nUI -- A full feature standalone UI replacement

[swords]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 Hmm... just for giggles, next time you are in combat, try left clicking on the Omen button in your Titan (or is that Fubar) bar at the bottom of your screen. You may have omen toggled off..

haha actually i did played around with that but in vain. I will try to remove the whole fubar and see how it goes. Might be some issues between fubar and nUI.

Originally Posted by spiel2001 Also... seeing as you have nothing on that bottom bar but a couple of buttons and the clock, you might consider removing the bar entirely. nUI will pick those buttons up and put them in the button bag and it already has the time built in. That would save you more memory, etc...

ya tot of that too but have not got down into doing it :P

Originally Posted by spiel2001 I see now... that's the default Blizzard behavior... it doesn't tell you how much health a mob has. Turn nUI off and look at the health and mana bar for the target in the default Bliz unite frame and you'll see the same thing. What you need to do is to download and install MobInfo-2 and then you'll get the full health report on your target.

ok that's weird tho. I was using xperl unit frames b4 switching to nUI and back then, the mob health and mana are shown and I dont have mobinfo2 installed. Maybe xperl has the mob info built in. will verify that when i get home

thanks scott for all the help.

[gothicknight]

I am currently using Prat and i have since the first version of this UI came out, and Prat works flawlessly.

I would like to say i really do like the way this UI is progressing and i am looking forward to where u take this. But please, TAK YOUR TIME . That way there will be less bugs and in turn less users say fix this fix that lol.

In regards to DBM being supported, how exactly does that work. I use Bigwigs but i was wondering does nUI configure DBM in a specific way or it is just a case of download it and works.

Keep up the great work

[Ratheri]

Confirmation on non-interference between Prat and the chat controls, so long as you don't do anything already known to do weird things to the chatbox.

Also, I have definately noticed Wonkiness with using Cartographer with nUI. The arrow representing your character seems to be overly large compared to the map as a whole, and Waypoints/Notes do not seem to show up anymore. I'm no coder myself, but the size of the player indicator implies to me that this is due to the special "map" portion of the addon overriding something in cartographer.

I am assuming that setting the Tooltips to "Default" will allow you to use a 3rd party addon to control tooltip behavior. Going to try to confirm this later tonight or tommorow. Not that Spiel couldn't tell us himself, but sometimes it's nice to have these things confirmed by a third party.

And I agree whole-heartedly on the don't rush things comment. Build at your pace, and squash bugs at your own lesiure, not on anyone else's timeline. It seems to be comming along nicely, and when it's "ready", I'd like to put this into an addon compilation for my guild.

Damn, makes me wish I could code for crap so I could help with compatability issues. Speaking of which, if somebody wanted to make a button facade plugin for this, that'd be awsome!

Edit: One last thing.... put this EXTREMELY low on the priority list, probably not until after you get the gui finished... for those people that don't like the full hud cluttering up their ui. This Addon from this site is a good example of what I'm talking about.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by gothicknight I am currently using Prat and i have since the first version of this UI came out, and Prat works flawlessly.

I'm going to show my ignorance here... what's Prat?

[qupte]I would like to say i really do like the way this UI is progressing and i am looking forward to where u take this. But please, TAK YOUR TIME . That way there will be less bugs and in turn less users say fix this fix that lol.[/quote]

I'm doing my best. It's hard to keep so many different opinions content though. But I do enjoy it.

In regards to DBM being supported, how exactly does that work. I use Bigwigs but i was wondering does nUI configure DBM in a specific way or it is just a case of download it and works.

It's just a case of download it and it works. The only thing you'll probably want to do is to move the bars to the left and right of the HUD. The default posistions place them at the top and bottom of the HUD which interferes with the casting bars.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Ratheri Confirmation on non-interference between Prat and the chat controls, so long as you don't do anything already known to do weird things to the chatbox.

That's good to know.

Also, I have definately noticed Wonkiness with using Cartographer with nUI.

