GRIDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. I use it for my group frames, and it's awesome
Yes, Grid is the awesomest thing ever.
But every time I post a screenshot I get half a dozen people "OMG YOU'RE UNITS FRAMES R UGLY GET AG_UNETFRAMEZ NUB" and it fucking drives me nuts, because ag doesn't do what I want it to.
This is how my interface looked pre-2.0, when I was still using CTRA:
My target and ToT frames were done with DuF (so was my party frame, it's the leftmost list of characters, the screenshot was taken before you could turn off party frames) and it was exactly how I wanted everything. All the information I needed exactly where I wanted it and nothing else.
What do you want for your frame layouts? I personally haven't created a layout for ag or perl but I am fairly sure someone here can write it for you. I may look into how but I love the default ag style especially on my healers. I have made a few layout changes to it but overall it is the default.
yeah I got rid of necrosis because it was buggy as fuck after 2.0
I've noticed that Necrosis was *incredibly* buggy with me, too. The elemental and enslave icons pop up even when I uncheck the boxes that tell them to do so, I can't enable buttons if I disable them, getting a soul shard when you've met the quota destroys 2 shards instead of one... I like the mod but it's really just not working right at all right now. Does anyone have a version of it that is bug free?
Is it really that hard to use your bar mod of choice to make a small set of buttons for these things? I have never even tried Necrosis because I just don't get the point. It does things I would turn off or have other mods for already, like auto-deleting shards or DoT timers, and it arranges buttons, which I can do myself. What's the appeal?
Also, Perl Unit Frames are awesome and seem to garner less complaints than agunitframes.
In the grand scheme of things, I think AG occupies a middle ground between DUF and Perl. Perl's fucking hideous and bloated and not very customizable, but very functional and works right out of the box.
DUF is ugly as sin out of the box, but it's incredibly flexible, and can be tweaked graphically because of the placeholder graphics it shows when you've got the menu open. But for unit frames, they're an enormous resource hog.
Then you've got AG - more flexible than Perl, not quite as much as DUF. Pretty good to start with, but nowhere near to the degree Perl is.
AG could really use more in-game graphical adjustments like DUF.
I will say, though, I've used X-Perl, I've used DUF, I've used Perl Classic, I've used Otravi... AG's my favorite, but it's probably the worst of them all if you don't spend a few minutes setting it up how you want it.
Meh, I like bigger unit frames. That's one place where I'm not a minimalist. I like big ol 3D pictures along with a buncha numbers and big ol debuff/buffs. And also there's a lot to be said about not having so many customizable options that you feel overwhelmed and have to spend an hour tweaking.
DUF was good but I'm not touching Discord again until it's officially redone, and from all I've heard it's been pretty much abandoned. Back in its glory days, though, Discord stuff was teh awesome.
I have perl, not liking it so far, it's just a wee bit too big. I'd totally pay like 20 bucks for DUB.
Somebody ported the Discord mods. Although I've heard they have some 2.0-related bugs. eg. they'll only show 16 debuffs, no focus frame, etc. That's what I've heard, anyway.
Meh, I like bigger unit frames. That's one place where I'm not a minimalist. I like big ol 3D pictures along with a buncha numbers and big ol debuff/buffs. And also there's a lot to be said about not having so many customizable options that you feel overwhelmed and have to spend an hour tweaking.
DUF was good but I'm not touching Discord again until it's officially redone, and from all I've heard it's been pretty much abandoned. Back in its glory days, though, Discord stuff was teh awesome.
While I was using DUF my frames were remarkably similar to what ag_UF looks like, so I didn't really miss out at all. I miss DAB, though . I just can't get comfortable with any of the new/popular bar mods.
So, since unit frames are the topic of the day, can someone suggest some for me?
