nUI -- A full feature standalone UI replacement

spiel2001 · 12-31-08, 10:42 PM

This was an unplanned update but very much needed with the FPS leak issue coming to a head and all of the reports of large memory consumption in the 4.07 (which remains a mystery to me).

The principal change in this update is that the (de)buff module has been completely rewritten and replaced with what I think is a much improved and far better performing design. In 40 man AV even in Drek's chamber with 20-30 raid members wailing away frame rates held up in excess of 12fps on my laptop and never froze or lagged out. Typical AV frame rates would run between 40fps and 60fps which in 40 man makes me grin in a geeky kind of way ~lol~ In Arathi Basin with a 15 man raid, frame rates never fell below 22fps even when pretty much both full teams were toe to toe at the horde spawn point. In neither case, AB or AV did my memory usage ever exceed 15.5 meg.

Here's hoping this issue has been put to bed. I'm sure I can still make some tweaks and gain some more performance, but I'm hopeful the core problem has been fixed.

The other point worthy of notice in this release is that it should now be compatible with the new Public Test Realm. Please let me know if you find any issues on the PTR.

As always, please report any bugs you come across at the official support site at http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=16845 if at all possible. Otherwise, bugs can be reported on any of the nUI comment boards or via direct e-mail to me at [email protected]

The current release is (or will be) available for download at any of the following locations...

My continued thanks to everyone for their support!

How you can help support nUI's continued development: I am currently trying to recover from 14 months of unemployment and with over $20,000 in debt (unpaid mortgage payments, loans, etc.), every penny makes a serious difference. Your contribution of $5, $10, $20 or more to support the ongoing development of nUI would be greatly appreciated. Click here to make a donation now, please?!

Lastly, please vote for nUI and add it to your favorites list... it helps nUI get more exposure. Thanks for your support!

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Known Issues in nUI...
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-- WotLK issues still outstanding

* "Fire At Will!" quest does not work with nUI

* When using the mounts that can carry vendors, the dismount button is not being displayed
in nUI (note: until this gets fix, you can right-click the aura to dismount)

-- generic issues outstanding

* If you remove a fubar top panel, the nUI top panel redraws to the middle of the screen.
It is full width and takes up about 20% of the middle of the field of view vertically.

* Enabling the "Use UI Scale" option in the Bliz video configuration menu blows up
nUI's layout and scaling. For now... just uncheck this option until I can fix it.

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Known compatibility issues with third party mods...
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* Guild Event Manager is moving its minimap button back to the minimap out of the button
bag whenever the player clicks on it. A minute or so later, nUI's button bag logic
will see the button moved and return it to the button bag.

* Carbonite is having issues updating the directional arrow when the minimap and/or
battlefield minimap is hidden in the info panel

* Poison Pouch mod minimap button is missed by button bag

* Alpha Map minimap button is not scaling correctly in button bag

* nUI and Capping are not playing well... Capping's modification of the battlefield
minimap is interfering with nUI's info panel management of the map

* Titan Panel is causing an error when the bottom bar is enabled

* Titan panel mouseover tooltips are not compatible with nUI's fixed position
tooltip option

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Known Bliz / nUI compatibility issues...
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* Right clicking a unit frame and selecting "set focus" taints in combat == this is
a known bug since WoW 3.0.2 and is beyond nUI's control. Hopefully Bliz will address
it in the next patch (or two or three or twenty). You can target the desired focus
and then type '/focus' to aquire a focus frame until Bliz resolves this issue.

* Switching between windowed and non-windowed mode breaks nUI's textures and HUD -- this
is caused by a known Bliz bug in their video driver code and applies only to certain
graphics cards and video drivers. It is nearly random in terms of which mods it will
impact... anything from very complex to completely trivial mods are broken by this
bug but it is always mods that use custom textures. There is no fix. The only
workaround is to (a) avoid switching between windowed and non-windowed modes as much
as possible and use '/nui rl' to reload the user interface when it gets broken. It is
worth noting this bug affects Macs most often, but also impacts some PCs (such as
mine). This bug has been a round a very long time and no telling if or when it will
ever be fixed.

* If your mouse buttons 4 and 5 do not work for click-casting on unit frames, make
sure your mouse driver is sending mouse button clicks and not key presses. You can
do this by going to the key binding interface and trying to bind autorun to mouse
button 4. If the key binding does not say "Button 4" or "Mouse Button 4" then the
issue is your mouse driver or driver settings. Bliz does not support key-presses
as mouse clicks directly and mods like Clique cannot detect key presses in that way.

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To-Do List / Planned features
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* The 15, 20, 25 and 40 man raid panels are not in the pre-release... both because I am
not quite satisfied with them and, again, I'm trying to not have to fix everything at
once... make sure the core stuff is all working, then add the bells and whistles if
you understand.

* Add vehicle frame/mode integration to the dashboard

* Death Knights need a timer for their pet expiration... should also have a ghoul timer

* Add cooldown counters to the rune bar

* Add Threat Bar back

* Add sorting of raid unit frames by raid group and class

* Add font size options for Chat and Combat log frames

* Add totem timers

* Add audio cues for cooldowns, cc breaks, etc.

* Add DruidManaBar type functionality to unit frames

* Add 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 unit frame panels for arena play

* Add Proximo functionality to unit frames for arena unit panels

* Add durability, wardrobe manager, ammo tracker and gold tracker to console buttons

* Add autobar style support for quest items, food/drink/pots, mounts, vanity pets

* Add option to set location precision to zero decimal places on coordinate display

* Add target marking tool a la LuckyCharms

* Add recommended zone functionality to the location box a la FuBar RecZone

* Add a swing timer

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Version 4.08.00 (Beta)
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* Completely re-wrote the nUI_UnitAura.lua module to address the longstanding FPS leak
issue in larger raids.

* Added minimum frame rate and maximum memory usage to the profiler and debug log

* Fixed a logic error in the pet unit frames that caused the click-to-feed function to
sometimes be unavailable for the pet unit frame which required the hunter to target
the pet to be able to feed it.

* Ported nUI to the new Public Test Realm release in preparation for patch day -- nUI
remains backward compatible with the current live realms, as well.