UI I'm working on since coming back to MoP

[Byakko]

Latest image of UI:



Updated list of (visual) addons used:

- WoW Icons - Crisp
- Bartender 4
- Masque - Diablo III
- dMinimap
- Stuf Unit Frames
- ShinyBuffs
- WeakAuras
- BasicChatMod
- Kong UIHider
- TipTac
- ChatLoot
- TinyDPS
- BagNon
- TidyPlates Threat Plates
- Cursor Castbar

The UI's aim: Something functional for WoW players with small resolution screens (mine is 1366x768). Reduce clutter, yet make things easily readable. Only tested with Monk class currently, and most definitely not ready/made for raid usage. Or healers as there's no proper buff/debuff filtration and indicators yet.

It's best used as a pure levelling UI.

It's currently a 'levelling' UI, so I haven't thought about placing raid UFs for example (prolly going with Grid for that anyway). So since I'm levelling my Monk primarily for a bit, and my resolution is pretty small and squished (1366x768), I need something to give me enough empty screen space and I keep a lot of my bindings on macros hidden on BindPad so the actionbars are probably going to be limited to the two rolls you see there. Since Monks have mostly short CD abilities, keeping most of the abilities on the bars feel cluttered so I'm limiting myself to the essentials on those two bars. Not shown: the WeakAura sets I'm still setting up for notifying about CDs and abilities. Stuf for my simple health and power bar in the middle. Energy bar is reverse fill. Stuf's Chi bar bugged out on me, but I think I'll set-up a WeakAura set to notify me about Chi anyway so that's probably how it's going to look for me. No values, I don't really need to worry about absolute numbers. Party windows shown. Not exactly as clean as I wanted. I'm new to using Stuf and I don't really have the time to properly design the skins I would like to have. So they're just messily cobbled together of what I want. They're functional though. I want them to hopefully match the clean look of ShinyBuffs on the right, because I really like the status bar for duration look on buffs instead of numbers on icons or buff bars. I don't actually have a target bar set-up. I'm using ThreatPlates and as I'm levelling/soloing on all my characters so far, I still do not need a proper target window. Once I'm doing heroics or raids or PvP again though, I have to figure out what style I want. dMinimap in the top right. If I had the screen space, I actually prefer the minimap in the center or even near eye level off to the side. But not going to happen with my laptop resolution so in the traditional top right it stays. ShinyBuffs for the buffs rows. I started really liking status bars on buffs since seeing a plugin for ElvUI (VisualAuraTimers), but couldn't find a standalone style like that till ShinyBuffs! TinyDPS bottom right because deeps. Also because of Monk's lack of long-casting abilities except Fist of Fury and later Crane Kick, I opted to use Cursor castbar, it feels it fits the class better too, and I don't need to portion out a full rectangular piece of screenspace for a castbar. I wish I knew how to skin it better, or how to have it use alternate icon art, like circle icons. Probably going to shrink it from this size, it's a little big. I still need help with the chatbox. I don't know what to do with it. It's essential, yet always feels either too small for me to see the text properly, and then too big to fit with the rest of the UI. I probably just need the perfect font for it. So yeah, any feedback would be appreciated. Hopefully discussing on other screen saving addons/methods I could use. Eventually I hope I can learn to use and have the time to set up a kgPanel set-up with clickable panels, which would solve my screenspace issue. For now I'm quite happy with how this is going so far. Addons used - Stuf - rChat - dMinimap - WeakAuras - ShinyBuffs - TinyDPS - BindPad - Bagnon - rQuestWatchFrameMover - TidyPlates Threat Plates

[Dawn]

An even smaller castbar is one that goes about 2pixel around (behind) the icon of the casted spell.

Like this


It would probably be easy to do that with a cursor castbar, too.

Just an idea.

I'd also remove the chat background, but that's personal preference, I guess. Looks nice so far, like the status bars. What about target, boss and raid frames?

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by Dawn What about target, boss and raid frames?