I'm currently using CT Mod to add values to the Health and Mana bars, with percentages beside the bars, and to add a ToT frame. I really do like the look of the default frames, and like the font that CT uses to add to them. But what drives me up the wall is that I don't have the ability to change my pet's information to match. It shows values for pet health and focus, but it shows up in this fugly font, and what I'd really like is to set the health to a percentage, since that's more meaningful to me when I'm grinding. Any suggestions?
martini on
I raised the wall. And I will be the one to knock it down.
So, since unit frames are the topic of the day, can someone suggest some for me?
I'm currently using CT Mod to add values to the Health and Mana bars, with percentages beside the bars, and to add a ToT frame. I really do like the look of the default frames, and like the font that CT uses to add to them. But what drives me up the wall is that I don't have the ability to change my pet's information to match. It shows values for pet health and focus, but it shows up in this fugly font, and what I'd really like is to set the health to a percentage, since that's more meaningful to me when I'm grinding. Any suggestions?
Well, AG can do what you want. Perl might, too. Not sure.
It's pretty much a question of what you want them to look like.
AG (default, they're pretty heavily customizable and come with a bunch of layouts)
While Perl usually does look nice, it can get cluttery with some classes (i.e. healers) and you have to have a big monitor or good eye sight willing to get damaged by the small text on the colored life/mana bars.
I'm kinda looking for a new simple UI to cover my party/raid bars as I'm still with CTmod and the default layout for the most part.
I've made a rogue alt. Now, under the default UI, when one presses the stealth button, the action bar at the bottom changes to whatever you have specified for use while stealthed. Can I do that with Bartender3? I saw an option that seemed like it would do that (I forget the exact name) as it had a sub-menu for stances, but no stances were listed with my rogue.
Any ideas?
Yes. Under each bar's settings, enabled button paging, then select the bar you want to change to under stealth, then set up that bar with your stealth configuration.
Thanks, I'm going to go test it out now.
I have bartender3, and these options under button paging aren't available.
Instead, all I have are options to assign bars to switch based on shift/alt/ctrl.
Where is the stealth/druid shapechange/etc. options located?
Maybe I have an out-of-date version of bartender3?
I'm using the PhotekUI6.6 compilation - so if it does turn out to be an out-of-date version of bartender3, do you think updating that piece will possibly bugger up the rest of my UI settings?
Does upgrading something like bartender keep your previous bartender settings? Or is it back to square one?
I'm using the PhotekUI6.6 compilation - so if it does turn out to be an out-of-date version of bartender3, do you think updating that piece will possibly bugger up the rest of my UI settings?
Does upgrading something like bartender keep your previous bartender settings? Or is it back to square one?
It's possible that it's out of date, yes. I don't know how good Photek is about keeping up.
That said, I know the functionality is there; I use it with my druid (caster/bear/cat/stealthed). Can't imagine why yours isn't showing up.
I'm using the PhotekUI6.6 compilation - so if it does turn out to be an out-of-date version of bartender3, do you think updating that piece will possibly bugger up the rest of my UI settings?
Does upgrading something like bartender keep your previous bartender settings? Or is it back to square one?
It's possible that it's out of date, yes. I don't know how good Photek is about keeping up.
That said, I know the functionality is there; I use it with my druid (caster/bear/cat/stealthed). Can't imagine why yours isn't showing up.
Yeah, all i have is stances as an option (and it's a blank dead end).
Otherwise paging to alt-crtl-shift is the only 'swappable' option in my bartender3 settings.
Can you give me a screenshot or a path (e.g. bartender3 -> bar1 -> button paging ->) to where your options live? That will confirm my out-of-dateness or not methinks.
EDIT:
Hmm, looked in my addons folder, and found the barstates.lua file for bartender3 - it's a lot of code jargon, but i do see entries for all sorts of states, like tree of life, shapeshifts, warrior stances, stealth, etc.
So it seems I mist have the correct version, but for some reason can't invoke it in-game.
While Perl usually does look nice, it can get cluttery with some classes (i.e. healers) and you have to have a big monitor or good eye sight willing to get damaged by the small text on the colored life/mana bars.
