PTR Patch 3.2.0 User Interface Notes
 

User Interface

• Character name auto-completion for the chat frame, pop-ups, and mail interface can be enabled through an interface option in the Development settings.
• Character names can now be colorized according to class in the chat frame through an interface option in the Development settings.
• Casting bars under a target's portrait will now indicate whether or not the cast can be interrupted.
• Druids will now be able to see their mana bars when shape-shifted.
• Item Comparisons: Holding the shift key while hovering over an item will now display the stat differences with the item currently equipped in the relevant slot.
• Macros and scripts will no longer be able to target totems by name.
• Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player's world map.
• The quest log is now double-paned for more easily viewing quest information.
• Vendor prices will now be listed on items whether or not players are at a vendor.
• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Exciting! :D

It would be nice if they would do a similar thing with the tradeskill pane.

I totally agree!!

I'm just glad that they are finally getting with what we want outta the UI, bit by bit but still nice overall imo

The cynical part of me, which seems to be extremely dominant today, is asking how much of the code they are "borrowing" from existing addons that already do these things?

More interesting news!!!

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=18507

One of the cool parts:
"We plan to deliver more Battlegrounds to the players as often as we can. We see Battlegrounds as a very large and important part of the World of Warcraft PvP game and we would like to expand the system as much as we can. I do have a little tidbit that I can share with you guys today, though. We are planning to implement rated Battlegrounds in a future patch. We will be giving more details on this system at BlizzCon."

I have to agree ...

Also I hate when they constantly implement "new" features like this. Now I will have to remove or update addons so they don't interfere with Blizzards additions.

I say they should devote this time to content over a better UI that the community has been doing already.

I had a feeling when they implemented the "no pay" policy for addons, they would soon start utilizing the ingenuity of authors for built in improvements. Bah, I wish Blizz didn't make such great games and come up with such crap for policies!

yea this is great thats like 5 less addons i have to use

w/e

(DOH! Stupid character minimum limit!)

They've been doing this for years. One of the earliest things they borrowed from the community was the concept of Main Tank, which originated with CT_Raid. Around 2.4, they added friends notes, etc etc.

I started at around 2.1 or so, so thanks for bringing me up to date on that. It's even sadder to realize they've been doing the same thing for a long time.

They've never borrowed any code from anything they've added before. Also it could be argued that they're taking ideas from WAR not QH or Carbonite.

This is not new (adding things normally done by AddOns). One of the big ones is Floating Combat Text. Until Greyhoof wrote the original SCT, there was no FCT option for WoW. Once SCT (and slightly later, MSBT) got extremely popular, Blizzard added their own version (FCT) into the game. Blizzard will continue this trend.

The big one for me is raid frames...the original CT_RA had to pass player information between clients via a custom channel because there was no other way to get it if you weren't in a player's group.

A very large part of the default UI changes since even before 2.0 have been based on addons. Not that I actually think that that is bad. Obviously Bliz didn't use addon code (and you could easily see if they had); so unless you're a supporter of software patents (which I at least am not), they are and *should* be allowed to implement those ideas on their own.

Dont forget self cast and autoloot, that was Telo's addons once.

Also a big thing they added (though failed) was the Voice feature.

Are you guys really complaining that blizzard implements new features that the community clearly wants?
It means less AddOns to maintain & update and most likely better performance than using AddOns.

If you didn't notice already i welcome these changes with open arms (although they will probably suck and we will fall back to AddOns again)

Well my take on pretty much all of the UI changes is this :

(1) The less work an addon author has to do the better
(2) The less code an addon author has to support & debug the better
(3) If the feature provided in the built in addon is adequate enough then the code to provide such feature already in an addon should safely be taken out. Benefits are as (1) & (2) above.

Blizzard's pretty much always done this IMHO. Just look at the raid frames. RDX & CT Mod had those first.

IMHO It's an honor when Blizzard implement a feature from a third party addon in game. Sucks that they don't acknowledge but still an honor in my eyes :D

I totally agree. Anyway, where did this information came from?

The o-forums have a thread with the latest patch notes.