nUI -- A full feature standalone UI replacement

[Drianna]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 Drianna -- What you see on the right side in these latest screen caps is the combat log which got moved into the info panel for the benefit of those who want to see it and the chat at the same time. The chat window, itself, is still on the left. You access the combat log the same way you do the other info panel options (Omen, Recount, etc.) and those options are still there.

excellent news - thank you

[Archippus]

The new screenies are very clean and nice looking. I do love the layout.

Could we please get a brief tour of what's what in the party frame?

[dannybuckle]

Hey guys,
Once again, AMAZING UI
Thankyou so much for investing your time into making an incredible ui.

I have started mucking around with some skin ideas and thought i'd post my first attempt. This is still in photoshop, and not incorporated into the mod yet. I just drew it over the top of a screen shot.

Let me know what you think and if there is an interest in this kina thing. (I will do an aliance one next)

http://dannybuckle.googlepages.com/hordeui.jpg

Thx Again.

[Seer]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 So... aside from that, as I mentioned, this is the first peek at the party/group unit frames. I would appreciate your feedback.

Not much feedback, seems almost perfect. Nice, clean and easy to look at.

Might be interesting to see how it looks with lots of buffs/debuffs tho.. (can't wait till seeing the raid screens..)

[Seer]

Originally Posted by dannybuckle Let me know what you think and if there is an interest in this kina thing. (I will do an aliance one next)

Not bad, will be interesting to see the aliance variant.

[blackfirefox]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 Success! I've been battling with a bug in the new unit code for well over a week now that was impacting performance. I finally found it. Check out the new screencap showing what I expect to be the party/group unit frame panel. More than that... look at the frame rate... that's on my laptop, in a battleground in the heat of combat. Yeah baby. ~grin~ So... aside from that, as I mentioned, this is the first peek at the party/group unit frames. I would appreciate your feedback.

That being said....Go Spiel, it's your birthday...Have a party!!

Woohoo......Luv it

[Archippus]

Originally Posted by dannybuckle Hey guys, Once again, AMAZING UI Thankyou so much for investing your time into making an incredible ui. I have started mucking around with some skin ideas and thought i'd post my first attempt. This is still in photoshop, and not incorporated into the mod yet. I just drew it over the top of a screen shot. Let me know what you think and if there is an interest in this kina thing. (I will do an aliance one next) http://dannybuckle.googlepages.com/hordeui.jpg Thx Again.

I like the look.

How does one make / edit a .blp image file? I've got Corel Painter X and GIMP, but neither will open a .blp.

[blackfirefox]

Originally Posted by dannybuckle Hey guys, Once again, AMAZING UI Thankyou so much for investing your time into making an incredible ui. I have started mucking around with some skin ideas and thought i'd post my first attempt. This is still in photoshop, and not incorporated into the mod yet. I just drew it over the top of a screen shot. Let me know what you think and if there is an interest in this kina thing. (I will do an aliance one next) http://dannybuckle.googlepages.com/hordeui.jpg Thx Again.

Oh I like that!! That lookie very coolio to me!

[Jungleanimal]

I am really liking the unit frames. The first thing I noticed was that there was no HUD. Maybe I missed something but are you doing away with the HUD bars and using unit frames for that information instead? Either way is fine with me really but I am wondering where you will be putting casting bars, latency, in HUD threat meter, Range to target info and other stuff that was previously in the HUD? I am happy to hear that it is performing well. I am interested to see a 25 or 40 man raid screenie when you get a chance. All in all though, just like everyone else, I'm excited to try it out after you get the base code complete. Then we can knit pick you to death about how to configure things.



Jungle

[Archippus]

Originally Posted by Jungleanimal I am really liking the unit frames. The first thing I noticed was that there was no HUD. Maybe I missed something but are you doing away with the HUD bars and using unit frames for that information instead? Either way is fine with me really but I am wondering where you will be putting casting bars, latency, in HUD threat meter, Range to target info and other stuff that was previously in the HUD? I am happy to hear that it is performing well. I am interested to see a 25 or 40 man raid screenie when you get a chance. All in all though, just like everyone else, I'm excited to try it out after you get the base code complete. Then we can knit pick you to death about how to configure things. Jungle

Ooh, I didn't even look at the HUD, or lack thereof. The health / mana / rage / energy bars in the HUD are nice - but not super vital to me as long as I can see that info somewhere. But, I truly hope some of the key features, like the casting bar with lag meter and global cooldown, and most especially the health race and aggro meters are kept relatively as-is. Those are probably the most useful addon tools I've seen since I started playing WoW. That health race, to me, gives combat a refreshing new level of excitement... struggling to keep that bottom bar on MY side of the meter. I just love it. LOVE IT, I say!

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by mscott998 your last pictures look very promising.. but i noticed in the middle 3 bottom center unit frames had buffs and debuffs in weird places. is that going to be in the final ir is there a fix in work for that? i noticed the top of the ui changed .. love what you have done.. is that in preparation for some additional functionality? thanks again... cant wait.

mscott --

I haven't figured out exactly what to do about the auras on the bottom three units... those are (left to right) the player's pet, the mouseover target and the ToT. The idea was to just show the auras the player has on those units, but I'm not real happy with them atm and haven't come up with a solution.

And you are correct, the change on the top is both preparation for new functionality and improved visual integration for Fubar/Titan bars. With regard to Fubar/Titan, when the top console slides down to make room for them it will provide a background to the bar that matches the nUI dashboard... make your Fubar/Titan transparent and the buttons appear to be part of nUI (and, yes, you can have the top console fade and only appear when you mouseover. The bottom has a background, too, now when the dashboard slides up for Fubar/Titan bars at the bottom of the display. In addition, I will be adding built-in Fubar/Titan type bar support modders can plug into.