I'm kinda looking for a new simple UI to cover my party/raid bars as I'm still with CTmod and the default layout for the most part.
Well, my setup's pretty simple, and I'd be happy to share it if you want:
The party frames on the left are AG. The raid frames on the right are PerfectRaid.
Yeah, all i have is stances as an option (and it's a blank dead end).
Otherwise paging to alt-crtl-shift is the only 'swappable' option in my bartender3 settings.
Can you give me a screenshot or a path (e.g. bartender3 -> bar1 -> button paging ->) to where your options live? That will confirm my out-of-dateness or not methinks.
While Perl usually does look nice, it can get cluttery with some classes (i.e. healers) and you have to have a big monitor or good eye sight willing to get damaged by the small text on the colored life/mana bars.
I'm kinda looking for a new simple UI to cover my party/raid bars as I'm still with CTmod and the default layout for the most part.
Well, my setup's pretty simple, and I'd be happy to share it if you want:
The party frames on the left are AG. The raid frames on the right are PerfectRaid.
Yeah, all i have is stances as an option (and it's a blank dead end).
Otherwise paging to alt-crtl-shift is the only 'swappable' option in my bartender3 settings.
Can you give me a screenshot or a path (e.g. bartender3 -> bar1 -> button paging ->) to where your options live? That will confirm my out-of-dateness or not methinks.
It should be in the stances section.
Extremely nice, except for the lack of buttons (but that's just my playstyle I guess). Any chance of it being released, and if it isn't, what are you using to display your buffs? It sure beats the default Blizzard ones and ElkBuffBars.
Extremely nice, except for the lack of buttons (but that's just my playstyle I guess). Any chance of it being released, and if it isn't, what are you using to display your buffs? It sure beats the default Blizzard ones and ElkBuffBars.
Thanks.
The buff display is CT_buffmod; I turned off the background colors and timer display, increased the icon size, and put the duration display below the name.
As for buttons, it's got 40 total right now; 24 across the top, and 16 on the sides of the minimap (which I use for tracking and aspects). I'm using Bartender3, though, so it would be possible to add a shift/alt/ctrl modifier to switch bars; you could essentially double or triple the number of buttons. I hotkey most of my stuff, though.
As for a release, I wasn't planning on it any time real soon. I still have some work to do on the unit frames (party pets, fine-tuning the buff display), and have a few other things I want to add; clique, tweaks to MSBT to only show crits, sound and font replacements, and some way to show the autoshot timer in AGUF's cast bar, to name a few. The setup's pretty much exclusively for 1680x1050 @ 80% scale right now, too.
But, if you really want it (or part of it), PM me your email address. It's fully functional as a UI, but I haven't exactly packaged it up to make it easy for other people to install.
I've done a few small mods in the past, so I'm not completely ignorant, but I can't figure out the "proper" way to override a default feature of the game.
I've done a few small mods in the past, so I'm not completely ignorant, but I can't figure out the "proper" way to override a default feature of the game.
I wrote and use NicheFrames, which is just a set of intricate modifications to the default unit frames to provide more visible information. From the readme file:
Player:
- The default health and mana bar text overlays are always shown.
Pet:
- Health raw value overlay is added to the health bar (formatted "current / total").
- Mana raw value overlay is added to the mana bar (formatted "current / total").
- One row of four buffs (fifteen by fifteen pixels), immediately below the pet frame.
- One row of two debuffs (fifteen by fifteen pixels), immediately to the right of the pet frame.
Target:
- Health percentage overlay is added to the health bar.
- Mana raw value overlay is added to the mana bar (formatted "current / total").
- Buff and debuff icons are shrunken to a static fifteen by fifteen pixels.
- Three rows of seven buffs each.
- Two rows of seven debuffs each.
Target of target:
- In place of the default ToT frame, a small rectangular tab is attached to the top of the
target frame. In it, a health bar shows the health of the target's target, while a left-
aligned text shows the name and a right-aligned text shows the health percentage.
