Compilation Crisis

[rgweiss1003]

What has happened to compilations? Everyone and their sister is uploading their's regardless of the fact the majority are first time compilations and only a select few know wth they're doing.

Trying to find a long term project or well known author is becoming more and more difficult, because you have to weed through tons of crap nowadays. Guess that's what happens when the real UI compilations aren't updated in a timely manner. You get all the scrubs trying to fill in the gaps?

[Zyonin]

So start your own. Its really not that difficult to create your UI compilation and with the advent of the various mod updaters (WoWAceUpdater, WoWUIUpater, jWoWUpdater, etc. Of course don't forget WoWInterface's upater!) its extremely easy keep the mods updated. It will take anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours depending the mods and what you are customizing to create your own custom UI. Then the only person you have to yell at to keep this UI updated is yourself.

[Gemini_II]

I tend to have to agree. There are simply tons of compilations out there nowadays. When I started GUI there were only a dozen or so, now there are hundreds. Meh.

[MidgetMage55]

Popularity will do that. Addons have become much more popular in the past year. More support for the community also comes with a price, in this case a flood of very similar if not virtually identical Compilations.

I dont see this as a bad thing. Just makes the better ones truly shine in comparison.

[Gemini_II]

Good point. I'm not out here for huge numbers or anything, lol. I mean I made my compilation for friends and guildies who have since spread it around a bit. I don't have a do-everything-automagically-for-me button, but I'll support anything I package.

There's now a compilation for everything, from class-specific, to raid, to arena. Only downside is alot of identical and poorly thrown together suites. The community is very good indeed; keeps me interested.

[gothicknight]

The fact there are alot of compilations is fine, but it would be so much better the they all werent the same. The looks of alot of the comps out there a rips of other peoples UI's just maybe with a different color or a shifted piece of artwork. There are very few Original and creative UI's out there.

[MidgetMage55]

I can agree to that. I think you find the majority of your most inspired designers during the early incarnations of a game. As time goes on some of those folks stay (Im not going to point out specific people as my tastes are my own) and some move on.

Just the normal cycle of any game. Eventually someone gets an idea. Runs with it and it becomes the next big thing. It gets copied and 'reworked' or 'revived' a bunch of times. And many of us who dont have the skill to do this truly appreciate it. Then people move on. In the current market those now ideas shine like a gnome hit by a fireball.

If you feel you have a solid idea or something that will really 'wow'.... the community now is your time to shine. Otherwise you just have to wait for the next thing to come around.

[Cairenn]

Well, speaking of compilation crisis, as some of you may have noticed already, we kind of agree with you guys in a way. To that end we're splitting up the category into various sub-categories. Suggestions on sub-cats you think might be needed are welcome. If you are a compilation compiler, feel free to ask any of the site staff to move your compilation to a specific sub-category. We're going through them as we have time, but there are a lot of them.

[rgweiss1003]

Your comments are appreciated. I'm not trying to knock anyone for trying, and in fact I currently keep my own UI up to date but I would never post it as a stable compilation for the masses to use. Namely because of the same reasons pointed out by many.

I won't point fingers or name names, but it seems only a select few actually their own code, clean code, and seamlessly present their addition to an existing MOD. So many of the comps out there now are resource hogs and are simply made to "work", usually with buggrabber thrown in. I guess I'm just tired of seeing a bunch of crap. Then again, what is crap to me is probably a diamond to someone else ~ so meh to popularity in this fashoin and hoorah WoW Interface for trying to sort things out.

[Zyonin]

OK regarding added your custom coded stuff to a compilation, yes it is pretty rare. This largely due coding ablities. Although it's fairly easy to put together a compilation out of existing mods, and using those mods configs to create custome setups, however using custom coded mods is a bit trickier as it requires some knowledge of Lua which many people do not have. It also requires a fair bit of patience to debug such code as sometimes when you think you have squashed one bug only to realize that you created another. I know, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Thus many addon pack authors are not going to put that kind of work into a compilation. Props to those who do such as Mazzle, Lyn and others.

[doc309]

hmm... crisis? bit of an overstatement ...
ive posted two compliations here that are probably considered part of the problem. both are acknowledged ( and credited ) as being derivate work.
i don't have the skills to go in and change lua. i salute those that do. i came to addons by the forums reading and looking for advice to improve my game play and enjoyment. bumped into Discord shortly before it died and loved some of the UI's i found there ( Chin's Minimalist Series (or Shin i cant remember, sorry)). a lot of UI's on the discord site, i just didn't like. but scrolling thru and finding a diamond in a field of mud.....
i found mazzle and was in awe. OMG automagic configuring for all my toons i started to add in mods that i prefered to the stock mazzle.
i bumped into Shadows UI series .. now defunct. i merged what i liked from mazzle and what i liked from there. changed the look a bit and the addon list even more. got eveything sitting pretty and posted a boss kill screenshot on my guilds website. guildies asked me where i found the UI, could they get it ... etc
i uploaded it.
next i bumped into caith's UI -- once again taking what i liked best from what i had, and what i liked in the new UI.
patch season comes some addons get broke, a new "must have" addon comes along, etc.
reupload
so like a mad scientist cross breeding orchids --- i will continue to find new bits and pieces add in. some of them graphic, some of the functional ... and ill probably reupload when i get to then next place im content with everything.

yes there's lots of compliations. and everyone will have opinions...
crisis? nope... just more material for mad scientists

Doc

[Gemini_II]

Yeah not a crisis, but... cluttered perhaps?

I knew MazzleUI would come up eventually. It's a good example. Mazzle had the knowledge and ambition to code the Mazzifier. Awesome idea and kudos for it (it took a heckuvalot of work to keep it updated and working). Other than that there was almost nothing I found aesthetically pleasing about that layout (which is the beauty of choice in such a strong community).

