Screen Shots of your UI...

[Ferous]

Originally Posted by Leitka Hehe, exactly. It's worth mentioning that of the 22 keys I have visible at any given time, exactly 3 of them don't have an associated cooldown. Unfortunately, showing only 19 has pretty bad FBS without pretty wide offsetting for me, and I'm a liiiittle bit ocd about that. :P

Im so the same way. I have to show an ammount that will fit nicely into the UI, if I have to add one, so be it >.>

But in all seriousness, I will like to make a UI in the future with little to no actionbuttons showing, Rogue UI specifically, I might ressurect Lucid Dream :O That was the real deal, for keybinders and it was pretty

Here is my old Lucid Dream if no one remembers:

[haylie]

What I like most about you Caith is that you've been using the same overall layout/design over the years. I wish I could achieve that sort of consistency in my own UI but I always see something that I like in other people's work and/or I want to try something new.

About the whole unit frame debate. The unit frames are obviously the most important part of any UI, as the purpose of this game is to bring a HP bar to zero (the target's). What I've discovered through my own UIs is that size doesn't matter as long as they stand out somehow and have a relatively central position in your UI. They need to be close enough to your character so as to not move your eyes away from the action, and they need to present information in an at-a-glance way. Also important is a strong color contrast between remaining and deficit health.

Leitka's UFs are fine size-wise, perhaps the positioning isn't as close to the character as I'd prefer it (however that depends from person to person), and in my opinion the font is a bit hard to read at first (but it becomes easier once you're used to it). Each person has a different way of getting information out of their UFs, so as long as they don't sacrifice functionality for aesthetics there's really no wrong or right way to make them.

[Wella]

Originally Posted by Ferous Im so the same way. I have to show an ammount that will fit nicely into the UI, if I have to add one, so be it >.> But in all seriousness, I will like to make a UI in the future with little to no actionbuttons showing, Rogue UI specifically, I might ressurect Lucid Dream :O That was the real deal, for keybinders and it was pretty Here is my old Lucid Dream if no one remembers:

DO EET.

Just to chip in on the whole UFs thing, I don't think having them near the middle of the screen is the most important thing about them - Blizzard certainly did not do this and this has not prevented most of the best players in the world. It's more to do with being able to get the information you need at a glance, rather than having to screw your eyes up, trying to work out exactly what's going on, then realising you're about to die. As haylie said, a strong contrast in the deficit is a big factor for this. Being able to read text immediately probably isn't quite as important, because I personally don't find myself really caring what number their health is at, just what percentage.

[haylie]

Originally Posted by Wella I don't think having them near the middle of the screen is the most important thing about them - Blizzard certainly did not do this and this has not prevented most of the best players in the world. It's more to do with being able to get the information you need at a glance

Ah, but the best way to get information at a glance is exactly why they should be in a central position.

Let's do a little exercise. Turn off your monitor, go take a 5 minute walk around the house/office/whatever, and when you come back look at your monitor and pay close attention to where your eyes land at a first glance. For most people it's the exact center of the screen. That's where your eyes are focused most of the time.

Now mark that point with a sicker or something and draw a horizontal and vertical line from that point. These lines represent the places on your screen where your eyes can move the fastest to see what's going on. Moving the eye left-right, up-down is infinitely easier and faster than moving it from the center to the top left, top right, or any other oblique position. This is especially the case with widescreen monitors. Try it. You'll see I'm right.

That's where the standard UI failed. That's why you see so many people put unit frames to the right, left or beneath their characters. It's the fastest and most efficient way of gathering information from them. The only reason Blizzard made the default UI the way it is is to keep the center of the screen clear so you can clearly see your character. Blizzard designed the game so the focus isn't on the UI itself, but on the game world. Theoretically, you're supposed to be staring at the game and not at the UI

[Wella]

I know of this idea - or 'exercise' - very well and, fyi, it's further down than the exact centre of the screen. Also, I think you're trying to state this whole thing as a fact - it really comes down to personal preference. Sure, you could use science to say that it takes 0.01 seconds less to look at the centre of the screen than towards the edge, but if someone has grown used to Blizzard's UI, for example, then I don't see what difference it would make - skill in this game is barely affected by how far away your unit frames are from the centre of the screen, which is why I believe a custom UI should only be there to make things look nicer or more simple, instead of try and drastically improve the functionality of Blizzard's UI, which I have been used to for some time now and have not found myself dying in BGs more often.

