Got the UI itch again
Every so often I get the feeling my UI is way too cluttered and I need to do something about it, lest the seas rise and dogs and cats begin living together.
Right now, I would definitely say my UI is obscenely jampacked with way too much screen real estate taken up by various addons and widgets. It could stand to be pared down a bit.
I doodled a quick sketch of what I’d like to do:
My main goal in a new design would be to free up as much of the screen as I can. That means jamming everything in the bottom whatever-fraction of the screen, and having as little as humanly possible beyond that. I think realistically I can swing that, provided I make the buff icons at the top as small as possible.
Other big changes are making ability icons tiny, since I keybind them anyway, I don’t really need to see them all that much. I may end up hiding huge swaths of them. I’m also going to replace ClassTimers with Power Auras, since I used to former to track if I had my main self-buffs on and if Forbearance was up. I’ll just code the latter to concisely show if Forbeance is forbearing me, or if I’m missing Righteous Fury/Blessing of Sanctuary/et al. Going to also ditch Scrolling Battle Text because that’s just information overload that I don’t follow as is.
Lastly, I’m going to use kgPanels to make everything more organized looking.
Can’t wait to get cracking on this–I love a project. I’ll report back monday with the results.
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There is a noted lack of PallyPower in your proposed set up. Sad panda.
@Rhidach
2 April 2010 at 3:44 pm #
@Kael: I really hate PallyPower. It’s clunky and gross and considering we raid with at least four pallies I’m just about always on Sanc. I can get along without it. Didn’t use it in TBC when we had twice as many blessings, seems a shame to pick up now when we only have four, haha.
@Kestrel: Thanks for the tip and the warning about kgpanels! I’ve been using FuBar just about forever but I am definitely willing to shake it up a little. I’ll give Data Broker a try.
@Obeyfez: Thanks for the suggestion, I’m definitely going to pass this on to the Holy Pallies.
@LabRat: Skada does both? … I am intrigued. I will check that out, thanks! :)
I am using LUI v2.0 and loving it! Everything is pretty clear or can be tweaked a little to your personal likings.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info14130-LUI1680x1050.html#info
I notice you have KG Panels listed. I used to use that addon, but got SO frustrated with it. Instead, I replaced it with Sunn – Viewport Art. It’s much easier to set up than KG, does almost everything KG does (certainly everything I want it to do) and uses less memory. The problem I had with KG panels is that if I wanted to move something, sometimes it would let me, but often, it would screw with EVERY panel. Ugh.
Also, in the interest of conserving addon memory, have you considered Data Broker apps instead of FuBar? Almost everything you’d want to do with FuBar is now done at least as well, if not better, with Data Broker addons. For the one or two things that may not be done in LDB, you can get FuBar2Broker to enable compatibility.
And I must say, your sketch looks a LOT like my UI, except I have my minmap bottom-center, with Grid to the right and Dominos to the left. And since I have a 24″ monitor, I keep two chat window open: One on the far left, one just to the left of Recount (with Omen directly above Recount).
Good luck with the re-do!
Kestrel’s last blog ..Weekly Wrap-Up: April 2
Interesting you’re getting rid of MSBT. I too have thought it’s useless for a tank to have scrolling battle text, you may have inspired me to remove it as well.
I’ve never found a use for either ClassTimers or Power Auras. I have PallyPower to remind me about Blessings, Righteous Fury and Auras. Seals now last 30 mins, so I am just in the habit of refreshing my seal when I refresh blessings. And I have Elkanno’s Buff Bars for my debuffs like Forebearance; I keep my actual buffs as small as possible (but still readable), but I keep my debuffs like Forbearance fairly large in size so its easy to keep track.
Here is my favorite little addon, I use it mainly when I go Holy, but it is very useful as a tank: Paladin Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield Tracker http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/clcbpt.aspx
It shows a bar timer for Sacred Shield (and if you’re Holy, it will show timers for Beacon, the FoL hot and Judgments of the Pure) and within 3-5 seconds of Sacred Shield falling off, it puts a pretty big icon in the middle of your screen (and optional sound effect). The BEST part is that it shows you the timer of the Sacred Shield buff on every other Paladin in your raid. I am frequently reminding my fellow Paladin raiders to refresh Sacred Shield. (These reminders have become much less frequent since they have also installed this addon).
Skada. Set up right (and it’s not difficult to configure), it displays threat while in combat, DPS out. I suppose it could be nice to have DPS displayed on a boss you’re not sure you have the DPS to down or not, but I don’t really find that information all that useful while in combat- how fast the boss’s health bar is dropping is enough for me, parsing out who’s doing what and why is for the post-game analysis.
I’m not sure if it’s as useful in 25 man, but I use ZOMGBuffs for both the functions normally applied by Pally Power and the functions that a sacred shield tracker would do. It plays a gong sound when my SS falls off and tracks it in its own little frame underneath the main buff frame. It also remembers Righteous Fury, what seal I’ve been using, and which blessings I’ve been putting on what classes and in what settings. Best of all, in terms of screen real estate, its footprint is *tiny*.
LabRat’s last blog ..Pretty In Plate: Why Are Female Tanks Rare?