There are some known issues with Cartographer and nUI. I'm not sure why but I suspect it isn't crazy about me toying with the world map for the expanded battlefield map, etc. In due time I'll install Cartographer and try to hammer out where the conflicts are.

I am assuming that setting the Tooltips to "Default" will allow you to use a 3rd party addon to control tooltip behavior. Going to try to confirm this later tonight or tommorow. Not that Spiel couldn't tell us himself, but sometimes it's nice to have these things confirmed by a third party.

That should in fact be correct as when the mode is set to default, nUI pretty much ignores tooltips entirely. However, it is possible what little interaction I do have with tooltips could be an issue.

I'm curious... what features would you need a third party tooltip manager for with tooltips?

And I agree whole-heartedly on the don't rush things comment. Build at your pace, and squash bugs at your own lesiure, not on anyone else's timeline. It seems to be comming along nicely, and when it's "ready", I'd like to put this into an addon compilation for my guild.

I appreciate the sentiment and the kind words, again.

Damn, makes me wish I could code for crap so I could help with compatability issues. Speaking of which, if somebody wanted to make a button facade plugin for this, that'd be awsome!

Down the road when I'm bored and working on skinning nUI, that will likely happen. I'd love to learn how to do more advanced graphics twiddling than I'm doing now, but I have much to learn about LUA and the WoW API before I get to that point.

Edit: One last thing.... put this EXTREMELY low on the priority list, probably not until after you get the gui finished... for those people that don't like the full hud cluttering up their ui. This Addon from this site is a good example of what I'm talking about.

I'll give is a look. Thanks for the heads up.

[Bigdog74000]

VERY happy with this UI. Only 2 things i could ask....
1) Is there a way i can turn off the HUD that shows up in the middle around my character?

2) when i log onto WoW I have to hide Titan panel to get it to load then click the thmbtack to get it to show again?

Plz tell me that there are ways to fix this...

TY

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Bigdog74000 VERY happy with this UI. Only 2 things i could ask.... 1) Is there a way i can turn off the HUD that shows up in the middle around my character?

No. You can hide the HUD bars by setting their alpha to zero at all times... but then what do you do to display health and mana for yourself, your pet, your target and ToT? nUI is a HUD-centric UI design. Read back just a few messages on the AddOn comments page for my post on 07-16-2008 at 11:55 AM and you'll see where I explained to someone else in detail how to set the HUD transparency. You can find those posts at http://www.wowinterface.com/download...=9108#comments

2) when i log onto WoW I have to hide Titan panel to get it to load then click the thmbtack to get it to show again?

I'm not sure what you're saying here as I use Titan with no problem and I'm not aware of anyone else having problems with Titan and nUI.

You have to click Titan to get what to load? If you're clicking Titan, then it is loaded... so what isn't loading? I'm not sure I'm clear on what the problem is that you're experiencing. You're welcome to e-mail me a screencapture if you need to or you can post it here... either way. My e-mail address is [email protected]

[Ratheri]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 That should in fact be correct as when the mode is set to default, nUI pretty much ignores tooltips entirely. However, it is possible what little interaction I do have with tooltips could be an issue. I'm curious... what features would you need a third party tooltip manager for with tooltips?

Probably nothing, but CowTip is what I'm used to, as it spits back additional info to the tooltip and alows for postitioning according to a specific anchor... something nUI doesn't really NEED, but a feature i find handy for my own sanity.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Ratheri Probably nothing, but CowTip is what I'm used to, as it spits back additional info to the tooltip and alows for postitioning according to a specific anchor... something nUI doesn't really NEED, but a feature i find handy for my own sanity.

nUI has a fairly advanced tooltip position manager imo. You have the option to have tooltips appear at the mouse, anchored to the owner's frame, anchored to a single point (positioning according to a specific anchor) or the default so I don't believe any other tooltip manager offers any positioning options that nUI can't handle, though I suppose I could be wrong.