But as you said, Blizzard wants us to be focusing on the game world, with the UI only there to give us what info we need as well as complementing the visual style of the game - because of that, I generally tend to put aesthetics before functionality. But that's just me.

[Leitka]

For what it's worth, the bottom-center is actually in the average players typical view, as the bottom-center portion of the UI tends to be directly "beneath" the action as it were.
If the concern is truly on them being in the most stand-out places possible, though, you don't actually want them down the center at all, but along any of the center four vertices that you're left with if you divide the screen space into 9 equal rectangles. Of course, we compromise this rule since the center tends to be the character location and it seems most logical, however from an 'at-a-glance' standpoint, rule of thirds is probably one of the most viable options.
...Just sayin'. :P

Anyway, here's a somewhat disorganized raid shot. Ignore the unsightly little faceroller window, was playing with it on an alt before raid and forgot to disable it.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/9...1510195640.jpg

As you can see though, my focal point tends to be in the lower central arch beneath my characters feet. As such it's easy to verify if I'm standing in the bad stuff with ease while never losing. One thing I feel I should mention is that regardless of raid role, at this point, it's probably kind of silly to not use any raid frames at all. The reason being that part of Blizzard's current encounter design philosophy is a pretty high co-dependence on other players actions (for example, Blood-Queen bites, Heroic Putricide's plague and the like)
My pet bar mirrors the location of the focus bar, in case anyone was curious as to where it pops up.

[Wella]

The thing I like about your UI is how compact everything is - you've managed to find a neat little spot for just about everything. Some of the textures and whatnot still seem a little odd to me, but that's probably just me. I'd play with the raid frame icons if I were you, they seem a little too big and... without a border. Also, timers/OmniCC probably isn't too important here, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, what's the name of that weird-looking spell timer? Well, whatever it is, I recognise it and I really hate those white lines. They look really disorganised and out of place. If I were you, I'd take the time to customise an SBF frame with all the specific buffs and debuffs you want to track. You can apply borders to the bars with KgPanels, if necessary. Much cleaner that way, in my opinion.

Also, I completely agree about the raid frames. I don't see why anyone would want to disable them entirely, even if they're a DPS - it would put you at too much risk, in my opinion. The risk of not knowing what's going on at a crucial moment, for example. Also, just cause you're a DPS doesn't mean you have to pay no attention to the rest of the group. I guess DPS can save the day sometimes, too. ;)

[Leitka]

Originally Posted by Wella The thing I like about your UI is how compact everything is - you've managed to find a neat little spot for just about everything. Some of the textures and whatnot still seem a little odd to me, but that's probably just me. I'd play with the raid frame icons if I were you, they seem a little too big and... without a border. Also, timers/OmniCC probably isn't too important here, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, my raid frames tend to have very little work put into them. Mostly due to how big of a pita it is to edit them outside of a raid environment. As Horde on Stormstrike, can't really rely on playing with it in BGs since my average queue is like 20 minutes.
Icons are gigantic since the only times knowing if someone is debuffed or not is important to me is almost always a life/death scenario, or life/mind-controlled :P

Also, what's the name of that weird-looking spell timer? Well, whatever it is, I recognise it and I really hate those white lines. They look really disorganised and out of place. If I were you, I'd take the time to customise an SBF frame with all the specific buffs and debuffs you want to track. You can apply borders to the bars with KgPanels, if necessary. Much cleaner that way, in my opinion.