I’ve never looked at kgpanels, but I will vote for Sunn-Viewport. The art… whatever; the basic addon lets you use a color besides black. The point is that with most of your addons blocking out the bottom of your screen, you can use a viewport addon to change the viewable size of the environment. Basically, the bottom of your view stops at the top of your grid/map/chat/omen frames. Rather than restricting your view, however, it actually scales the width to match the change in aspect ratio. This results in a wider field of view than when you started.
I never spent the time to figure out ZOMGBuffs with PP being so straight forward, but it sounds interesting. PP can be shrunk to insignificance but remain useful for mid-combat buffing. PowerAuras is great for tracking important procs (Holy: Infusion of Light, Prot: Forebearance) or very important missing items (RF, Seal, Aura). I don’t run a timer mod because I track my Beacon, Shield, and HoT(s) with VuhDo while Holy or Prot.
I’ve tried many times to get rid of msbt…. I mean it is hard to follow, and it is just information overload. But I just don’t feel like I am doing anything without numbers flying all over my screen. I settled on making it smaller.
Pally power is very ugly and clunky. It’s a hassle to set it up and is really pretty annoying overall. However, I like having it because I’m always on top of buffs.
Your new UI concept is very similar to one I’m currently using.
http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/02-195852L/4686/jpg/04/2010/img5/glowfoto
I have to agree, Pally Power is an eyesore for sure. It would be nice if someone redesigned it so that it “folded away”or even faded away when not in use.
As for MSBT, I still use it, the trick I’ve used to save screen space is to
first: turn down the font size (and choose a less obnoxious font)
second: turn down the alpha of normal numbers to 30% ( I leave crits at 100%)
third: I drag it off to the sides of my screen so they don’t interfere with DBM..etc
Anyway, I look forward to seeing your project finished (I might just steal it if it’s good enough ;) )
I would suggest that some form of scrolling combat text is a must have.
Being able to evaluate incoming damage and healing real-time is critical to tanking. Turn the alpha down a little bit and you can still see everything “behind” the text. But not having critical information available in your eyeline, where you should be scanning for the fire, is a serious mistake, in my opinion.
For buff tracking, consider Utopia. I love that addon. It puts all buffs in a small box, with icons for each buff category. It greys them out if the raid doesn’t have them available. They’re coloured red if it’s available but not applied, and lit up normally if the buff is active. It’s very easy to check at a glance, simply by scanning for red/grey. Conveniently, it has a debuff frame, as well, for your target. Want to know if someone is slacking with sunders? Just glance for red icons.
Consider a mod like Skinner to change the viewport. If you’re putting everything at the bottom of the screen, your view “behind” you will be occluded. If you viewport that space away, you’ll actually have more viewable real estate.
I don’t, unfortunately, have a modern shot of my UI. It’s very similar in concept to what you’re doing, though.
@Razeal I actually like the idea of your UI is that something that was made up by you or is that a compliation that you found?
@Rhidach I actually found alot of good scripts for Power Aura that I run when im tanking if youd like them. I have one letting me know Divine Protection is avail, when I have forbarance as well as when Divine Plea is down. But I think power aura is a must have over class timers. As with pally power, I agree with only 4 Buffs and mostly now people want just kings since shamans override wisdom and warriors with shout… were really only doing kings so no real point in PP except for seal n RF
@Griims My UI is loosely based off a screenshot I saw, but I compiled the addons myself. Maybe I’ll look into how compilations work and try to upload one, or failing that I could simply make an addon list with some ghetto screenshot guide =P
I’m currently working on my UI too. Good luck with your project =)
@Rilgon
3 April 2010 at 1:10 pm #
“Remove: MSBT”
what, why o_O;
Rilgon Arcsinh’s last blog ..A Matter of Variance
@Rhidach
3 April 2010 at 3:13 pm #
Re: MSBT I reevaluated my issues with it and followed Meloree’s advice. I didn’t kill it off completely, just pared it down big time so I can see damage taken on one side and heals on the others, with smaller text and a huge alpha decrease. I don’t really care how much damage my attacks are doing (just making sure I’m ahead on Omen covers that for me) and the only real use as far as I can gather is seeing real-time damage spikes (although, at this point for most fights in normal ICC/elsewhere I have a good idea of when extra hurt is coming in) and if the heals spigot shuts off. Anyway, that’s my two cents on scrolling combat text.
I recently had the UI itch myself. I’m going to go against what everyone else has said, though; I used Sunn Art before and switched to kgPanels. kgPanels is head and shoulders above, to me. Sunn Art feels less polished to me, primarily because I leave my kgPanels partially transparent. Sunn’s nice for rescaling the UI, but the art loses its novelty over time and I find the solid colors unpallatable.
Another big screen-saver as a tank, for me at least, is to set Recount to show out of combat, and Omen in combat, then overlap them. You don’t need Recount in combat or Omen out, and they use half the screen real estate that way.
I pared down the number of bars I had two ways: use the addon OPie for things like auras, seals, food and blessings and take things off your bars entirely: you can just bind different circles to different keybindings for quick access. The other thing is to use Bartender4′s Fade Out option to have some bars only show up on mouseover. Saves a lot of room for bars you don’t need to be able to look at for cooldowns etc.