This frame can be moused over to see the unit tooltip for the target's target, and
clicked to target the target's target.
Party frames:
- Health and mana text overlays (formatted "current / total") are shown when the mouse
is over the respective bar.
- Debuffs are formatted into a two by two grid to the right side of each party frame.
- Three rows of seven buffs each appear below each party frame.
- The pet frame of each party frame is moved to be offset to the bottom left of the frame
instead of its default location, which would cover the buffs.
I'm often told that my code is generally clear and easy to understand, so if you want to get started on your own rendition of such an addon you can feel free to examine the files contained within NicheFrames.
What I really like about Xperl is for when I'm 5 manning, I can tell exactly who is doing what. The way I have it set up, I can see everyone's current target, and what spells they are casting. Makes it easy to tell who's doing there job, and who's being a complete idiot.
I'm often told that my code is generally clear and easy to understand, so if you want to get started on your own rendition of such an addon you can feel free to examine the files contained within NicheFrames.
I'll look at it, and I can certainly cut and paste code, but it still wouldn't really answer my question.
I can't find any documentation for how overriding base features works, or the best way to do so. Say I were to make my own unit frames from scratch.. what would I do to eliminate the Blizzard frames so I don't have two sets of frames on the screen?
I'm under the impression the game simply does the right thing and quietly supresses default unit frames when a mod makes new ones.. but I can't find this out for sure and it's driving me nuts.
AG didn't give me a buff timer but minimalist did (best part of it was that it added seconds to my elkbuffbar) I really need to spend a couple hours just on my UI but with such limited game time as it is I don't like to give it up.
Is there a buff timer included in AG UnitFrames? I need it sorely.
Not that I'm aware of. However, there are a few addons that'll do something similar. SorrenTimers is basically CDT2, but for the duration of spells you've cast. Then there's BuffMe, or what's in my opinion the best solution, Chronometer. All are at http://files.wowace.com.
Personally, I think buff timers are kind of a waste, though, for the most part. Just do what any shaman worth a damn from EverQuest did: buff yourself first.
Also, autono, or any other lock, take a look at Acolyte. Supposedly, it's an ACE2, less buggy version of Necrosis.
I'm often told that my code is generally clear and easy to understand, so if you want to get started on your own rendition of such an addon you can feel free to examine the files contained within NicheFrames.
I'll look at it, and I can certainly cut and paste code, but it still wouldn't really answer my question.
I can't find any documentation for how overriding base features works, or the best way to do so. Say I were to make my own unit frames from scratch.. what would I do to eliminate the Blizzard frames so I don't have two sets of frames on the screen?
I'm under the impression the game simply does the right thing and quietly supresses default unit frames when a mod makes new ones.. but I can't find this out for sure and it's driving me nuts.
Unit frames are nothing special. They're just a collection of StatusBar widgets packed into a Button widget. The UI does not recognize this particular combination as anything in particular, and as such it does not automatically hide the default frames if others are present. To hide those frames, you would have to find every function in which their :Show() method is called, and replace that function with one which blocks that call. Alternatively, you can hook each frame's :Show() method directly and replace it with a blank function, so that the UI cannot ever show the frame under any circumstance.
Saeris on
0
Iron WeaselDillon!You son of a bitch!Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
Just to confirm:
The mod that displays health and mana/rage/energy bars as coloured bars that bracket your character in the UI is MetaHUD, yes? I've been meaning to get those for a while because I think it looks sexy.
Iron Weasel on
Currently Playing:
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Unit frames are nothing special. They're just a collection of StatusBar widgets packed into a Button widget. The UI does not recognize this particular combination as anything in particular, and as such it does not automatically hide the default frames if others are present. To hide those frames, you would have to find every function in which their :Show() method is called, and replace that function with one which blocks that call. Alternatively, you can hook each frame's :Show() method directly and replace it with a blank function, so that the UI cannot ever show the frame under any circumstance.