That's EventHorizon. This is definitely a case of functionality over form, as I've never liked the way it looks. The functionality it has however is just a lot better than standard timers to me, as they're relational (i.e., two abilities with different durations are not going to be the same max length, it's side-scrolling rather than being bars that count down. Once something passes the white line, it has expired. The smaller white tick marks indicate individual ticks of damage from that spell)

Also, I completely agree about the raid frames. I don't see why anyone would want to disable them entirely, even if they're a DPS - it would put you at too much risk, in my opinion. The risk of not knowing what's going on at a crucial moment, for example. Also, just cause you're a DPS doesn't mean you have to pay no attention to the rest of the group. I guess DPS can save the day sometimes, too.

Yeah, pretty much. There are times where you really won't need to look at them, but the times you will need them are invaluable. Even on fights with no special debuff in-play, it can be kind of handy to know just exactly who is still alive when dealing with low percentage wipes and stuff of that nature. Easier to know when to use a panic-button cooldown that way that can potentially save the fight, for example when its a good idea to evasion-tank or for one of the warriors to toss on a shield.

[haylie]

Originally Posted by Wella I know of this idea - or 'exercise' - very well and, fyi, it's further down than the exact centre of the screen. Also, I think you're trying to state this whole thing as a fact - it really comes down to personal preference. Sure, you could use science to say that it takes 0.01 seconds less to look at the centre of the screen than towards the edge, but if someone has grown used to Blizzard's UI, for example, then I don't see what difference it would make - skill in this game is barely affected by how far away your unit frames are from the centre of the screen, which is why I believe a custom UI should only be there to make things look nicer or more simple, instead of try and drastically improve the functionality of Blizzard's UI, which I have been used to for some time now and have not found myself dying in BGs more often. But as you said, Blizzard wants us to be focusing on the game world, with the UI only there to give us what info we need as well as complementing the visual style of the game - because of that, I generally tend to put aesthetics before functionality. But that's just me.

Your view on custom UIs is so far off mine that I'm not even going to try to debate it since it'll probably turn into a flame war or something. So let's just agree that we -completely- disagree and leave it at that

About the raid frames, I guess it just comes down to personal preference (isn't it always like that?). Personally I have never encountered a situation where having raid frames made the difference between a wipe and a kill. Then again, I don't tank, I can't heal, I don't lead raids, I don't have any significant OH**** buttons, DXE warns me about anyone having a buff so urgent that it requires the attention of the entire raid not just the healers, when the tank dies he's usually my focus so I can see he's dead on the focus frame, and you can generally tell when a person is dead or not by looking at their character. Actually, not having raid frames can very well make you look at the game world rather than at a UI. Nifty, huh?

In fact, as far as I know in the beginning the game didn't even have any default raid frames. Blizzard only added them after an addon did and it was more for healer's sake than anything else. So I guess the game wasn't really intended to be played with raid frames from the start

[Wella]

NO. I WANT TO FLAME.

But on a serious note, I get what you're saying about raid frames, I just think it seems really odd not to have them. Then again, if I went back in time a few months and showed myself my current UI, my previous self would think it was bloody strange. Maybe it's something I can try and get used to.

Similarly, earlier today, whilst I was testing my UI in a random dungeon, taking down notes of what needed changing as I went along, I noticed that I hadn't configured the action bars at all - they were hidden entirely. I did pretty much fine without them, with a couple of annoying moments. Just an interesting thought.

[Politig]

I've noticed what makes UI's so unique is always something little about them that separates them from other UI's. Haylie's lack of raid frames (which is crazy to me) helps define his UI. Caith and his infamous borders do that as well. RealUI has those completely original unit frames. TukUI is all about memory usage, not to mention looks slick. Currently, I'm working with kgPanels textures to create something (a design, a unique feature) to enhance my own UI and set it above the rest. Right now though, it just looks like another way to take common addons and played around with settings.

[Kendian]

Changed some small details, with help from alot of people here, but basically the same. I click, therefore I am! Anyhow C&C is always welcome~

[mankeluvsit]

something im working on.

[Wella]

Pretty good Kendian, not a fan of those opaque, black backgrounds behind the orbs or the borders on the left and right sides of the screen, but you make use of good font and texture combinations.