The space you see below the minimap/system info is for functionality I'm working on having in the initial Beta 2 or shortly thereafter... there will be four items in that space... a wardrobe manager, gold tracker, durability and ammo.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Archippus I like the look. How does one make / edit a .blp image file? I've got Corel Painter X and GIMP, but neither will open a .blp.

There's a program called "WoWImage" that I use... it's a slick little Java app that converts TGA and PNG files to BLP and back again. I do all my graphic work in Photoshop, save them as transparent PNG files and drag those onto WoWImage to convert them to BLP.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Jungleanimal I am really liking the unit frames. The first thing I noticed was that there was no HUD. Maybe I missed something but are you doing away with the HUD bars and using unit frames for that information instead? Either way is fine with me really but I am wondering where you will be putting casting bars, latency, in HUD threat meter, Range to target info and other stuff that was previously in the HUD? I am happy to hear that it is performing well. I am interested to see a 25 or 40 man raid screenie when you get a chance. All in all though, just like everyone else, I'm excited to try it out after you get the base code complete. Then we can knit pick you to death about how to configure things. Jungle

Hey there... no nit-picking allowed ~grin~

Actually. if someone asked me to permanently remove the HUD from nUI, I would tell them to go pound sand. I *love* playing with a HUD and have only gone to the trouble of bars on the unit frames for the benefit of those who don't want a HUD.

As always. when I'm testing code, I try to limit the potential causes of conflicts by disabling code sections I'm not testing. It's what developers call "unit testing" where you're proving a unit of code does what it is supposed to do. After you complete the unit testing, then you start turning things back on and doing "integration testing" to make sure they all work together.

Fear not... the HUD's still there ~smile~

And all the whiners have the ability to turn it off now. ~snicker~

[Blazingstorm]

Nice piece of work, very clean UI. But for me, it takes up 1/3 or my screen, not a good thing. Good job on the coding, not sure how you did it, but very nice, and in a very small package. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to future updates.

[mscott998]

i was hoping that the space was for a trades bar but i like what you have planned.... until it is incorporated my separate tradesbar program will fit nicely into it. but i use fubar durability due to its drop down telling me average cost of repair and the auto repair function. also i use fubar auditor for info also in the drop down.. if these were incorporated some how into it where a tooltip pooped up with similar info as those would be excellent..

but regardless i love what your doing! Thanks

[spiel2001]

Well.. okay... maybe that's overstating things a bit. ~grin~

I did, however, have an idea that I thought worth sharing and seeing what the community's opinion on it was. (not that I think I don't already know)

I've already done all of the core logic for having switchable unit panels and switchable info panels and all of the core logic that's required to "read" a skin for unit panels. The thought occurred to me, what about adding a button in the space below the micro-menu you saw in the last screencaps for selecting a HUD the same what you select unit panels and info panels?

This would make it possible to skin HUDs the same way you can skin unit panels and people could create the type of HUD they like with the content in it they liked, etc.

Thoughts?

Worth it?

[Jungleanimal]

I think that is a great idea. Does that mean that there would be other HUD's that could be plugged into nUI that we could choose from or would it just mean the skins on the HUD would be changeable? I think I am a little confused but in general I think the more options people have to skin and change the look and feel of nUI will equate directly with the success of nUI.

Jungle

[spiel2001]

That is correct... people could create custom HUD layouts and textures which users could plug right into nUI... for example, you may want one HUD layout when you're questing solo and something different when you're in a raid.

And because of the way I have made the unit elements modular, pretty much anything and everything about a unit that can go in the unit panels can go in the HUD. For example, someone who is creating a custom HUD layout could create an aura frame in the HUD that watches your focus' auras, etc.

The nice thing about this is that the way I've done the skinning process and designed the way the unit frames work, you don't have to know anything about how the Bliz API works to create your own HUD (or unit frame, or unit panel)... you only need to know what information you want in it, where you want it and how big you want it to be. Basically, you just choose the options you want and where you want them. nUI does the rest. So... anyone who has a burning need to have their unit frames a certain way, their unit panels a certain way or their HUD a certain way, can do it without having to program... just describe what you want.

Originally Posted by Jungleanimal I think that is a great idea. Does that mean that there would be other HUD's that could be plugged into nUI that we could choose from or would it just mean the skins on the HUD would be changeable? I think I am a little confused but in general I think the more options people have to skin and change the look and feel of nUI will equate directly with the success of nUI. Jungle

[psirontech]

I have a toon I've been playing a while but the chat panel doesn't seat itself properly in the ui.

AS a test, I created a new toon...Lo and Behold, it was in the right spot.

No idea what's causing it or how to fix it. If I move, size, and lock the panel manually, the scroll buttons are always visible (They are not when using my new test toon).

I've attached a screenie, hope it helps. As oyu can see, the map is in the wrong place as well (also in the correct place on a new toon)

Love the UI. Hope I can get this fixed. Thanks!

[bmx4life661]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 Success! I've been battling with a bug in the new unit code for well over a week now that was impacting performance. I finally found it. Check out the new screencap showing what I expect to be the party/group unit frame panel. More than that... look at the frame rate... that's on my laptop, in a battleground in the heat of combat. Yeah baby. ~grin~ So... aside from that, as I mentioned, this is the first peek at the party/group unit frames. I would appreciate your feedback.

looks real good can wait to try it out