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[WoW] UI stands for "User Interface," not "u idiot"

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Posts

  • Venkman90Venkman90 Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Echo wrote: »
    Venkman90 wrote: »
    That is fantastic! Is there an upload? Failing that how would one make it?

    Here you go. Not my compilation.

    I doff my cap good sir

    Venkman90 on
  • JustinSane07JustinSane07 Really, stupid? Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
    edited June 2009
    Okay, I need your folks help with a UI.

    I use X-Perl. I hate Pitbull.

    I'm bored of what my UI looks like.

    I'm looking for a way of spicing it up with one simple rule. I do not want to modify the buttons. I like the Blizzard button set up and how it all works. I'm really just looking more for a change of pace in the character frames, buffs and minimap kind of stuff.

    JustinSane07 on
  • SaerisSaeris Borb Enthusiast flapflapflapflapRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    OK, a possibly stupid question (I apologize in advance):

    A guildie of mine was tanking for us and he had a macro/script/addon that set raid markings for him pretty quickly. I have found a script:

    /script SetRaidTarget("mouseover", #);

    # of course being the corresponding number for the raid mark. However this obviously only sets up a single amrking and does not let me mark multiple mobs consecutively with different marks. I am only just starting my tanking career and also just got a friend of mine playing so the marks are very helpful but it is very tedious doing it manually.

    Is there an addon or a different way of writing the script that would help make the process a little faster? I realize I could make 5-8 macros one for each symbol but I'd like to conserve both actionbar space and macro slots and condense it into one so I can click + mark mob #1 then click + mark mob #2 etc etc. Is this even possible or can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance!

    This is doable in a macro. I think it'd be rather elegant too.

    /run local f=SetSeqRaidTar if not f then local n,t=0,{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} f=function(u)if UnitExists(u)then local i if not GetRaidTargetIndex(u)then n=n+1 if n>#t then n=1 end i=t[n]end SetRaidTarget(u,i)else n=0 end end SetSeqRaidTar=f end f("mouseover")

    Here's what this does. Each time you press the macro, it sets a raid target on the current mouseover unit. The raid target it uses is based on the sequence you see there, {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}. It starts at the first number listed and advances by one position for each mark used. It'll loop around if it runs out of marks. If you use the macro while you have no mouseover target, it will explictly reset to the first number. If you use the macro on a unit which already has a marking, it'll remove the marking. Now here's the nice part: you don't have to use this particular order, and you don't have to include all 8 marks in the order. You can use any sequence you want. For example, {8,6,2,1}.

    Now, the caveat here is that you cannot go out of order. You must always mark the mobs in the same order. There are two other solutions which I can write if you're interested: one is a one-time script that you'd run to allow you to just right-click the mobs to bring up a dropdown menu to select the mark, and the other is where you can press the macro while mousing over the mobs to bring up the same menu. These are perhaps slower for rapid marking, but simpler to use since you needn't remember and strictly adhere to the order you define.

    edit: Actually, now that I think about it, those aren't possible. You'd have to target the mob, not just mouseover them, in order to use a dropdown menu. Still doable in a macro, but trickier.

    Saeris on
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  • khainkhain Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    You can also bind the marks through Blizzard's default interface so you don't have to deal with macros or buttons on action bars.

    khain on
  • OptyOpty Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Yeah, I just have mine bound to the keypad.

    Opty on
  • WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Thanks for the input everyone, I will try those out and see what's the most comfortable.

    WingedWeasel on
  • ArrathArrath Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Opty wrote: »
    Yeah, I just have mine bound to the keypad.

    Same here.

    Arrath on
  • rizriz Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Echo wrote: »
    Venkman90 wrote: »
    That is fantastic! Is there an upload? Failing that how would one make it?

    Here you go. Not my compilation.

    Man that really makes me want to redo my UI. I think that is a bit overcomplicated for me (though very nice looking) but the placement of some things makes me think about my layout and where I can improve things from the standard. I have this problem of needing symmetry, it drives me crazy when people have a chat pane on the bottom left but nothing to mirror it on the right, so I always have two chat frames even though the second is not really useful... It might be time for a WTF folder wipe though! Since I got my desktop working again, and my old UI back, I find myself wanting some of the changes I made when I had to start from scratch on my laptop a couple weeks ago.