Mankulvsit, it's all very nice and clean, with sweet pixel fonts, but some parts seem a bit overcrowded - the icons in the middle of the screen are a bit too big, the greyed out auras should probably be displayed on their own near the top of the screen (if you rarely need to look at them, why have them so close to the ones you need to track?) and it's a bit weird having all those auras above the minimap. Again, move them to the top of the screen, I'd say. Looks promising, though.

Edit:
A new concept I'm playing around with at the moment. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. Funnily enough, this links back to the whole 'centred frames' argument. :P




Note: the action bars are going to be moved at some point.

[mankeluvsit]

Originally Posted by Wella Pretty good Kendian, not a fan of those opaque, black backgrounds behind the orbs or the borders on the left and right sides of the screen, but you make use of good font and texture combinations. Mankulvsit, it's all very nice and clean, with sweet pixel fonts, but some parts seem a bit overcrowded - the icons in the middle of the screen are a bit too big, the greyed out auras should probably be displayed on their own near the top of the screen (if you rarely need to look at them, why have them so close to the ones you need to track?) and it's a bit weird having all those auras above the minimap. Again, move them to the top of the screen, I'd say. Looks promising, though. Edit: A new concept I'm playing around with at the moment. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. Funnily enough, this links back to the whole 'centred frames' argument. :P Note: the action bars are going to be moved at some point.

i like having my action buttons bigger then anything on the ui. i have alot of things in progress with this. in the ss i dont have dbm, dxe, nothing like that. im only 300kb right now and im trying my best to keep minimal (even though my pc has no problems) i dont ever look at the top of my screen, unless i really have to. i dont heal, i dont tank. i dps more than anything. most of my inspiration is from nin and led++, thanks to nin with his snippet he sent me the other day, i got into alpha backgrounds <3.

your unit frames are......different

[Wella]

Well if it's personal preference that's fine, but I'm just saying that some parts of the screen really do look cluttered. You probably don't look at the top of the screen because there's barely anything there and it would be a fine use of space, in my opinion, to put things there which you might need from time to time but don't need glaring in your face.

Also, thanks for the insightful reply. >_>

[maurdr]

Originally Posted by Wella Pretty good Kendian, not a fan of those opaque, black backgrounds behind the orbs or the borders on the left and right sides of the screen, but you make use of good font and texture combinations. Mankulvsit, it's all very nice and clean, with sweet pixel fonts, but some parts seem a bit overcrowded - the icons in the middle of the screen are a bit too big, the greyed out auras should probably be displayed on their own near the top of the screen (if you rarely need to look at them, why have them so close to the ones you need to track?) and it's a bit weird having all those auras above the minimap. Again, move them to the top of the screen, I'd say. Looks promising, though. Edit: A new concept I'm playing around with at the moment. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. Funnily enough, this links back to the whole 'centred frames' argument. :P Note: the action bars are going to be moved at some point.

what minimap addon is that?

Originally Posted by Kendian Changed some small details, with help from alot of people here, but basically the same. I click, therefore I am! Anyhow C&C is always welcome~

my only comment would be if you click then hide the keybind text on your buttons.

[Politig]

Wella, go on with that UI. I'm a huge opposer to pixel fonts, but i like the whole huge unitframes but tucked away at the bottom concept. And what nameplate addon are you using, or did you just edit the way names are displayed? I like how they pop out of the game world

[dr_AllCOM3]

Originally Posted by Wella Edit: A new concept I'm playing around with at the moment. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. Funnily enough, this links back to the whole 'centred frames' argument. :P Note: the action bars are going to be moved at some point.

What nameplates are those? Looks like someone ripped off mine .

[haylie]

Originally Posted by Wella A new concept I'm playing around with at the moment. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. Funnily enough, this links back to the whole 'centred frames' argument. :P http://i49.tinypic.com/r0nllj.jpg http://i49.tinypic.com/16ljvys.jpg

You did NOT just do that :-(

I'd probably forgive you if at least the target frame would be even remotely close to your character, but...this...this is just MADNESS!