LightboundUI Concept discussion

[Lightbound]

Hey there!

Im currently working on a UI that fits my needs. I definitly can see a light at the end of the tunnel. This is what i got so far:


The basic idea:

I did search for tons of ui's out there and i found mostly such like these:

[*] Done with tons of animations in tons of colors to keep my eye focus everywhere instead of the important stuff. [*] Providing a lot of stuff by default and are really close to the common addon versions of its genre. For example .. "Raidframes" but the customization is just really awkward or not even possible through the ingame options. [*] Looking like it could fit but is totaly outdated / Project died.

So overall i wanted to create a UI that is based on common AddOns and easy to replace with any other AddOn.

I also wanted to keep it as "clean" as possible. There are 1 Alpha backgrounds so you cant look through them so maybe some people wont see this UI as clean because i guess that clean in the community of wow interface users is defined as "1px border with 1px outer border and 0.5 alpha background." For me clean is defined as:

[*] Nothing that catches my eye focus. [*] No hard to read stuff. Like chat backgrounds with ~0.3 Alpha and 7 Holypallys behind it to do tons of shiny stuff. After that you properly wont be able to read the chat. Not that this situation did ever happen to me but .. If it comes to that moment - I can still read my chat! [*] No unneeded stuff on the screen. (Show- / Hide- buttons)

After the shapes in my mind were created i had to decide how do i want to let my UI look like.

So i did check my "eye focus" in raids. I did noticed that there is something like a checklist.

Prefight: [*] Is every raidmember here? [*] did i got every raidbuff? Infight: [*] Does my Character stand in voidzones? [*] Focus between Raidframes and Focusframe to check which tank is tanking the boss and which debuffs / buffs are on my raid as well as on my cha to check for voids again Afterfight: [*] How was my Heal compared with other healers and how was the dps in general

That is it basicly for my healing chas. Overall this would be everything i need to work with.

So lets check. What does my current UI provide?

[*] Zonemap to provide a overview of where raidmembers are located. I personally prefer the zonemap over the minimap. Minimap is just there to enable it while leveling or something like this to see NPC [*] General broker informations to show stuff normally located int he minimap / micro menu area (e.g hover tooltips) [*] Raid Buff Reminder to check buffs i got. [*] Show / hide tabs for Micromenu / Minimap / Stance Bar / Food & Flask Tab to keep the Ui simple. [*] 2 Skada frames to track stuff and a chat frame [*] Backgrounds attaced to Playerframe, Focusframe, Targetframe and Raidframe to make it easyer to track them.

After that bunch of informations i hope you can understand what i want to do with the UI and how it should look at the end. Because now i need your help and ideas / inspiration !

I got basicly 3 Things to talk about.

[*] Player Procs By Player Procs i simply mean important procs of stuff. For example every class got some talents or skills that have a "chance on hit" or "chance on use" to do something more epic out of it. I would like to track them as a bar that drops by the time the proc is remaining. ClassTimer would be a addon to do so. [*] Debuffs on Target applied by Player. Properly the same as "Player Procs" but im for now not sure if i would like to do them as a bar or more in terms of a icon. They basicly apply over the targetframes so it would somehow be a double information thing. Definitly have to discuss about that. [*] Solution for "nice to know" buffs. Here i would like to do another Hide Show tab that allows to show somehow useless buffs you just want to see sometimes. Actually a skinned version of the default wow buff frame with a panel behind it would solve that.

Problems i see upcoming.

[*] Still no idea where to place the raidframe on other specs than heal (properly ahead of the skada thing [*] Not sure how to track Arena / Bossframes. Hopefully i can attach them on the right hand side near the RaidBuffReminder and attach a background on them if they apply. [*] Not sure about the performance yet. Will try to use as much memory space int he future as i can to keep the cpu usage low.

I really like the Idea of your UI!
Some thoughts:

- Skin the buff frames, it looks odd compared to the beautiful rest of the Interface
- Do you really need that big of a Map? It takes up a lot of space and you have a Minimap directly above, so I don't see the Point for it.
- The Raidframes look way to small in my Opinion. Make them bigger in terms of height, since you waste a lot of space with the DPS/Tank/Heal Icons

Otherwise a very well thought Interface. I like the Idea with collapsable buttons and I think it you could make it look better by just hiding the button, and only showing on mouse hover.

[Lightbound]

Hey Daniel,

The BuffFrame was skinned earlyer but since im thinking about how to manage that stuff i decided to keep it default. The ZoneMap actually is most likely the only thing that makes this UI somehow unique. Overall it is just a alpha version to get intouch with making UI's.

In general i will keep the ZoneMap as it is. Its for myself the perfect solution to prevent me from pressing the map key in raids or bgs to check where people are or trying to get a clue about where they are int he small minimap.

I just featured the Minimap for questiong. Its way easyer to see where you can get quests if you just see the (!) on the minimap .

The Raidframes got actually the same height as the Unitframes as well as the same font size, and position. I tryed it out in a Ordos raid and i was quite fine with it. The ready check icon appears left side to the role icon and i can track stuff like beacon of light. next to the overheal text. I properly have to check it out after i did setup my ui properly. This is just the designing stage.