That said... the additional info is another matter and something I will have to work on eventually. ~smile~

I guess, come to think of it, that when it comes to design, nUI is intended to be, and growing toward, being an information rich UI. (which is why I ask the questions I do about what features and information it is that people are looking for in their UI)

[spiel2001]

nUI v1.05.00 (beta) is out --

Please help support nUI by voting for it and/or adding nUI to your favorites list. In addition, I strongly encourage nUI users to let me know about bugs they find and suggestions for improving this mod. Your input and support is invaluable! If you would like to make a cash donation to help support the development of nUI, you may do so by clicking here... and I thank you for your support!

* Added spec browsing to unit frames
* Added talent build to unit tooltips
* Added click-casting registration to unit frames to support Clique, Decursive, etc.
* Added click-to-feed to pet happiness indicator in unit frames
* Added "/nui petfoods" slash command to list valid foods for the current hunter pet
* Added "/nui feedpet" slash command to open window of in inventory pet foods
* Added automatic notification of what is inventory to feed unhappy hunter pets
* Fixed the global cooldown bug with wands and other ranged weapons
* Fixed aesthetics for raid group number in unit frames
* Fixed tooltip on temporary weapon enchant buff buttons
* Fixed false cooldown on Victory Rush when Retalliation is used
* Fixed unit Frame tooltips to work for all units and to remain fixed on unit


You can download the most current version of nUI by clicking here.

[Jungleanimal]

Ok, so I went through a full 5 hour raid last night with nUI. Here are my observations.

1) Would it be possible to add a durability frame somewhere? I was totally blind last night about my durability and I'm thinking that might have been a Cosmos mod I had before. Either way, it's important info to a raider and I didn't have time to fix it during the raid and from my perspective it would be good to have it built into the UI rather than another addon to manage but let me know.

2) I found it very time consuming to use the feature that scrolls between raid, damage, and omen. I understand the minimalist approach but as a raider, I would definitely like to see my raid status, damage and omen without concentrating so hard on what my view is. For instance, when I'm trying to avoid a whirlwind, I don't want to realize that I forgot to change to the omen screen after buffing the raid. Then while doing damage try to figure out how I'm doing compared to others by yet more clicking. I don't have solutions to the problem, just stating what I spend my time concentrating on when it comes to the UI that I would rather just have presented to me.

3) The raid frames were very small, so small in fact that I couldn't see the names of the players or tell with any certainty during the heat of the moment how much mana/hp the raid had. It left me feeling blind to how much I knew about what the other 24 players were doing.

4) figuring out who needed a new buff was a chore. I could click the name of the first person in the party but to see who had died and been rezzed I had to click each indivudal name to see if they had my buffs. It would be nice if I could see who has my castable buffs in the raid frames. It would also be nice if I could see the raid frames more clearly (going back to the too small thing).

5) Until I get used to the hud it is hard to tell which bar is designated for what, It would be nice if you could put a little "Your HP" indicator for health and a Mana indicator, "Enemy HP" on the other side. I know the colors should handle this but I found myself confused a few times about my status, and the enemy status. That could just be a learning curve on how to use the HUD, but when you have 1 second to make a decision or die the uncertainty lead to indecision which meant death.

To summarize, I immensely enjoyed the screen space that gained by switching to nUI. However, it seemed to be at the expense of some information that left me feeling blind about the raid status. The hud is an excellent way of presenting the information as well, but needs some tweaks so new users don't get so confused. All in all, I'm still very impressed with this UI and it will remain my UI of choice and the one I recommend to others. Thanks for reading and considering my personal observations on the user friendliness aspect of your UI.

[spiel2001]

JungleAnimal --

Thank you for a very thoughtful critique. This is the kind of stuff that is very helpful in improving nUI.

Originally Posted by Jungleanimal 1) Would it be possible to add a durability frame somewhere?

The default Bliz durability frame should be visible... but now that you mention it, it occurs to me I don't remember the last time I saw it. There may be a bug here. I'm also thinking it would be nice to modify the default Bliz durability frame so you can mouse over it and get detailed durability info on each inventory item. I guess adding durability management to nUI would be a very good idea. Thanks for bringing that up.

