Help on Mage UI (where do i start?)

[asd]

I want to create my own UI and I am a mage . The only problem is that I dont know **** about it. I tried to search it on forums and other sites but didnt found anything teaching it. So if you could help showing some addons and good stuff to create my UI, I will be thankful .

[FrankN]

Originally Posted by asd I want to create my own UI and I am a mage . The only problem is that I dont know **** about it. I tried to search it on forums and other sites but didnt found anything teaching it. So if you could help showing some addons and good stuff to create my UI, I will be thankful .

If you would be a little bit more specific on the purpose of your UI (beside being for a mage) you probably get a better response.
Do you want it for leveling, raiding, or PVP?

I do not like the default actionbars, therefore I start with an addon to modify them. In the moment I use Bartender4, but there a sveral others doing it. Not very mage specific, but I use it on my mage, too

[Dyspeptic]

Also information like: Are you..
A: A heavy key binder
B: A Binder/Clicker
C: A clicker

Do you like...
A: All information available to you from your own damage to how a healer is performing on the other side of Azeroth.
B: Only the information relative to how you are performing.
C: No information at all.....dead things speak more than recount ever could.

aaaand so on and so on. You get my point. All these things will effect how you make your UI, what you use and where you put it.

Best advice would be go check out the UI's here and see what mods are being used then take the ideas that fit your vision of a "mage UI" and start fiddling with them untill you are happy.

Like FrankN said before me I would start simple with an action bar mod (bartender4 or such.like). Once you have your action buttons positioned where you want them almost everything else falls ino place around it.

[Eas]

Just make what you want. Browse the addons and find things that interest you. Then download em, and play with their settings.

Make a UI that you like, not a UI that people tell ya to make.

[asd]

Yeah I got it... and i was trying to do it but sometimes ppl doesnt explain their UI and when i downloaded it, was just a lot of addons on the screen.

So i would like to clean my screen for PVE, starting by action bars and u guys already told to use Bartender4. What about Raid addons? Like one that shows every1 on raid... Thanks for the helpa

[MidgetMage55]

To see everyone in a raid there are a few ways you can do this. Obviously there are the default blizzard frames. Some raid specific mods for unit frames are as follows:

Perfect Raid
Grid

You can also get a unit frame mod that will allow customization of all your unit frames though these tend to take more work to get together, but the possibilities are huge for what you can get out of them:

Pitbull (curse.com download) The most up to date i could find in a quick search
oUF
oUF works a little different in that you can download presets of the layouts which are posted on this site. A simple search for oUF will get you plenty of hits. Pitbull is mostly done manually and is beneficial if you like to tinker.

The Unit mods and raid mods under the addons section of this site have tons of choices.

To add what the others have said above me, I agree that making your own UI will give you the best result. It can be time consuming depending on what you want in your UI but its certainly worth it. If you dont know where to start you could try digging through the compilations on this site and finding something close to your personal preference. Then proceed to modify it to your needs. It is a good place to start.

Be warned though once you start making your own UI's it becomes highly addictive. Im mildly embarrassed to admit that over the 8 toons i play regularly on my main server each has its own completely custom UI. It wasnt necessary but it was mighty fun making them =)

Happy modding!

[Yhor]

Originally Posted by MidgetMage55 Be warned though once you start making your own UI's it becomes highly addictive. Im mildly embarrassed to admit that over the 8 toons i play regularly on my main server each has its own completely custom UI. It wasnt necessary but it was mighty fun making them =) Happy modding!

I can testify to the truth of this statement. My actual 'gameplay' time is normally 1/3 of normal after major patches, I have a habit of going through all of my alts and creating UI's that fit my play style for each (although I rarely play on my alts, my Druid seems to be versatile enough to keep me interested). Consider yourself warned of the addictiveness that hits you once you begin creating your own UIs.

[Jzar]

lol I can't imagine how much work it must take to have a custom UI for each different alt... I've got LevelSnap that takes a screenshot every time a toon dings, and going back through the archives the other day, it was fascinating watching the evolution of my UI.

I never set out with this goal in mind, but my UI design has come to be based around making a design that works for all my classes. There are just a very few class-specific mods I use like Pally Power and Totem Timers, but everything else I've found really can fit into a universal design.

It's an entirely different challenge from making a different UI for each alt, and probably equally rewarding. The only thing I have to do when I start a new alt (which ends up being more often than I'd ever have thought) is change a few mod profiles to default, copy a few others from default, and then move a few last windows into place manually, and set some quick action buttons. Anyways, have fun, however you choose to do your UI.

[MidgetMage55]

To make my UI's i use the same core set of mods so one update fixes them all. The main thing that changes is layout. button paging, and Graphic elements they are set in to. Im a big fan of 'pretty' ui's.

From concept to finished product it takes me about 4 hours of actual work initially. though i could spend weeks searching for nifty pieces of art to pillage for my own use. I never release them publicly since i dont create the art (in panels)they use. On occasion ill post a screenie out of personal pride =)

As mentioned though its always good to set up profiles if your mods of choice permit it. Especially if you play a few different classes over time. This allows you to have slightly modified set ups if you should need it that are easy to reuse on multiple toons. If you want the same for all just make your changes (again if the mod has profiles) to default and you should get the same result for any toon you create.

[FrankN]

Originally Posted by asd So i would like to clean my screen for PVE, starting by action bars and u guys already told to use Bartender4. What about Raid addons? Like one that shows every1 on raid... Thanks for the helpa

For my mage I do not use any unit frame addon, since I do not heal I have no use for them on my mage. I use Decursive for removing curses. During a fight I normally do not rebuff with AI and for dampen/amplify magic Blizzard frames are sufficient (at least for me).

[Dyspeptic]

Personaly I use Grid for raid frames. I have it set up to show when somebody has a curse and use Clique to cast remove curse directly on the unit. Decursive is also good for this but doesnt allow for buffing which Grid+Clique does (after a little setting up).
If you aren't using a large/widescreen monitor then mods like Grid can be a nice space saver over using the Blizz default frames (especialy in 25man raids or 40man BG's).

On a side note as you are asking specificaly about a mage UI. I would suggest looking at either Cryolysis2 or Arcanum. Both these mods do pretty much the same job. They take all your non-combat mage stuff (buffs, mana gems, portals etc) and put them on an easy to use and configure sphere. This frees up a LOT of button space for mages. To see a screenie of them in action you can always check ot my UI in class specific UI's on this site http://www.wowinterface.com/download...Comatible.html It's Cryolysis2 in my UI.

[asd]

Hmmm cool beans... And how can I move or edit my mini map and chat/combat display? I am having this problem since I used bartender and I dont want to modify my UI scale. Is there an addon for it? Ty

[Yhor]

Originally Posted by asd Hmmm cool beans... And how can I move or edit my mini map and chat/combat display? I am having this problem since I used bartender and I dont want to modify my UI scale. Is there an addon for it? Ty

MoveAnything! will let you move, resize, hide and separate the features on your minimap (and minimap itself), or anything else you'd like to move (bank, profession window, etc..).

As for your chat panes, you can already do that by right clicking the tabs to unlock and configure the settings, size, and location. If the default chat doesn't let you do all that you'd like, you may want a chat mod like Prat or Phanxchat that offers more options.

Hope this helps.