I'm somewhat aware of the implications of hooking, but don't know why it's more common to just disable everything (after my previous post I opened up a bunch of mods to see what they did, and many go the disable route). Laziness?
My expectation would be that rewriting sections of Blizzard code I want to change and tweaking XML properties of their base frames would make for much a much cleaner and more efficient mod.
You can redefine the function that displays Blizzard's unit frames to instead display yours or you can make those functions do nothing and write yours completely separate? In the second case the calls to Blizzard's functions are still occurring but do nothing right? Laziness be damned that will use up more memory then it should the first action is the right course of action and should be used. I really wish there was an offline version of WoW I could use to test addons though it would suck to have to be logged in to do all my testing (it would be nice to test while using a laptop or without latency).
WulfDisciple of TzeentchThe Void... (New Jersey)Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
oooh, I just thought of something that would look kind of nice, Casting bars for your Player/Party/Target frames that wrapped around a 3D portrait section that was circular like the original Blizzard UI. Someone has probably done this already, haven't they?
You can redefine the function that displays Blizzard's unit frames to instead display yours or you can make those functions do nothing and write yours completely separate?
Yes, the first form is called "hooking". The second form doesn't really have a name.
In the second case the calls to Blizzard's functions are still occurring but do nothing right?
The way it works is the mod runs code to unregister Blizzard code for receiving events, which has the effect that they never produce output. But the code is still loaded and lurking around in memory, and is still probably getting executed. Nothing you can do about it in any case since you can't tell the client to not load the code.
Laziness be damned that will use up more memory then it should the first action is the right course of action and should be used.
Memory is probably the same in both cases.
The distinction between the two, it would seem, is code written. With hooking you can pick and choose what you change and leave the bulk of the official stuff alone. With the other method you can do whatever your imagination permits, but have to take care to implement all features of the code you are replacing.
I'm not sure which is better overall. Probably neither, though I do like the idea of hooking better.
Oh, I know what a HUD is - I whiled away many an hour of my youth on old PC space sims.
Arc or Meta it is. Thanks.
There's also IceHUD, which is what I use. It's another ACE2 addon.
IceHUD's the best of 'em, I think. I don't use a HUD anymore, but I tried out Arc, Ice, and Meta, and Ice was my favorite.
Why? Well, it's simple to configure, but very flexible all the same. Arc felt a bit too nailed down for me; couldn't change it much at all from the way it came.
None of 'em are bad, in my opinion, I just think IceHUD's the best.
Extremely nice, except for the lack of buttons (but that's just my playstyle I guess). Any chance of it being released, and if it isn't, what are you using to display your buffs? It sure beats the default Blizzard ones and ElkBuffBars.
Thanks.
The buff display is CT_buffmod; I turned off the background colors and timer display, increased the icon size, and put the duration display below the name.
As for buttons, it's got 40 total right now; 24 across the top, and 16 on the sides of the minimap (which I use for tracking and aspects). I'm using Bartender3, though, so it would be possible to add a shift/alt/ctrl modifier to switch bars; you could essentially double or triple the number of buttons. I hotkey most of my stuff, though.
As for a release, I wasn't planning on it any time real soon. I still have some work to do on the unit frames (party pets, fine-tuning the buff display), and have a few other things I want to add; clique, tweaks to MSBT to only show crits, sound and font replacements, and some way to show the autoshot timer in AGUF's cast bar, to name a few. The setup's pretty much exclusively for 1680x1050 @ 80% scale right now, too.
But, if you really want it (or part of it), PM me your email address. It's fully functional as a UI, but I haven't exactly packaged it up to make it easy for other people to install.
Take your time. I'm kinda busy working on a term paper now (hence the increased lurking on forums), so there's no hurry to revamp my UI. Besides, I run at 1280x1024, which means I'll have to do further tweaking.