He explained why those aren’t there (and he doesn’t want them right now) in his post.

Originally Posted by Byakko Party windows ... Not exactly as clean as I wanted.

I’d suggest using the static 2D portraits instead of cropped 3D model portraits. 2D portraits look nicer (IMO) and are less distracting because they don't move (not sure if you can disable animation on 3D “portraits”). They also look more like icons, so they'd match better.

Originally Posted by Byakko If I had the screen space, I actually prefer the minimap in the center or even near eye level off to the side. But not going to happen with my laptop resolution so in the traditional top right it stays.

I play on a 27″ monitor at 1920×1080 resolution, and I’ve tried all kinds of locations for the minimap, and I just find that the top right works best. Maybe it’s just because I played with it there for so many years before trying other locations.

Originally Posted by Byakko I wish I knew how to skin it better, or how to have it use alternate icon art, like circle icons.

Masque has several skins that are circles, hexagons, or other non-rectangular shapes. Here are a few:

• Serenity
• Renaitre
• Gears
• Diablo III
• Trinity
• Demigod
• Abstract

Originally Posted by Byakko I still need help with the chatbox. .... too small for me to see the text properly, and then too big to fit with the rest of the UI.

Addons like Chicchai and MiniChat (both very outdated) could help with that, by minimizing the chat window until new messages arrive or your mouse over it. I'm not sure if either one still works, though.

[Dawn]

I know Phanx, but they are just used so much for PvP and PVE. So I figured some "pressure" might help.

Not going with a target frame at all might work, though. As long as the nameplates hold that information.

[Rammoth]

That UI looks fanstic! And not just a bits and pieces of it either, the whole thing looks good so far!

I know your resolution is small, but if and when you release it - I will be willing to help you get it set up for 1920x1080 and possible other screen sizes below that (since that's as large as my monitor size is).

I will be watching this thread.

[Byakko]

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments :d

@ Dawn: That style of castbar is cool, ultra minimalist! I'm going to go with the integrated cast bars for Threatplates I think, since it shrinks for some threat levels and it gets pretty small even as a full length bar.

@ Phanx: Those chat addons look like exactly what I wanted, but both look too outdated to work anymore :S None of the popular chat addons have a 'minimize' on idle feature?

This seems close to what I want: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...hatButton.html

But it looks like it doesn't give much options to modify the chat box itself (remove scroll buttons, move the editbox etc.) Wonder if it can work with something like rChat hms. Will see when I try it out later.

Also about the portraits, Stuf's 2D portraits don't seem well-cropped, or since it's based on the Blizzard default portraits, they're all circle-cropped with some black residue around the edges. 3D can't be set to static, but I think they just look overall at a better angle and fills a square box better. Too bad can't pan or scale the portraits though.

And Cursor Castbars use the default original icons with no skinning applied, unfortunately. Tried setting to a circle skin while keeping a Caith on the actionbars, doesn't change the square base icon used on the castbar. Real shame, that square in the circle is going to get to me :S

One way is I could try seeing if it's possible to substitute spell icons with WeakAuras but I doubt it...

@Rammoth: Aw, thanks for the comment! This UI isn't quite ready for use yet, maybe for a while heh.

Minor update:

I got my party frames to look prettier and kinda match ShinyBuffs!



And darker colored border:



Another quirk of Stuf. Guessing because the Party frames are linked, how the bottom power bars are skinned by the border texture choice changes depending on which Party frame it is. So the top two frames look like how I want them, but the bottom two don't, with the power bar overlaying instead of being under. I don't know how to fix this, I got lucky fiddling with frame levels and opacity to get the top two looking just right, but can't get the bottom to follow :S

Also added borders around my health and power bar, and used a flatter texture so the colors don't get too darkened.

I have an idea about how to put in a pet and a target/boss frame, but prolly get to that later.

PS: Does anyone know why my screenshots don't get saved at full resolution when I printscreen with WoW?

PS2: Oh, it's imgur being weird and downsizing my images o.0