[RAVEN] Improving Icon mode toolset

[Lovestar]

This is a quick (heh) summary of issues I encounter in Raven while using Icon mode, intended as a reference for the author (Tojaso) more than a discussion per se.

Let me begin with an example: a compact method for monitoring Arcane Mage steady-state/maintenance cycle in one simple icon:



What it does:

• A. If no Arcane Missiles proc, and Arcane Blast is not active, show Arcane Barrage cooldown (fallback ability)
• B. If Arcane Missiles is proc'd, show Arcane Missiles (preferred stack-clearing tool)
• C, D. In either case, if Arcane Blast is active:
  • Highlight the icon border noticeably
  • Display AB time remaining (to help keep it up during hectic situations)
  • Display AB stack size (for knowing when a burn is ready)

While it looks clean and simple, setting this up requires 3 separate Bar Groups and a ton of tinkering. I'm going to use this example as a springboard to discuss ways in which Raven could be significantly improved/streamlined for Icon users.

First, let's dissect how the example above was constructed in Raven. I use 3 separate Custom Bar Groups:

• ABar/AM icon
  • Custom Bar Group
    • Arcane Missiles conditional with custom texture (to show AM icon, rather than "Arcane Missiles!" proc icon)
    • Arcane Barrage cooldown
      • Show when ready
      • Opacity Normal: 0.2, Opacity Ready: 1.0
      • Hide when Arcane Missiles conditional is true (proc is active)
  • Layout: Yes icon, No to all text settings
  • Appearance: black Background Panel, padding 8
• ABar/AM timer
  • Custom Bar Group, duplicating all settings of the "ABar/AM icon" group.
  • Layout: No icon, show Time only
  • Anchor to ABar/AM icon
  • Appearance: no Background Panel
• Arcane Blast "overlay"
  • Custom Bar Group > Arcane Blast > show only when active
  • Layout: No icon, Yes label/count/time, custom positions for Count and Time at top/bottom
  • Anchor to ABar/AM icon
  • Appearance: purple Background Panel, padding 15

In the following posts I'll discuss the issues encountered creating something like this in the current Raven design.

[Lovestar]

Clean cooldown timers require at least 2 Bar Groups:

PROBLEM

• No way to set Text Opacity separate from Icon Opacity (making it difficult to see faded-icon text)
• No way to Tint an icon darker (rather than modifying Opacity), necessitating "fake" tinting via Transparency + Background Panel
• Example:

SOLUTION (in current Raven design):

1. Bar group containing icon + BG panel (Timer disabled)
2. Bar group containing timer (Icon, BG panel disabled)
3. Anchor Timer group to Icon group
4. Duplicate all "Custom Bar" and "General" settings from the Icon group (manually, this can get very tedious)
5. Copy all "Layout" and "Appearance" settings from Icon group
6. Disable Timer in icon group
7. Disable Icon and BG Panel in timer group
8. Finally, a crisp, clear, bright timer while the icon is dimmed out and on cooldown.
   • Icon opacity can be, say, "0.2" while the ability is cooling
   • Whereas Text opacity can be "1.0" while the ability is cooling

ISSUES

• Requires 2-3x (or more) the number of bar groups it "should", resulting in rapid bloat/CPU inefficiency.

[Lovestar]

Stacks without Icon

PROBLEM

• As addressed above, a workaround to having faded cooldowns with bright text is to use 2 identical bar groups:
  • One with Icon on, Text off
  • One with Text on, Icon off
• However, this solution gets even more complicated when wanting to monitor Stacks in an Icon-based display, because:
  • Turning off Icon also disables Stack display
  • Turning on separate Count text requires having Label enabled, but Label is a near-useless and visually-disruptive setting when using Icon mode:
    

SOLUTION in current Raven design:

1. Open Bars.lua
2. Destroy Label code, which is useless in Icon mode
   

ISSUES

• It requires breaking open Raven's LUA and smashing things with a hammer, which is what I think most designers would define as "inelegant"

SUGGESTION

• Allow display and modification of Count text completely separate from Label text

[Lovestar]

No way to turn on/off timers individually by custom bar

PROBLEM

• Say I have 5 abilities being monitored in one Custom Group.
• Say that 3 of these abilities are procs whose Durations do not need to be seen/are just visual clutter.
• I have no real way to tell Raven "don't show Timer (or Stacks, or whatever) for this ability", necessitating individual bar groups for each ability in order to toggle Timer settings per-ability

SUGGESTION

• Allow Timer/Count toggles per-bar in a Custom Group, overriding the global settings under Layout on a case-by-case basis

[Lovestar]

Custom condition 'hack' required for showing correct texture

PROBLEM

• No way to specify user-desired texture for Icon display

SOLUTION (in current Raven design):

1. Set a Condition when the buff/debuff/cooldown is true/active, and give that Condition the desired texture.
2. Now use the Condition (instead of the buff/cooldown itself) as part of the Bar Group

ISSUES

• Basically forces a 1-step process to become a 2-step process.
• Also, if the user can't find a SPELL on Wowhead that uses the icon, Raven still rejects it (eg, wanting to use an item texture).
• Further, monitoring Durations/Stacks this way once again requires a double-bar-group arrangement (one for Icon, one for Text)

SUGGESTION

• It would be a lot easier if Raven allowed the user to simply enter a texture name (like INV_SWORD_09).

[Lovestar]

Changing "border" color based on conditions

PROBLEM

• Currently, there is no real way to interact with or modify Borders in Icon mode — for example, to highlight the icon border when Arcane Blast is active and dim it when the debuff has fallen off.

SOLUTION in current Raven design:

1. Multiple bar groups:
   • One group with a black BG panel
   • One group with a bright BG panel
2. Conditionally hide the group with a black BG panel when the conditions of the bright one are active
   OR
   Make the bright BG panel significantly thicker than the dark one, to force it to always appear.

ISSUES

• This method is frustrating to design in the current Raven because:
  • BG panels cannot be defined hierarchically, nor can their Frame Strata or Frame Level be modified
  • This results in BG panels' layering flipping around at random as panels became active/inactive and on UI reloads
  • Thus, it's necessary to ALWAYS ensure that all groups in a "metagroup" are hidden except the one with the desired BG color; otherwise, it's unpredictable which color will end up "on top" regardless of which Bar Group is actually higher
    • For example, one group's Strata is set to "LOW", the other is "HIGH"
    • The BG color of the "LOW" group's panel may still cover up the BG color of the "HIGH" group's panel, since all BG panels exist only in the "BACKGROUND" strata
• Additionally, because all icon tinting must be "faked" through Opacity + BG panel, visual clash problems occur when a "tinted" icon fades over a color highlight background panel:
  
  

SUGGESTION

• It would be much more powerful/simpler to design with if Raven had an in-built "Border" setting for Icons (separate from BG Panel) which could be defined individually for each bar in a bar group (as well as globally for the entire group) and have its Color/Opacity conditionally modified.

[Lovestar]

There is no way to group or duplicate bar groups

While this issue would be largely negated if the above issues were addressed (mostly obviating the need for 2-3+ bar groups per ability set), for the time being the complexity of designing special icons is further exacerbated by two things:

1. Bar groups cannot be grouped into "meta-groups" for easy conceptual/visual organization
2. Bar groups cannot be simply or quickly duplicated whole-cloth

For crazy users like me, this results in scenes like this (note relative position of scroll bar ><):