How often do you Make a new UI?
 

I was reading the thread about how to start a new UI. And I was thinking just how often do people start making a new UI? I don't mean updating, or adding a new addon, I do that.

But how many times do people start from scratch and make a new one?

Myself, I switch three or four times a year generally. I like to tinker and I am a creative type so I am always experimenting. I recently dug up a bunch of my old UIs and posted the screenshots over at WoW UI Gallery http://www.wowuigallery.com/profile/zyonin

From scratch? About the same, maybe 3 times a year.
I tend to have a general Idea in my head of what I want and what major addons I will use about two weeks before I start cleaning house.

To be honest, I'm at that process right now.

From scratch (totally removing the old Interface and WTF folders) about 2 times a year. Generally, I'll just fiddle, though. The look of my UI changes much more often than that. :) I've also been gradually uploading my UIs at the site Zyonin linked above.

Since I really started to make my own stuff I've basically kept the same and just improved it. It might eventually look a bit different from when I started but I still have the same basic idea, the less, the better. I wouldn't ditching something that works.

Oh man, I'm kinda intimidated to post among the addon greats, but I tinker continuously like Seerah said, I can never really stay content with one UI. The only thing I've remained consistent on is the UI I'm currently running with(shameless self promotion inc)that I uploaded to wowi. Even then, I'm changing mods daily, and tweaking things here and there.

I generally use the same addons and over time swap out for new concepts or functionality. That being said i generally make complete new layouts about once a month. Most of the ones i make i don't use. I just like creating. I also tend to make more focused ones as opposed to a general all around one. For example i use the same UI for healing and tanking, One is designed for pet classes, another for melee dps and another for caster dps. At one point each toon i have one my main server had a completely unique UI.

As an example of my obsession with making UI's i don't use i recently went through my reflux profiles for designs i had made and removed about 13 of them. There are still about 9 left of which about 2 are not entirely finished.

**twitches**

I pretty much have a set idea of what I want my UI to look like. bit of a stick in the mud on that. Rather than redo how things look, I search for new addons to keep the same look. If an addon gets old or breaks, I spend a bit of time finding a similar one to keep the basic setup. Seems I am the odd one out on that

You're not the only odd one out WeeBaby. My UI evolves over time as opposed to starting a new one from scratch, with new addons replacing old as I discover new things. Let's take a visual tour of the life and times of Cidrei's (and a young druid named Jazrei's) UI, shall we? Images are numbered with corresponding commentary below to save vertical space.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

1. September 2005, a little over 9 months after I started WoW. This is the earliest UI shot I have easy access to. I like how I happen to have everything conveniently labeled here. The rather distinctive 3x4 grid that my main actions are in is due to the fact that I'm left-handed, and remapped all of those to the number pad. I leveled Resto, on a PvP server, in vanilla WoW. Talk about fun. (63.6 MB. Remember when 28MB was the limit WoW would allow?)

2. May 2006. I'm 60! I'm also in the full Wildheart Rainment. I was so proud of that set. Check out the Insect Swarm on the Resto druid. This is pretty close to the layout I use to this day. My three heals on the second row there are still in the exact same place. (34.4 MB)

3. May 2007, year and 5 days after the previous shot. I'm 70! The elements of the UI (and abilities for the most part!) are all in the same place (in spite of the switch to widescreen), but the details have changed. Incidentally, you can no longer stand on that fountain that way. You can't even land on it. I have no idea why they changed it. (81 MB)

4. July 2008. I don't have a lot of shots of my druid from this time frame, so here's my rogue, who I was playing pretty heavily at the time. Again, the layout is the same but the details have changed. Also, wtf at my dps. I'm doing the same dps at 80 as I was at 70! That's just wrong. (I'm not overgeared now, but still!) I'd moved to a PvE server by this point. (79.4 MB)

5. May 2009. Back to my druid. As you can see, it still looks basically the same. This shot is extremely busy, but it works a lot better in motion, and I've gotten used to it, seeing as I've used it for oh... 4ish years at this point. The memory usage of my interface topped out around this point. You can see that it's 108.2 MB in this shot. You can blame Auctioneer for that.