I think this may have spoiled alot of users into thinking that all addons and compilations should do exactly this, which I disagree with, but meh.

My first bunch of addons was Cosmos way-back in the day. Then I found Discord and was in love. From there I just started to play and experiment, and learned everything I know now.

@Cairenn: Great idea on sub-categories. I know another site (*cough* Curse *cough*) that has their split into User Compilations and Guild Compilations. That would be a good start.

It might sound harsh, but some compilations are still thrown together by "zip up half my WoW folder and call it work" style, which will include BlizzardUI elements and other such nonsense. I freely admit that many compilations don't require rocket science, but if you can't spend enough time to even test and clean up the packaging... Disallow?

EDIT: Just saw the compilations subs.... revising my suggestion to: "please add Class-Specific"

[rgweiss1003]

Originally Posted by Gemini_II It might sound harsh, but some compilations are still thrown together by "zip up half my WoW folder and call it work" style, which will include BlizzardUI elements and other such nonsense. I freely admit that many compilations don't require rocket science, but if you can't spend enough time to even test and clean up the packaging... Disallow?

Again, I can't knock anyone for trying but ... I am melodramatic to begin, hence Crisis.

I like the sub categories as well, including the class specific idea Gem. I certainly do not envy the person(s) in charge of this task. Because as we all know there is indeed a ton to sort out.

Cheers.

ADDENDUM:

crisis? nope... just more material for mad scientists

lawl, I chuckled

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Cairenn Well, speaking of compilation crisis, as some of you may have noticed already, we kind of agree with you guys in a way. To that end we're splitting up the category into various sub-categories. Suggestions on sub-cats you think might be needed are welcome. If you are a compilation compiler, feel free to ask any of the site staff to move your compilation to a specific sub-category. We're going through them as we have time, but there are a lot of them.

Would you, could you, if you pretty please, find some way to also have a category for screen rez's? This is the main reason why I either fiddle with one specific UI, or my boyfriends UI.

It's a major pain in the arse to find a UI that you like, only to find out it doesn't work with your screen rez. I think that bugs me more than anything else.

*Edit*
I should probably add this as well; there may not be many original UI's created simply because the tutorials for tools like Skinner and Eepanels, well, suck. I use to write tuts and I can say without a doubt that someone needs to rewrite those addon tuts. If they were easier to follow, more people would be creating their own designs. As it is, the existing tuts are geared towards someone who already has a grasp on what they're doing.. not the newbie.

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by Silenia Would you, could you, if you pretty please, find some way to also have a category for screen rez's? This is the main reason why I either fiddle with one specific UI, or my boyfriends UI. It's a major pain in the arse to find a UI that you like, only to find out it doesn't work with your screen rez. I think that bugs me more than anything else.

We have been thinking of the best way to go about this. All UIs are really designed around the user's resolution/aspect ratio. Some support multiple ones, some specifically state that it is for only one, others don't say at all what it was made for. I, personally, would hate to sort some UIs into a "Resolution Specific" category when they also belong in the category for Graphics or Minimalism. I feel like that would make people search in two places to find the UI they want.

Rest assured, though, that we are aware of the need to sort by resolution, we're just thinking of the best way to go about it.

[Mazzlefizz]

I'm not sure how that area of the web site is implemented and how hard this would be technically, but here's my suggestion. Instead of asking authors to specify a specific category, allow add-ons to specify a set of attributes they meet. Logical conjunctions of these attributes could then be organized into a hierarchy of virtual categories, which would be designed by hand. This would be a much more powerful system. One compilation could then easily fall into multiple categories, and users could perform meaningful searches and browse much more specific and useful categories. This would also require far less manual re-categorization of all the current compilations.

[Dolby]

Originally Posted by Mazzlefizz I'm not sure how that area of the web site is implemented and how hard this would be technically, but here's my suggestion. Instead of asking authors to specify a specific category, allow add-ons to specify a set of attributes they meet. Logical conjunctions of these attributes could then be organized into a hierarchy of virtual categories, which would be designed by hand. This would be a much more powerful system. One compilation could then easily fall into multiple categories, and users could perform meaningful searches and browse much more specific and useful categories. This would also require far less manual re-categorization of all the current compilations.

The way we store files is being changed to allow this hopefully in the near future. We just have one very large project to finish first before we can move ahead with this.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Seerah We have been thinking of the best way to go about this. All UIs are really designed around the user's resolution/aspect ratio. Some support multiple ones, some specifically state that it is for only one, others don't say at all what it was made for. Rest assured, though, that we are aware of the need to sort by resolution, we're just thinking of the best way to go about it.

Ahhhh very cool.

Originally Posted by Seerah I, personally, would hate to sort some UIs into a "Resolution Specific" category when they also belong in the category for Graphics or Minimalism. I feel like that would make people search in two places to find the UI they want.

I was thinking more along the lines of something like;

Compilations & Suites
  Graphical
    800x600
    1024x768
    1280x1024
  Minimalistic
    800x600
    etcetera

I know there's more screen rez's, and some that don't mention what screen rez their UI is (add more screen rez sub cats, add an unknown rez sub cat?). I'm sure there's a better way... just tossing that out there.

[Gemini_II]

If I understand Mazzle's idea, it would be similar to the meta-tags that Curse uses. That would be pretty nifty methinks.

I would disagree with organizing compilations into resolution categories, simply due to the inaccuracy and amount of work that would be involved. Much better to use a meta-tag or even a new info field when submitting.

/me wonders what super-secret ultra-top-secret project Dolby's working on...

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by Gemini_II super-secret ultra-top-secret

hehehe