Now that you mention it, the number of buttons is pretty decent, except for the fact that 16 of them are extremely tiny. But I guess that's just my playstyle in preferring big accessible buttons though. For the autoshoot part, try LittleTrouble (from files.wowace.com)
Posts
Yes, Grid is the awesomest thing ever.
But every time I post a screenshot I get half a dozen people "OMG YOU'RE UNITS FRAMES R UGLY GET AG_UNETFRAMEZ NUB" and it fucking drives me nuts, because ag doesn't do what I want it to.
This is how my interface looked pre-2.0, when I was still using CTRA:
http://xzzy.org/files/games/wow/wow/oldui.jpg
My target and ToT frames were done with DuF (so was my party frame, it's the leftmost list of characters, the screenshot was taken before you could turn off party frames) and it was exactly how I wanted everything. All the information I needed exactly where I wanted it and nothing else.
This is how it looks, as of Sunday night:
http://xzzy.org/files/games/wow/nightbanekill.jpg
Which is the best I can do with the available tools.
So, what is it that you want it to do that it doesn't? I'm genuinely curious.
And FWIW, I use PerfectRaid for raid frames; I use AGUF for my regular unit frames (see screenshot above).
Bing 60 Warrior
Wymond 40 Rogue
Is it really that hard to use your bar mod of choice to make a small set of buttons for these things? I have never even tried Necrosis because I just don't get the point. It does things I would turn off or have other mods for already, like auto-deleting shards or DoT timers, and it arranges buttons, which I can do myself. What's the appeal?
Also, Perl Unit Frames are awesome and seem to garner less complaints than agunitframes.
In the grand scheme of things, I think AG occupies a middle ground between DUF and Perl. Perl's fucking hideous and bloated and not very customizable, but very functional and works right out of the box.
DUF is ugly as sin out of the box, but it's incredibly flexible, and can be tweaked graphically because of the placeholder graphics it shows when you've got the menu open. But for unit frames, they're an enormous resource hog.
Then you've got AG - more flexible than Perl, not quite as much as DUF. Pretty good to start with, but nowhere near to the degree Perl is.
AG could really use more in-game graphical adjustments like DUF.
I will say, though, I've used X-Perl, I've used DUF, I've used Perl Classic, I've used Otravi... AG's my favorite, but it's probably the worst of them all if you don't spend a few minutes setting it up how you want it.
DUF was good but I'm not touching Discord again until it's officially redone, and from all I've heard it's been pretty much abandoned. Back in its glory days, though, Discord stuff was teh awesome.
Somebody ported the Discord mods. Although I've heard they have some 2.0-related bugs. eg. they'll only show 16 debuffs, no focus frame, etc. That's what I've heard, anyway.
While I was using DUF my frames were remarkably similar to what ag_UF looks like, so I didn't really miss out at all. I miss DAB, though
I'm currently using CT Mod to add values to the Health and Mana bars, with percentages beside the bars, and to add a ToT frame. I really do like the look of the default frames, and like the font that CT uses to add to them. But what drives me up the wall is that I don't have the ability to change my pet's information to match. It shows values for pet health and focus, but it shows up in this fugly font, and what I'd really like is to set the health to a percentage, since that's more meaningful to me when I'm grinding. Any suggestions?
It's pretty much a question of what you want them to look like.
AG (default, they're pretty heavily customizable and come with a bunch of layouts)
X-Perl
Perl Classic
I'm kinda looking for a new simple UI to cover my party/raid bars as I'm still with CTmod and the default layout for the most part.
I have bartender3, and these options under button paging aren't available.
Instead, all I have are options to assign bars to switch based on shift/alt/ctrl.
Where is the stealth/druid shapechange/etc. options located?
Maybe I have an out-of-date version of bartender3?
I'm using the PhotekUI6.6 compilation - so if it does turn out to be an out-of-date version of bartender3, do you think updating that piece will possibly bugger up the rest of my UI settings?