    What do people like for unit frames that isn't Pitbull these days?

    riz on
  • Seattle ThreadSeattle Thread Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I just use UnderHood for player/target/pet/focus frames, Grid for everything else. I have Grid set up under the UH frames, so my eye never has to leave the center of the screen.

    Seattle Thread on
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  • SaerisSaeris Borb Enthusiast flapflapflapflapRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    As a curious aside, it occurred to me recently that most people watch the center of the screen and only register anything else with peripheral vision. I had previously thought the majority was the opposite: watching the outer UI elements and only using peripheral vision on the center. This is how I've always done it, and I think it's probably because I generally play healers and casters -- classes which don't need to pay as much attention to positioning and movement. Having UI elements obscuring the center, or near the center, of the screen would be unplayable for me.

    As for unit frames, though, the default UI's really aren't that bad with a few tweaks. Some party casting bars, something to show party buffs all the time, and something to let you drag the frames is all you really need to make them functionally comparable to most addon frames. Style, though, is a separate issue.

    Saeris on
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  • tehmarkentehmarken BrooklynRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    For me, I usually have a big L for my UI. Grid sits on the left side, my unitframe & target side in the center/bottom of the screen (about a quarter from the bottom of the screen) and my buttons are below that. Chat sits at the bottom left corner, and then warning pop in at the top/center of the screen. I've found it to be a good mix of centered/peripheral vision.

    Supposedly, when it comes to things that change, peripheral vision is the better way to notice them. For example, flashy things indicating somebody needs a heal or that you are getting close to pulling threat should be in your periphery vision. Stuff you want to have a constant, detailed focus should be in the center of your vision; for me that would be my target's health, debuffs, and casting bar.

    I don't pvp much so I haven't researched what kind of visual set up optimally uses your focus and periphery vision in that situation.

    I'll hafta post my UI sometime today and get some critic/comments from you guys; and maybe even provide some inspiration, who knows.

    tehmarken on
  • lifeincognitolifeincognito Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    H'okay Hivemind, I have a question. I have a done a Google search or two and it seems like there is no accurate way to measure distances in WoW. I am fine with that, but would that preclude me from creating an addon that maps out circles for the ranges of my totems once I place them? And of course do totems get assigned unique coordinates so that I could build the circles?

    In PvE this might be pretty trivial because 30 yards is quite large, but I think it would be nice to be able to see how far I can move before I am out of my Earthbind range or know I did a bum job putting them down during the start of a hectic boss fight. Plus I think it would just look damn cool to see colored circles all over the place.

    lifeincognito on
    losers weepers. jawas keepers.
  • SaerisSaeris Borb Enthusiast flapflapflapflapRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Circles? On the minimap, sure, that's doable, although it's very difficult (and somewhat expensive) to keep them shown and positioned correctly. As you've found, there is no way to measure distances uniformly; everything we have is based on static data from tests which compare character movement speed to the rate of change of the character's map coordinates. That's our only way to discern the scale of the map so that we can then use the map coordinates functions to calculate meaningful distance, in game yards. You can't query the coordinates of anything which doesn't appear on the map, though, so you'd have to store your own coordinates when you drop a totem.

    And addons can't even touch the game world, so you can't draw circles there. It would indeed look pretty cool to have those markers on the ground, though. Just a faint colored outline would be really nice.

    In PvE, your best bet is really just an addon which looks at the buffs of the raid to determine whether anyone is out of totem range, and tells you about it. Probably not worth the time to write, though; it's not that hard to just check the buffs yourself and then try to remember where you put the totems for each boss fight or what have you.

    Saeris on
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  • theDewMongertheDewMonger regular
    edited June 2009
    Saeris wrote: »
    Stuff

    I used to always look at my UI elements, almost never at my playing area. Watching cooldowns, health, etc. Now I have items that pop up near the center of my screen (like low health warnings, cooldown notifications, etc) and I almost never watch my UI anymore. I had a heck of a time getting used to an SV shot rotation because I was out of the habit of ever looking at my cooldowns anymore. As BM all I had to do was pop SS when it wore off.

    theDewMonger on
  • ArrathArrath Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Saeris wrote: »
    In PvE, your best bet is really just an addon which looks at the buffs of the raid to determine whether anyone is out of totem range, and tells you about it. Probably not worth the time to write, though; it's not that hard to just check the buffs yourself and then try to remember where you put the totems for each boss fight or what have you.

