in progress

[ObbleYeah]

Trying to make the default UI as clean and usable as possible via subtle changes.


-

-

to do
∙ skin bars
∙ minimap
∙ clean/adjust raid frames a little
∙ ?

[Nimhfree]

I would suggest perhaps the following changes as well:


-- Move the objectives over to the right now that the action bars
-- are no longer there.
local f=WatchFrame
f:SetMovable(1)
f:SetUserPlaced(true)
f:SetPoint("TOPRIGHT", MinimapCluster, "BOTTOMRIGHT", 0, 0)

-- Hide griffons
MainMenuBarLeftEndCap:Hide()
MainMenuBarRightEndCap:Hide()

[Seerah]

The watch frame has two points set on it already. If you wish to move it, you really should call :ClearAllPoints() on it first so that it predictably goes where you wish it to. Upon doing that, you will also need to call :SetHeight() because its height is determined by those two anchor points it already had.

[ObbleYeah]

^ Thanks, i'll play around with that and report back.

Still need to clean up the shadows on the action buttons a little and remake the texture (it came out a little too close in resemblance to Neal's ones, when I was looking for sharper angled/diagonal corners) but got a few more things done this evening:



edit: will elements like PvP objectives (ie. the capture slider and flag carrier frames) and boss frames also be moved with the WatchFrame? Would make a life a whole lot easier if that were the case.

[ObbleYeah]

I think this is just about done.







- I messed around with having the WatchFrame right below the minimap but decided I preferred it slightly out and aligned vertically with the tooltip instead. I see now that it's still a couple of points out, best correct that.
- Gryphons are a vital part of the default UI! I made them and the mainbar a little neater by layering the bottom action buttons so the corners fit under the end caps.
- Sorted boss/arena/flag & orb carrier frames to appear neatly alongside the WatchFrame, with the latter easily collapsed should 4 or more of those unit frames be up.
- Capture slider will appear at the top tucked under the objective tally.
- new sharper button texture.

might still skin icons in the WatchFrame & chat etc. at some point. Look for a font maybe (I think I used to use Gentium back in the olden days?). Really nice and easy to play with without dismantling the soul of the original interface though.

[Phanx]

It seems very cluttered at the bottom. Do you really need that many action bars? Also, have you tried hiding the unnecessary stuff, like bag bars and micro menu buttons, and tightening up the space between buttons? They're a bit far apart at the moment.

I understand your reasoning for moving the chat frame and quest tracker so far inward, but it really eats up the screen space in the middle, where it's actually important. You could mitigate that somewhat by hiding the quest tracker in combat, I guess, but having the chat frame in the middle of the screen seems really distracting.

Finally, your raid frames are gigantic, especially for a DPS class... and this is coming from someone who usually complains about everything in everyone's UI being too small to read. :P

[ObbleYeah]

- Ran LFR again last night and definitely noticed the raid frames being distractingly large a couple of times. Might try editing it, though I imagine it'll be convoluted with all the options on offer in the default. Just downloaded Grid too!
- Chat is yours actually, and is set to hide after 30 seconds so it's more generally small or empty outside of city spam.

[ObbleYeah]

working from some of your criticisms:



Is it possible to make the MainMenuBarBackpackButton open all of my bags at once? Not sure how to go about writing that.

edit: as far as i can tell i need to hook

function BackpackButton_OnClick(self) if ( not PutItemInBackpack() ) then ToggleBackpack(); end BackpackButton_UpdateChecked(self); end

and replace the toggle with OpenAllBags() - not really done hook scripts before now though!

[Nimhfree]

Not to hijack the thread, but if you wanted to see how I handle the action bars that normally appear on the side and the quest tracker you can look at the images at:

http://www.mithrandir.com/WorldOfWar...get-focus.jpeg

and


http://www.mithrandir.com/WorldOfWar...eUI-party.jpeg

[ravagernl]

Originally Posted by Nimhfree Not to hijack the thread, but if you wanted to see how I handle the action bars that normally appear on the side and the quest tracker you can look at the images at: http://www.mithrandir.com/WorldOfWar...get-focus.jpeg and http://www.mithrandir.com/WorldOfWar...eUI-party.jpeg

Or you can just hide the right actionbars until you mouseover them, I find that I use them mainly for non combat stuff and stuff like far sight, beast lore etc.

[ObbleYeah]

Yeah I set it up like that, showing on mouseover:

[Phanx]

If you're still working on your action button borders, these Masque skins may be relevant, as they have textures similar to what it looks like you're going for:

http://www.wowace.com/addons/buttonfacade_daedui/
http://wow.curseforge.com/addons/buttonfacade-cleanui/
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...adeCainyx.html

[ObbleYeah]

^ thanks.

new raidframes:


does anyone know why my string for truncating names breaks when special characters are involved?

local function TruncateName(text) if text then return text:gsub("(%u%l%l%l)(.*)", "%1") end end

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by ObbleYeah does anyone know why my string for truncating names breaks when special characters are involved?

Yes. The Lua string functions are not UTF8-aware. To simplify your life, I'd suggest just using the UTF8 library, and then you can just do:

text:utf8sub(1,4)

to truncate to the first 4 characters.

[semlar]

There's a trick to limit the width of a font string without truncating the text which I think you would probably benefit from here.

local text = UIParent:CreateFontString(nil, nil, 'GameFontNormal')
text:SetPoint('CENTER')
text:SetWidth(50)
text:SetText('This is a long string')
-- These are the important lines
text:SetMaxLines(2)
text:SetNonSpaceWrap(true)
text:SetWordWrap(false)

As for why it works, I'm not entirely sure. It behaves like it's wrapping the extra text to a new line but none of it is visible.

[10leej]

Just a personal opinion but rather than stack multibarleft and multibarright on top of the bottom actionbars I'd just hide the gryphons and tuck those actionbars in each corner.

[ObbleYeah]

Originally Posted by semlar There's a trick to limit the width of a font string without truncating the text which I think you would probably benefit from here. local text = UIParent:CreateFontString(nil, nil, 'GameFontNormal') text:SetPoint('CENTER') text:SetWidth(50) text:SetText('This is a long string') -- These are the important lines text:SetMaxLines(2) text:SetNonSpaceWrap(true) text:SetWordWrap(false) As for why it works, I'm not entirely sure. It behaves like it's wrapping the extra text to a new line but none of it is visible.

Thanks, this is interesting - though as I thought it might, relying on SetWidth means fluctuations in the amount of characters shown (because an 'M' is wider than as 'I' etc.) and i'm not sure how I feel about that. Will install the UTF8 lib for now, as it'll be useful for unlocking access to more symbols for a mod of the SpellActivationOverlay i'm vaguely thinking about anyway.

Originally Posted by 10leej Just a personal opinion but rather than stack multibarleft and multibarright on top of the bottom actionbars I'd just hide the gryphons and tuck those actionbars in each corner.

I actually tried this first on the recommendation of a friend, using SetTexCoord to elongate the MainMenuBar textures, and found that it looked kinda weird. Plus I am rather (overly) attached to those gryphon caps.

[10leej]

Originally Posted by ObbleYeah I actually tried this first on the recommendation of a friend, using SetTexCoord to elongate the MainMenuBar textures, and found that it looked kinda weird. Plus I am rather (overly) attached to those gryphon caps.

Ah, no complaints there

[ObbleYeah]

Originally Posted by Phanx ...and then you can just do: text:utf8sub(1,4) to truncate to the first 4 characters.

this is working but also spitting out an error:

:96: attempt to call method 'utf8sub' (a nil value)

[ObbleYeah]

I'm an idiot, didn't add the lib as a dependency