- Hiding the buttons could definitly look better but it is just a option if i wont share the ui cause if its downloadable a lot of people wont notice the buttons untill they hovered it. Anyways first i have to check the license stuff and ask the authors of the addons im using and then i have to do some general modifications so ... i have no clue how this work will end up

Thanks for your feedback, really appreciate it!

[Duugu]

Is this a UI for raid leaders or for raid healers?

Why even bother with Skada as a healer? It isn't a success criterion who heals how much nor (even more) who did how much damage. It's also not you job as a raid healer to take care if everyone is in place.

As a raid healer I would like to get rid of the Skada frames and the world map frame as they just waste lots screen space.

I don't know what those unit left and right of the raid frame are (player and target?)... but I would prefere to have them close to each other ... instead of swapping my attention between two separete screen areas.

[Lightbound]

Thanks for the reply Duugu.

This is my UI for a raid healer. Anyways i take raiding in WoW as a team thing so i try to help other raid members as well if i notice that they do somethin in my opinion wrong. Overall you are right since like 80% of the raid members i play with just smash there buttons like they are supposed to after reading a 1 site guide there wont be a massive different between each raid member. Overall i could make the frame a bit smaller by simply kill 1 of the skada frames. So user have to toggle between them.

Over all i didnt even raid with the UI so the fine tweaking comes later. Just doing the ideas in my mind and than i have to check how i feel raiding with it.

The units are left. Untitled: Player, on top of it focus and right to it, focus target.

For myself the target frame is totaly non existing as a healer. Its nice to see how many life the boss has but since i focus the boss to see who is tanking i can see my life, boss life and tank life in that one frame.

I could imagine a secound version where its possible to open the skada frames and without the zone map. Just playing around with my ideas

[syncrow]

for the chat you can try ChatHider

improvements:
- same show/hide toggle mechanic as the most of your stuff
- free space whenever you don't need the chat
- no disturbance while hidden

maybe you have to change the .lua in order to preserve your chat (don't know which chataddon you use)

How did you do these collapsable Buttons by the way. Specific addon or did you do it yourself?

Would love to use that

[syncrow]

Originally Posted by Danielps1 How did you do these collapsable Buttons by the way. Specific addon or did you do it yourself? Would love to use that

I guess it's a frame with a simple background texture and another texture above for the arrows, which switches between up/down and left/right whenever you click the button.

[Lightbound]

Originally Posted by Danielps1 How did you do these collapsable Buttons by the way. Specific addon or did you do it yourself? Would love to use that

With the AddOn called KGPanels. Im using a lot of KGPanels and WeakAuras in my UI since i didnt even started learning lua itself. Can do some modifications but ye. First want a working Ui before i start to do it in a way it should be done

For more infos, just PN me since we speak the same main language that could make the communicaiton easyer

@syncrow what is the idea behind the chat hide? Couldnt check it out but since the background is currentl ynot attached to the frame im not sure if it would be that easy to get what i think you are talking about.

[Duugu]

Originally Posted by Lightbound This is my UI for a raid healer.

Thanks for clearifiying that.

Originally Posted by Lightbound Anyways i take raiding in WoW as a team thing so i try to help other raid members as well if i notice that they do somethin in my opinion wrong.

Yeah, that surely don't hurts. But personally I like to focus on things that are related to my role. so I really don't care that much about who's where. I would consider this as a job for raid leaders

Originally Posted by Lightbound Over all i didnt even raid with the UI so the fine tweaking comes later. Just doing the ideas in my mind and than i have to check how i feel raiding with it.

My feeling is, that there's no one-for-all raid UI. Even healing differs a lot as there are click healers and target healers. I would focus on supporting a specific group of users instead of trying to build something that targets "raid healers" at all.

Originally Posted by Lightbound For myself the target frame is totaly non existing as a healer. Its nice to see how many life the boss has but since i focus the boss to see who is tanking i can see my life, boss life and tank life in that one frame.

As a click-healer I totally agree with that. I would prefere to have both of the unit frames at a place that is less present ... like the top left corner or something. As you said ... they are not important. So why place them that prominent?

[Duugu]

Originally Posted by Lightbound since we speak the same main language

How did you realize that? Can't see any language specific information in his profile.

[Lightbound]

Originally Posted by Duugu How did you realize that? Can't see any language specific information in his profile.

The ingame screenshots of his UI were in the same language as mine if i remember right. Maybe im wrong but i did check out some UIs these days and could remember one posted by him

Anyways, thanks for the advice ill properly do a research on how to manage profiles and resolutions before i do a revamp of my ui. Will do some concept art tomorrow.

If it comes to the point where profiles, resolutions and types of player come together i properly should group up with someone and work together on something since i would need months to get at least a clue how to do that stuff.

[Duugu]

lol
Sometimes it feels as everyone here is german.

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by Lightbound For more infos, just PN me since we speak the same main language that could make the communicaiton easyer

No, post it out here, I need to practice.

Actual feedback:

- Raid frames SO LARGE OMG.

- Player and target frames blend in too much with the giant panels around them.

- Too many action buttons (and most of them apparently not even used).

- Seerah wrote an addon that skins the default buff frames. I don't remember what it's called but you should be able to find it by searching for her name.

[Seerah]

ShinyBuffs: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...hinyBuffs.html