    X-perl has this built in, if you mouse over a buff icon it'll list who in your raid doesn't have it, sorted and colored by class. Useless to check Inner Fire, great for PW: Fort.

    As to the other things, I've been a healer my entire WoW life so I'm also trained to watch the sides more than the center of the screen. I usually had it covered in unit frames anyway.

    Arrath on
  • tehmarkentehmarken BrooklynRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Here's my UI, after I did some tweaking last night.

    UI_WoWScrnShot_061009_193534.jpg

    The left panel keeps track of loot, money, crafting/gathering, exp, honour, rep, rolls, etc.

    Bottom right panel has recount there, and while grouped omen takes up the other half.

    Very bottom right corner I have the menu and bags, hidden until moused over.

    On the left hand side Grid is above the loot window, growing upwards.

    The main 3 actions bars are there, the bottom bar changes with stances. The left vertical bar is set to my keyboards macro keys (i've got the microsoft gaming keyboard, it has a 6 button column on the left side with a toggle for 1-6 to 7-12). Generally the left column is soloing stuff, and the right column is for grouped stuff. The right vertical bar is mostly unbound, except for the bottom 4 buttons. I've got those set to buttons on my mouse.

    I'm using SBF for my buff layout up in the right, and debuffs show up above my unit frame in a similar layout.

    To the right of my target is the target's target, about 1/2 the width of the other unit frames, and is only a health bar.

    tehmarken on
  • ExistentialSoundandFuryExistentialSoundandFury Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    My current UI as a tank:
    WoWScrnShot_061009_201400.jpg

    When running on my lil' healer I usually pull the raid frames out of the bottom to the right side of my screen, because otherwise I have peripheral issues with situational crap.

    ExistentialSoundandFury on
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  • CuntyCunty Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I searched it but didn't see it mentioned
    A while back my friend advised WoWmatrix to me
    It's one of the best wow programs i've ever seen, it automatically searches all your addons and sees what needs updating, and with a click of a button updates them all
    not only that but you can even directly search it for any addon you're looking for and download it with again, one click

    really intuitive and easy to use


    I have an actual question though, for a while i used omega or megasomething UI which kept your health/mana to the right of your toon and your target/enemy to the left of your character, and then it stopped being updated for whatever reason, and I haven't found a UI mod that keeps things simple enough

    I like having personal/pet/target health and mana somewhat central so i don't have to look away from the action

    I like being able to see what people are casting, etc

    but much more than that isn't really necessary, and the casting thing isn't very necessary, I tried Xperl and completely hated it, i found it difficult to read, pet actions were awkward, and even targeted objects were awkward. I also hated the party unitframes, so xperl or anything like it is absolutely not for me

    does anyone have any advice on what I should go for? ease of use and comfort are my chief concerns

    -thanks

    edit: suppose it would help to mention my major toons are a hunter and a druid (currently balance, but usually resto)
    edit2: by left and right of my name I meant vertical, that's probably worth mentioning

    Cunty on
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  • tehmarkentehmarken BrooklynRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    pitbull is what i use and i recommend it because it is highly customizable, either towards super minimal or super informational. you can have as many or as few unitframes as you want, and fully customize size, color, text, opacity of everything.

    it will prolly take you a while to configure and get comfortable messing around with it, but i think it's very powerful in it's customization and with enough free time you can get what you want.

    tehmarken on
  • TheUnsane1TheUnsane1 PhiladelphiaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    It still confuses me that people find xperl visually pleasing. I almost vomit in my mouth a little when i see it. I don't doubt its a perfectly functional mod but man if it isn't ugly.

    TheUnsane1 on
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  • theDewMongertheDewMonger regular
    edited June 2009
    I think it can look fine if you adjust other UI elements to go with it.

    theDewMonger on
  • TheUnsane1TheUnsane1 PhiladelphiaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    It could be that I have ran pitbull pretty much since the first version of it came out. I like the more clean minimal look much better.