2) I found it very time consuming to use the feature that scrolls between raid, damage, and omen. I understand the minimalist approach but as a raider, I would definitely like to see my raid status, damage and omen without concentrating so hard on what my view is. For instance, when I'm trying to avoid a whirlwind, I don't want to realize that I forgot to change to the omen screen after buffing the raid. Then while doing damage try to figure out how I'm doing compared to others by yet more clicking. I don't have solutions to the problem, just stating what I spend my time concentrating on when it comes to the UI that I would rather just have presented to me.

When you're using Omen, are you toggling between single-target and other modes? Or are you sticking with a single mode? I confess I don't have a healer in my alt-swarm... it's not, um, in my personality? ~grin~ As a result, I only use single-target mode and thus the in-HUD threat bar is sufficient for me.

The in-HUD threat bar is my own and is not dependant on Omen, just on Threat-2.0 -- I could modify that to provide the info you're toggling to Omen for if you can explain to me what it is that you need to know. Then rather than having to switch tabs to Omen, you can have that info in the HUD. In that case, we can at least eliminate one of the info modes you're using.

I do want to add a right-click feature to the info tab button so you can pop up a menu of modes and click. I also want to add key bindings for the modes. Those two things would help reduce the "work" of changing modes.

To be honest, I'm not sure of a clean way to deal with showing your damage relative to others while still providing easy access to the raid frames. Would your rank and DPS alone be enough info? That could fit into the HUD without making a mess.

3) The raid frames were very small, so small in fact that I couldn't see the names of the players or tell with any certainty during the heat of the moment how much mana/hp the raid had. It left me feeling blind to how much I knew about what the other 24 players were doing.

Hmm... what display resolution are you using?

I do confess that I am not 100% happy with the raid frames or the party frames, but I have yet to have had the epiphany I need to solve it. Size is an issue, but I'm in a situation where I only have so much space to work with, as well. I can add horizontal space by modifying the player/target unit frame sets, but what I need is vertical space and that's a problem there's no easy solution to as there are many who already feel nUI takes too much vertical space and I'm looking for ways to reduce the vertical dimension, not increase it.

4) figuring out who needed a new buff was a chore. I could click the name of the first person in the party but to see who had died and been rezzed I had to click each indivudal name to see if they had my buffs. It would be nice if I could see who has my castable buffs in the raid frames. It would also be nice if I could see the raid frames more clearly (going back to the too small thing).

I would like to add custom tooltips to the mouseover on unit frames to include the buffs you have on the underlying unit and their time remaining. It's not practical to display the buffs fulltime on the raid frames for the same reason I raise above... real estate. I would also like to add a Quartz-like panel that can track who you have buffed and the status of those buffs. I think that would be a more practical and space friendly solution. My intention is to place that panel just below the focus frame at the top left... I can use that panel to show alerts when people need buffs, etc. I'm not sure when exactly I'll get to that, though.

5) Until I get used to the hud it is hard to tell which bar is designated for what, It would be nice if you could put a little "Your HP" indicator for health and a Mana indicator, "Enemy HP" on the other side.

I think the solution here is to add unit names to the HUD. It's something I've been thinking about doing anyway.

As with all things... I am ALWAYS open to thoughtful critiques like your last and I am ALWAYS open to ideas and suggestions on how to resolve issues and improve the layout. The only thing I ask is that people try to keep in mind the overall intent and concept that nUI is. Thanks for taking the time to help!

[Jungleanimal]

Thanks for taking the time to address the concerns. It shows your commitment to making the nUI a great interface.

1) The durability frame fix will be wonderful.