6. February 2010. Once more we see the same basic scheme. It's a little simpler now than it once was in some ways, not near as hectic as the previous shot. I've gone up in resolution since then as well. You can see that even in Moonkin, my two primary heals, as well as Moonfire and Shadowmeld are in the same place they have been for the past 5 years. In Tree, even Healing Touch (which I never use) is in the same place. I have no idea how I didn't have that achievement already. (42.6 MB)

What you can't see in these shots is what's going on behind the scenes, and that's where the real changes are taking place. The look of the UI itself is pretty constant, but what makes it that way is considerably different from shot to shot. Of everything visible in these shots, I think MonkeyQuest deserves a shout out for that fact that after 5 years I'm still using it. It's in the first shot, the last shot, and every shot in between, even though you can't see it in the fifth one. It's there, just hidden. Crazyness.

EDIT: That WoW UI Gallery is pretty neat. I may have to set something up there.

up to 3 times a week.

Whenever using premade UI compilations starts to get stale, I start working on my own from scratch. I'm currently in the process of actually making a new one from scratch, and writing up my own layout for OUF, as well as doing some of my own art for stuff. If I don't get bored and abandon it, it'll likely be released.

I am more of a need-driven guy than most of you, my motto is "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". I clean up maybe once or twice a year, in general following a major content patch (or a catastrophic failure of my wow hard disk :p ).
Cleaning up means beginning from a fresh wow install and reinstalling everything from the ground up in the course of several days, I have pretty much a set list of basic addons that I selected based on their ability to withstand time (BT4, Grid and plugins, ag_UF, MSBT, Fortress for LDB display, BigWigs, Recount, Omen, Satrina Buff Frames, Power Aura, Mapster, SimpleMinimap, Aloft...) and afterward I add the fluff on a need-based basis, which means if I notice a feature I miss I look for an addon that does what I want and install it (or code it if I cannot find it).
I find using a pre-made UI is not for me (actually never downloaded one), I need to know what I install and how I install it and what features are activated and why, I am a control freak that way...

I've had 21 different UI's (And by that I mean completely different, so a redesign) the past 5 years. Though I haven't been playing actively a lot the last 2. So about 5 times a year. :)

i create a new UI every time my saved variables become corrupt enough to affect the stability of the game. that is about twice a year, plus whenever a major patch comes out (such as for an expansion).

I fiddle with mine on a roughly weekly basis. Major changes happen only once every few months.

Major changes my UI's undergone in the last year:
1) Change from Pitbull4 to StUF
2) Change from Recount and Omen at opposite ends of a 2x2 (48 buttons, 2 rows) row of action bars to Skada sitting in between a pair of 1x2 action bars (24 buttons in 2 rows on each side)
3) Moved Skada off to the side, reduce down to 24 buttons in 2 rows
4) about 40 changes in look/feel of the UF's and Castbars.

It depends.

My main problem is, I'm never 100% satisfied with a UI. Once I'm done tinkering and think I really like something, I take a stroll through my favorite "Post your UI" threads and get new ideas, so I end up tinkering again. I keep tinkering so hard eventually the end result doesn't really resemble the starting point, so it could be called a new UI, even though I developed it gradually, with small changes. I don't recall ever completely deleting my Interface/WTF folder.

There are rare cases, though, when a UI feels so good and functional and perfect and awesome that I don't really feel like changing it no matter how much I like someone else's screenshot. I think it only happened with one of my UIs, the one I made around this time last year actually. I actually kept that one for a whopping 4 months! Then ALZA released his UI, I was inspired to start working with Lua-only addons, and started tinkering again.

I'm just horribly undecided like that. I play World of UIcraft, and not ashamed to admit it :p

I had my own custom UI for the longest time, and then realized I was tinkering/updating it more than I was actually playing the game. So, I went on a spree checking out other UI compilations and just wasn't happy with anything.... until I found nUI. Can't say at this time that I would ever ditch this amazing UI! :D

I pretty much just constantly tinker around with my UI, first by adding/swapping/removing addons and then configuring them in game, but since using ncUI, now I'm starting to crack open the actual .lua files to adjust the addons to my liking, instead of swapping out addons to get something that "looks ok."

All in all though, how often I start from scratch depends on how long it takes for me to completely screw something up/see something that looks much more appealing. So anywhere from once every few months, to multiple times a week :P

I sadly change my UI almost every day :(

edit - You lie Petrah! I know!

Also - I kept the same UI for about a couple months when I initially made Svelte. Thats about it. I change my UI more than I... (edited out profanities!)

edit x 3 - What Haylie said - I change my UI over and over again slowly over time. If I see an idea, I change my UI Completely to configure this new Idea I have in my head. Only a couple UIs I have released are something that I was extremely happy about ie rect ui, Svelte, Lucid Dream, Ele UI are some of my absolute favorites and I constantly revert to them.

Too often.