Does upgrading something like bartender keep your previous bartender settings? Or is it back to square one?
That said, I know the functionality is there; I use it with my druid (caster/bear/cat/stealthed). Can't imagine why yours isn't showing up.
This is the Perl classic in compact and "healer" mode.
Yeah, all i have is stances as an option (and it's a blank dead end).
Otherwise paging to alt-crtl-shift is the only 'swappable' option in my bartender3 settings.
Can you give me a screenshot or a path (e.g. bartender3 -> bar1 -> button paging ->) to where your options live? That will confirm my out-of-dateness or not methinks.
EDIT:
Hmm, looked in my addons folder, and found the barstates.lua file for bartender3 - it's a lot of code jargon, but i do see entries for all sorts of states, like tree of life, shapeshifts, warrior stances, stealth, etc.
So it seems I mist have the correct version, but for some reason can't invoke it in-game.
The party frames on the left are AG. The raid frames on the right are PerfectRaid.
It should be in the stances section.
I'd recommend backing up your UI folders (WTF/Addons), then update your bartender with the newest one listed on the ace site. See if that fixes it.
Extremely nice, except for the lack of buttons (but that's just my playstyle I guess). Any chance of it being released, and if it isn't, what are you using to display your buffs? It sure beats the default Blizzard ones and ElkBuffBars.
The buff display is CT_buffmod; I turned off the background colors and timer display, increased the icon size, and put the duration display below the name.
As for buttons, it's got 40 total right now; 24 across the top, and 16 on the sides of the minimap (which I use for tracking and aspects). I'm using Bartender3, though, so it would be possible to add a shift/alt/ctrl modifier to switch bars; you could essentially double or triple the number of buttons. I hotkey most of my stuff, though.
As for a release, I wasn't planning on it any time real soon. I still have some work to do on the unit frames (party pets, fine-tuning the buff display), and have a few other things I want to add; clique, tweaks to MSBT to only show crits, sound and font replacements, and some way to show the autoshot timer in AGUF's cast bar, to name a few. The setup's pretty much exclusively for 1680x1050 @ 80% scale right now, too.
But, if you really want it (or part of it), PM me your email address. It's fully functional as a UI, but I haven't exactly packaged it up to make it easy for other people to install.
I've done a few small mods in the past, so I'm not completely ignorant, but I can't figure out the "proper" way to override a default feature of the game.
I wrote and use NicheFrames, which is just a set of intricate modifications to the default unit frames to provide more visible information. From the readme file:
Player:
- The default health and mana bar text overlays are always shown.
Pet:
- Health raw value overlay is added to the health bar (formatted "current / total").
- Mana raw value overlay is added to the mana bar (formatted "current / total").
- One row of four buffs (fifteen by fifteen pixels), immediately below the pet frame.
- One row of two debuffs (fifteen by fifteen pixels), immediately to the right of the pet frame.
Target:
- Health percentage overlay is added to the health bar.
- Mana raw value overlay is added to the mana bar (formatted "current / total").
- Buff and debuff icons are shrunken to a static fifteen by fifteen pixels.
- Three rows of seven buffs each.
- Two rows of seven debuffs each.
Target of target:
- In place of the default ToT frame, a small rectangular tab is attached to the top of the
target frame. In it, a health bar shows the health of the target's target, while a left-
aligned text shows the name and a right-aligned text shows the health percentage.
This frame can be moused over to see the unit tooltip for the target's target, and
clicked to target the target's target.
Party frames:
- Health and mana text overlays (formatted "current / total") are shown when the mouse
is over the respective bar.
- Debuffs are formatted into a two by two grid to the right side of each party frame.
- Three rows of seven buffs each appear below each party frame.
- The pet frame of each party frame is moved to be offset to the bottom left of the frame
instead of its default location, which would cover the buffs.
I'm often told that my code is generally clear and easy to understand, so if you want to get started on your own rendition of such an addon you can feel free to examine the files contained within NicheFrames.