2) I am a mage so I use single target mode. I guess the biggest thing I use (the info I was looking for that wasn't in the HUD) was the actual amount of threat my tank had. In other words I usually wait for about 8k-10k of threat before I start doing damage because at that point I know I can hit the boss hard and not worry about threat until later in the fight. I actually pulled aggro last night for the first time ever in a raid and wiped us. After a lot of whispers from the raid leaders I explained that I was using a new UI, and it won't happen again. One of them is my brother so I told them to stuff it, :-) Anyway, yeah, I would rather see the two bars in omen below the hud than the custom bar with no actual stats. Or if you could just add the stats to your existing bar and feed from Omen so I know it is accurate. Which ever way you think is best for the masses and your own design philosophy.

3) If Omen info is in the HUD then we are just down to being able to see the raid and damage meters at the same time. I'm afraid I won't be much help on that one because the way I did it was to move the raid frames to the top right hand corner of the screen when I set up my own mods. It worked well for me but I realize that isn't an option. Maybe you could just make them a movable window for those of us that aren't minimalist? Heck, I don't know what would be best from a global design perspective. Sorry for the silly answer. Can you fit the top 3 DPS, rank and % into the HUD?

In the end I just know that what I want on my raiding screen is 1)knowledge of deployed buffs on party memebers 2) How I am doing in damage or healing 3) how is the rest of the raid doing on mana and HP 4) When am I going to pull bady bad bad over to me. I like to see all of those things without mousing around ~smile~

4) I use 1280x1024 and the raid frames were tiny. I could barely tell who was dead or anything really. I tried 1024x768 and they looked basically the same. I'm thinking that the only way to solve this is to take some screen real estate somewhere and remove them from UI bar. But I know that probably isn't a good answer.

5) Unit names in the HUD would be sweetness defined.

I really like that you participate actively with the people who couldn't design a shoe box out of a box, but at least they know that they want their shoes to fit in it. Thanks for all the hard work!

[Jungleanimal]

Oh, forgot to tell you that I got this last night for my mage using your awesome UI (which I am a mage only actually, all of my alts are below level 32):

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30720

Also, if you are wondering who I am here is my armory just for fun.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30720

[Ratheri]

Ok, tested with a few more addons... no error with DrDamage, but the unit bar info also does not show up. Annoying, but certainly not enough to get me to stop using this.

CowTip works fine if you choose to use it. Cartographer... still issues with the main map, but the minimap portion of the notes seems to be ok, so there you go with that.

Gotta say, my biggest annoyance right now is the bags. After a year or two of using some kind of mod that gives me just one big bag window, trying to find everything was a bit of a challenge. What I think I missed most of all was having the item's quality color the frame around it. Made it hard to find the new items I wanted to equip. Oh, and it seems that any inventory mod that doesn't change the bag frame will probably work... I intalled "Mr Plow" to defrag my inventory and help me regain a portion of my sanity.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Ratheri Ok, tested with a few more addons... no error with DrDamage, but the unit bar info also does not show up. Annoying, but certainly not enough to get me to stop using this.

Yes... the action bar buttons are my own, so DrDamage won't use them because it is looking for the buttons that Bliz has defined. Adding the DrDamage functionality is on my to-do list. I may just talk with the author and see if we can come up with a system for me to 'register' my buttons with Dr. Damage. Or I may just implement it myself. Probably the latter since it would be a more efficient integration.

CowTip works fine if you choose to use it.

Good to hear.

Cartographer... still issues with the main map, but the minimap portion of the notes seems to be ok, so there you go with that.

One of these days I'll get off my lazy butt and track that Cartographer map issue down. ~smile~

Gotta say, my biggest annoyance right now is the bags. After a year or two of using some kind of mod that gives me just one big bag window, trying to find everything was a bit of a challenge.

I have no problem with adding a one-bag option to the to-do list. In the meantime, I believe that All-in-one Inventory works with nUI, but I could be wrong on that.

What I think I missed most of all was having the item's quality color the frame around it. Made it hard to find the new items I wanted to equip.

I can even do that. ~smile~

Oh, and it seems that any inventory mod that doesn't change the bag frame will probably work... I intalled "Mr Plow" to defrag my inventory and help me regain a portion of my sanity.

