeal" cross that line by around a few light years.

Back to RDX - yes, last time I used it was around the time everyone was hitting their heads against 4HM in Naxx. I'm definitely going to check out OpenRDX to see if it's worth another look.

 

◊ Malan

Its definitely evolved far beyond the 4H era. The filter sets were awesome if you really wanted to be able to see some totally customized data sets of people in the raid.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Barrakketh

How much of RDX's functionality is impaired if you were [one of] the only people using it?

 

Noraj

Not at all. The raid frames, targets, boss timers....all of that should work as you set it up without a single other person using it. You won't be able to handle things like ready checks, talent checks, reagent checks and so on, or trade setups with other people, but it can be your all-in-one raid mod as a solo user without any trouble beyond customizing it the way you see fit.

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

◊ Malan

The more people you have using it the better it is, but all of the data sorting options are available regardless of anyone else using it since its just checking against things available through the blizzard API anyways.

Things that are not available unless the other guys in the group are using RDX - checking inventories for specific items (potions etc), reading the talent composition of the player (although the RDX team can update this since Blizzard has made it available), grabbing the combat log of anyone in the raid for analysis (basically what Assessment or Recount do), viewing the Cooldowns on major abilties like shield wall/innervate.

If you're a healer and just want to use it to heal, or maybe just a dps class that really likes to know things about the raid, it can be used independently of anyone else having it.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

dinesh

I don't think predictive healing will work either, though I am not 100% on that.

 

xenios

This is correct, predictive healing only works with those who are also running rdx. ie. the total amount of healing being applied to someone, rather than only showing up on those who have rdx. It will always show up for your heals.

---

On a side note, if you where ever interested in trying out rdx but did not have the time / pacentce to set it up, now would be a great time to test it out. There are a few excellent full packages that require zero work to get started.

There are two major full packages (that i know of) that provided everything you would need for any situation.

* Brethren Raid Frames - "A complete package that combines popular styles with simple customizability so everyone will enjoy." (Ya, a shameless plug. But hey it got all the nonbelievers in my guild to switch over, as well as many others. Oh and very handy for those priests out their than feel it was a pain keeping tack of renews on many targets.)

* AF_Raid - Has a good collection of desktops and windows for all classes. Has a nice look to it, and alot of people use it.

And if you don't like these offerings, they offer an excellent base to start with if you wanted to go in your own direction. This has been your public RDX service announcement

 

sigg12