I'll look at it, and I can certainly cut and paste code, but it still wouldn't really answer my question.
I can't find any documentation for how overriding base features works, or the best way to do so. Say I were to make my own unit frames from scratch.. what would I do to eliminate the Blizzard frames so I don't have two sets of frames on the screen?
I'm under the impression the game simply does the right thing and quietly supresses default unit frames when a mod makes new ones.. but I can't find this out for sure and it's driving me nuts.
Bing 60 Warrior
Wymond 40 Rogue
Personally, I think buff timers are kind of a waste, though, for the most part. Just do what any shaman worth a damn from EverQuest did: buff yourself first.
Also, autono, or any other lock, take a look at Acolyte. Supposedly, it's an ACE2, less buggy version of Necrosis.
Bing 60 Warrior
Wymond 40 Rogue
Unit frames are nothing special. They're just a collection of StatusBar widgets packed into a Button widget. The UI does not recognize this particular combination as anything in particular, and as such it does not automatically hide the default frames if others are present. To hide those frames, you would have to find every function in which their :Show() method is called, and replace that function with one which blocks that call. Alternatively, you can hook each frame's :Show() method directly and replace it with a blank function, so that the UI cannot ever show the frame under any circumstance.
The mod that displays health and mana/rage/energy bars as coloured bars that bracket your character in the UI is MetaHUD, yes? I've been meaning to get those for a while because I think it looks sexy.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
HUD stands for Heads Up Display like what a pilot sees in his helmet while flying a F-35 over your head dropping bombs.
Bing 60 Warrior
Wymond 40 Rogue
Arc or Meta it is. Thanks.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
There's also IceHUD, which is what I use. It's another ACE2 addon.
Switch: SW-3515-0057-3813 FF XIV: Q'vehn Tia
I'm somewhat aware of the implications of hooking, but don't know why it's more common to just disable everything (after my previous post I opened up a bunch of mods to see what they did, and many go the disable route). Laziness?
My expectation would be that rewriting sections of Blizzard code I want to change and tweaking XML properties of their base frames would make for much a much cleaner and more efficient mod.
You can redefine the function that displays Blizzard's unit frames to instead display yours or you can make those functions do nothing and write yours completely separate? In the second case the calls to Blizzard's functions are still occurring but do nothing right? Laziness be damned that will use up more memory then it should the first action is the right course of action and should be used. I really wish there was an offline version of WoW I could use to test addons though it would suck to have to be logged in to do all my testing (it would be nice to test while using a laptop or without latency).
Bing 60 Warrior
Wymond 40 Rogue
Yes, the first form is called "hooking". The second form doesn't really have a name.
The way it works is the mod runs code to unregister Blizzard code for receiving events, which has the effect that they never produce output. But the code is still loaded and lurking around in memory, and is still probably getting executed. Nothing you can do about it in any case since you can't tell the client to not load the code.
Memory is probably the same in both cases.
The distinction between the two, it would seem, is code written. With hooking you can pick and choose what you change and leave the bulk of the official stuff alone. With the other method you can do whatever your imagination permits, but have to take care to implement all features of the code you are replacing.
I'm not sure which is better overall. Probably neither, though I do like the idea of hooking better.
Why? Well, it's simple to configure, but very flexible all the same. Arc felt a bit too nailed down for me; couldn't change it much at all from the way it came.
None of 'em are bad, in my opinion, I just think IceHUD's the best.
Take your time. I'm kinda busy working on a term paper now (hence the increased lurking on forums), so there's no hurry to revamp my UI. Besides, I run at 1280x1024, which means I'll have to do further tweaking.
Now that you mention it, the number of buttons is pretty decent, except for the fact that 16 of them are extremely tiny. But I guess that's just my playstyle in preferring big accessible buttons though. For the autoshoot part, try LittleTrouble (from files.wowace.com)
Anyhow, thanks for the offer