Holy Power in UI, need feedback.
 

I've been messing around with different ways to display holy power, and I'm kind of stuck.

At first I used a simple number above the target (in the same way I display combo points), and it worked perfectly, except that combo points are only shown if you have a target and holy power is always shown. Without a target, the position of the number felt out of place, but it's the only place where it's really noticeable.

So I tried a bar display. A 1-pixel high bar, like my power bar, didn't quite work out because it wasn't very visible. So I changed it to 2 pixels, but it's still not perfect. Then I added some glow around my player frame (we love glow) to emphasize when I have 3 holy power, but still it just doesn't feel right. Here's some pics:





What should I do? Change the bar colour so it stands out more? Just stick to the number? Do something else?

Any feedback is appreciated. :D

I would suggest having it at the top of the playerbar or as a number to its left or right. Alternatively add it as a plan buff which always spawns at the first position (just find a holy icon) and add count to it.

I'm not sure what you mean, could you elaborate?

Btw, there's no room above the player frame, it's where party frames (dps/tank mode) + combat text goes.

Raise the hp/mana text enough to make room for the bar to be top. Or
As I said, create a buff icon below your unitframe like you have for debuffs for target. Or even to the left, right of your unitframe.

At the top or to the left of the player frame is too out of reach. To the right of the player frame is the cast bar icon. :p

I think I'll stick with the current setup and stress test it a little, if I don't like it I'll go back to the number.

Thanks for the feedback.

You are putting your own holy power indicator above your target?

Personally, as a pally, I'd rather have it where "my" stuff is, so it looks like it belongs to me, not to my enemy.

In addition, I could see mass confusion on screenshots:

"What's that one bar above the boss?"

"Holy power."

"Whoa. You have an addon that can track your enemy's Holy Power!? What's it called?"

That's not the target unit, that is his own. ;)

Actually it is the target, that's the problem I mentioned in my first post. It's the only place where I really notice it, but it seems like it 'belongs' to the target and just looks plain weird when no target is selected. :(

might look nice if you just use the orginal icons and put them just above your action bars - i do this with my rune bar and it looks quite nice to me.




OR you could make a giant bar that sits behind your action bars and glows when full..might need :cool: though!

I just moved the default indicator about.



Code:

I always thought that the way that Lyn had his shaman shields set up was rather nice. Water/lightning shown to the right of the player frame, earth shown to the left of the target. Having the charge number to the right of your player frame and moving the cast icon to the left would seem to look alright. I mean, you should know what you're casting so it doesn't really need to be more towards the middle of your screen (although I haven't seen what it looks like in action).
http://s.wowinterface.com/preview/pvw17962.jpg


Edit: Photoshoped this up real quick to see how it might look assuming that your player and target castbars are relatively similar.

I think there's a reason most combo point displays I see in screenshots are still just big yellow blobs. Cognitive Science pretty much states, that any number below 6 (1-5) is best displayed with a countable number of simple shapes. I intend to keep that theme with Holy Power and Soul Shards for me, just big colored balls somewhere I can see 'em.

If that's not fancy enough, 1-x icons do the trick, too, I guess :)

How about 3 square boxes on top of your player frame, like Phishr has done in one of his previous ui's?

http://www.wowuigallery.com/topic/phishrs-second-ui

I've gone with that idea, thanks. It actually looks rather nice. :)

I also prefer "countable number of simple shapes" for Holy power, soul shards and combo points display.

Oh yes, oUF tags make this so much easier to implement stuff like those new soul shards or holy power \o/.

http://u.snelhest.org/i/2010/09/18_1690.jpg

I'm using an override function rather than tags, and it handles both the glow and the number.



Minus the bar, because I took that out.

I've also used some code by nightcracker to make it 'pulsate'. :)

Everyone loves the pulsate code :D

Everytime i change this - PaladinPowerBar:SetPoint("CENTER", "UIParent", "CENTER", 0, -195); to PaladinPowerBar:SetPoint("CENTER", "UIParent", "CENTER",-63, -208);

It works, but whenever i go into battle / click a target or enter a BG it switches position back to 0, -195 , or somewhere else.
I relaized it only moves when i pull aggro, or anytype of combat.

ice hud
 

it has holy power bar you can move around in module settings works well for me