    TheUnsane1 on
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  • theDewMongertheDewMonger regular
    edited June 2009
    I use pitbull myself, but I understand a lot of people like to spend their time playing instead of fussing with UI elements. I am perfectly capable of admitting that probably 50% of my time in game is fussing with UI. Especially on new characters.

    theDewMonger on
  • tehmarkentehmarken BrooklynRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I usually spend one night a month to analyze and rehaul my UI. Sometimes it doesn't change much, sometimes it changes a lot. A lot of the time I'll move stuff around while waiting for battlegrounds or being on flight paths.

    tehmarken on
  • SenshiSenshi BALLING OUT OF CONTROL WavefrontRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    pitbull is sex

    Senshi on
  • tehmarkentehmarken BrooklynRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Is there a way to have an addon that will start a countdown/timer after everytime I make a killing blow? I'd like something for knowing how much time I have left to use Victory Rush.

    tehmarken on
  • theDewMongertheDewMonger regular
    edited June 2009
    I know PowerAuras has a timer function, I just don't know if you can hook it onto a killing blow.

    theDewMonger on
  • ExistentialSoundandFuryExistentialSoundandFury Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I tried pitbull, but ran out of patience when I realized that I didn't care about the crap it offered beyond X-Perl.

    Then again, I enjoy the aesthetics of X-perl, why bother tinkering with another addon that requires mountains of work, comparatively, when this one works really well out of box. With a good mix of user-friendly customizations.

    I had the same problem with Forte, yes people tell me its amazing, yes it has mountains of useful functionality. No, I will not be using it. I need about 1/10th of its capabilities and every last one of the features is a hassle to customize the way I want. Need to keep track of buffs? I use PowerAuras, Need to track debuffs? I just adjust X-Perl to show debuffs as gigantical. Etc. Etc.

    I prefer modular designs as opposed to one-stop spaghetti messes that take unforgivable amounts of time to customize and if they break due to patching, my entire UI is shot, not just a component.

    ExistentialSoundandFury on
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  • CuntyCunty Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    i had the opposite experience with xperl
    I found everything very difficult to read, found it absolutely hideous, and out of the boxon my hunter i found it barely manageable, go into a raid and the unit frames automatically popped in the middle of the screen everywhere, and i did my best to customize it but the frames were just completely insufficient between myself, my pet, and my target, absolutely horrendous

    not only that but i found the customization terrible

    to each his own i suppose
    (this was about 7 or 8 months ago)

    Cunty on
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  • ExistentialSoundandFuryExistentialSoundandFury Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Cunty wrote: »
    i had the opposite experience with xperl
    I found everything very difficult to read, found it absolutely hideous, and out of the boxon my hunter i found it barely manageable, go into a raid and the unit frames automatically popped in the middle of the screen everywhere, and i did my best to customize it but the frames were just completely insufficient between myself, my pet, and my target, absolutely horrendous

    not only that but i found the customization terrible

    to each his own i suppose
    (this was about 7 or 8 months ago)

    As posted below here is my current UI, using X-Perl. Rest assured unless I start editting it in the menu not one piece moves an inch during gameplay....
    WoWScrnShot_061009_201400.jpg

    This was taken on 6/10/09 and I've had this UI set up for about a month and a half, (and X-Perl itself for well before WotLK).

    To be honest, you haven't really explained anything, you say its -horrendous- with no qualification whatsoever? Non-functional? Unseeable? Unreadable? I look at my screen and I can't say that I see anything there that is confusing or hard to read...

    EDIT: Out-of-the-box: Hmmm... its been a while since I ran X-Perl without first copying my layout from an existing character. I suppose on customized its not great looking. But I can honestly say that this layout/config took me about 10 minutes, where as with Pitbull I spent somewhere in the region of 30 minutes before I said, "Fuck these menus and fuck this shit." I still hadn't gotten it the way I wanted.

    ExistentialSoundandFury on
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  • CuntyCunty Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    It might be better on other classes, but I hated it on my hunter, especially since I was a beastmaster, to make everything sufficiently large for me made everything take up an uncomfortable amount of space

    that and my screen is only 1280, yours is 1680 wide

    I admit the setup looks decent on yours, though

    I really like the chat on the left and the drops/etc on the right, though, how'd you do that?

    Cunty on
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  • Paradox ControlParadox Control Master MC Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    WoWScrnShot_061209_133723.jpg
    This is my current UI. The only other frames here that show up, that are not shown, are my party frames on the left hand side, and Omen is there some where. As a DK, I don't need to track the rest of the raid, so I don't bother showing anything except my group.