Good to know, as well.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Jungleanimal Oh, forgot to tell you that I got this last night for my mage using your awesome UI (which I am a mage only actually, all of my alts are below level 32): http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30720 Also, if you are wondering who I am here is my armory just for fun. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30720

Nice piece of gear... Gratz. My mage is only lvl 21 -- he's fun to play, I just never seem to get around to it. I actually have 9 playable toons on the Kargath realm..

Nordebugger -- 70 prot warrior -- Dwarf
Anisa -- 70 BM hunter -- Nightelf
Arranon -- 67 affliction lock -- Gnome
Rezn -- 51 shadow priest -- Nightelf
Ranghen -- 50 ret pally -- Human
Whadulz -- 21 frost mage -- Gnome
Errand -- 20 combat rogue -- Nightelf
Bahdgirl -- 21 balanced druid -- Nightelf
Qbahl -- 10 shammy -- Draenei

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Jungleanimal 2) I am a mage so I use single target mode. I guess the biggest thing I use (the info I was looking for that wasn't in the HUD) was the actual amount of threat my tank had.

That would be an easy enough thing to add and I can completely see the sense in knowing that info

3) Can you fit the top 3 DPS, rank and % into the HUD?

My gut instinct tells me that would be too much. Clutter can become an issue in a hurry and I'm pushing the envelope already. However, I might be able to do it in a single bar on the HUD. Let me give it some thought.

What about displaying your rank, your DPS and your DPS as a percent of the highest DPS? Would that be sufficient? I'm not sure knowing who has higher DPS than you during combat is as important as knowing your DPS relative to them.

Of course, to be honest, I don't much care what my DPS is relative to anyone else during combat... only what it is if even that. I know it's just me, but I only bother looking at damage meters and such between and after fights.

In the end I just know that what I want on my raiding screen is 1)knowledge of deployed buffs on party memebers 2) How I am doing in damage or healing 3) how is the rest of the raid doing on mana and HP 4) When am I going to pull bady bad bad over to me. I like to see all of those things without mousing around ~smile~

I think my inclination here is to develop a raid panel that can track that information apart from the simple raid view that's in the info panel. Call it an advanced raid panel if you like. Make it draggable and you can place it where you like... just default it to the top left under the focus frame. That would allow me to add tabs for other advanced info and allow the player to scale it to suit, as well, or even option not to see it at all of they want to stay minimalist.

Just thinking out loud... anyone else feel free to chime in.

4) I use 1280x1024 and the raid frames were tiny. I could barely tell who was dead or anything really. I tried 1024x768 and they looked basically the same.

I'm wondering if the scaling of the wide screen modes is in play here. I agree that they're small, but I have no problem reading them at all on my display. (1900x1200 on a 22" wide scree). I'd be curious to hear if this is a widespread problem. I was unaware they were unreadable.

5) Unit names in the HUD would be sweetness defined.

Consider it done. I'll try to have it in the next update.

I really like that you participate actively with the people who couldn't design a shoe box out of a box, but at least they know that they want their shoes to fit in it. Thanks for all the hard work!

I've said this before, but I'll say it again here... the problem with most programmers is that they think it is their job to sell a user how to use their programs. The truth is that a programmer's job is to get the user to teach them how they need to use the program so the programmer can allow them to. Users are not created for programs, programs are created for users.

[Ratheri]

They seem fairly readable in your screenshot, although i haven't tried the raid frames myself personally.

Have to try All-in-one inventory... that might be the solution to my problems for now... or i may just test it with baggins... i think it might override the default bags anyhow, so that might work...

The only annoying thing about trying to test these addons is the last update for wow ace updater causes it to crash on my comp, so I have to reinstall every other time i run it. Not that I'm complaining. Just making sure you knew how cool I think your addon is that I'm willing to go through all that just to make sure things work with it =D

[noble8]

For bag addons i recommend Combuctor really good fits in well with nUI.