    Paradox Control on
    \
  • ExistentialSoundandFuryExistentialSoundandFury Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Cunty wrote: »
    It might be better on other classes, but I hated it on my hunter, especially since I was a beastmaster, to make everything sufficiently large for me made everything take up an uncomfortable amount of space

    that and my screen is only 1280, yours is 1680 wide

    I admit the setup looks decent on yours, though

    I really like the chat on the left and the drops/etc on the right, though, how'd you do that?

    For Pet setup that worked for me:
    Pet management was the trickiest part of my layout, unfortunately my SS above doesn't show how my pet is set up. When going dps I face this same issue with my ghoul here is my recommendation.

    I put the Ghoul to the left of my portrait (enabled buffs above) and put his target beneath his portrait (and disabled its buff display since I don't typically care what buffs/debuffs my pets target has)

    Also focus goes in the upper left of my screen, to the left of my Map.
    Getting the rest of the layout in place:
    SunnArt is a good addon for reserving real-estate on your screen (It automatically scales the rest of your view within that box.

    Hitsmode is the table on the right, its a full combat log, it actually interprets the built in log and returns it to that window in a format that is actually readable.

    Chatter is the chat mod that makes the windows more customizable, and I could just drag the hitsmode window over there, as well as apply very useful filters to the chat panels to funnel output to where its most useful.

    ExistentialSoundandFury on
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  • CuntyCunty Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    SunnArt is a good addon for reserving real-estate on your screen (It automatically scales the rest of your view within that box

    I mean a 1280 screen isn't small, but it's not big either, I can see this being hugely helpful on a screen as large as yours, but I don't plan on doing any squinting, know what I mean?

    really appreciate the information, though

    Cunty on
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  • Racist JokeRacist Joke Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Paradox, what mod is that for your runes? Looks nice.

    Racist Joke on
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  • tehmarkentehmarken BrooklynRegistered User regular
    edited June 2009
    tehmarken wrote: »
    Is there a way to have an addon that will start a countdown/timer after everytime I make a killing blow? I'd like something for knowing how much time I have left to use Victory Rush.

    Bumping this in hopes of other people reading it and increasing my chances of finding such an addon.

    tehmarken on
  • Paradox ControlParadox Control Master MC Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Paradox, what mod is that for your runes? Looks nice.

    Magic Rune, it is vary nice. Its got a lot of options too. I believe it has 3 ways to track runes, all of which you could turn on at once. You can customize the shit out of the bar timers too.

    Paradox Control on
    \
  • Racist JokeRacist Joke Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    Paradox, what mod is that for your runes? Looks nice.

    Magic Rune, it is vary nice. Its got a lot of options too. I believe it has 3 ways to track runes, all of which you could turn on at once. You can customize the shit out of the bar timers too.

    Thanks alot. I shall download tonight.

    Racist Joke on
    Steam
    Xbox Live: Kunohara
  • KainyKainy Pimpin' and righteous Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    I wish I could find something that gives me a bar to the side of my character, exactly like an icehud bar. It'd be divided into 6 sections, each representing one rune. When used the appropriate section empties and refills as the rune cooldown progresses. The bars would be colored by rune type, with whatever arbitrary color chosen for unholy. This would mesh way better with my UI than any rune tracker I've thus far found.

    I suppose at this point, though, I should just look into coding it my goddamn self if I'm going to ask for such specific things, and I'm too lazy to do it, especially since I'd want to just write it into like an icehud addon pack.

    Kainy on
    IcyLiquid wrote: »
    There's anti-fuckery code in there now :) Sorry :)
  • CuntyCunty Registered User regular
    edited June 2009
    So I was playing around with pitbull, and this is my interpretation of the "settings"...thing

    it's not that bad, you have player, and then you can customize bars concerning heights and settings and whatnot, and you can do this for player, pet, target, tot, focus, focus's target, etc
    however I don't really see anything that allows me to resize the bars themselves, for instance I can change the height of my health, but can't make it wider, and I can't resize the block that comprises my health, mana, castbar
    are players just unable to do that in pitbull or what? I mean so far I like what I see, but i think I must be missing something because it just doesn't seem customizable *enough* to me

    Cunty on
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This discussion has been closed.