Reader UI of the Week: Taeo
Never fear, folks! We have heard your requests. Many folks figured since the Reader WoWspace column was back, it was time to check out some new Reader UI's too! So this week I've foraged through the spammy depths of the Reader UI mailbox, and returned to you with some screen shots, a story, and a rundown of the mods involved in this really fabulous, clean UI sent in by Taeo.
So for those of you looking for cool new UI ideas, or who just appreciate lots of clutter-free screen real estate, check out this week's submission after the jump!
Taeo is a level 70 Gnome Mage with the guild <Epiphany>, which is located on Spinebreaker. As if having a really nice and clean UI and bright colors in his screen shots weren't enough to catch the eye, his actual computer setup (to be featured in an upcoming Reader WoWspace) involves gaming on a 37" HDTV that I admit being supremely jealous of. For those curious, he's running at a resolution of 1920x1080. I don't know if that's native on an HDTV of that size, but I do know it looks really sweet.
Taeo says that his general theme is to "try to go for a very pleasing aesthetic design without cluttering the screen too much with useless information." I can't say as I blame him. One of the things I truly hate on my screen is unneeded clutter and buttons or boxes that I know I'll never use. He further explains that the bottom background "panel" for his UI was something created in Photoshop using a Windows Blinds theme based on a design by JJ Ying. From there the textures were brought into WoW and further manipulated using Discord Art.
Here's the rest of the specs of this lovely clean UI from Taeo directly:
If you'd like to show off your UI to the world, why not drop a mail with screen shots, information on what your UI is all about, and what mods you're running and why to readerui@gmail.com? Who knows -- you might inspire others to go clean up their UI (kind of like I'm about to do) and turn others on to some really good mods!
*edited to add*
Taeo contacted me directly, and has agreed to release a compilation -- BUT... please keep in mind that it was developed for an extremely high resolution, so anyone under 1920x1080 will most have to tweak this UI heavily.
link - http://www.momentummediaservice s.com/taeo/TaeoUI.zip
If you are not fairly comfortable tweaking your own UI's I would not mess with this UI unless you are fond of headaches. I don't know of any way to package it neatly so all you're getting is the raw UI files and some basic instructions. Use at your own risk! Also I should note that the UI is designed for a very high wide screen resolution. You WILL have to move/resize some objects if you have a smaller resolution.
instructions
1) Delete your Interface and WTF folder backing them up if neccesary.
2) Extract the contents of the zip file to your WoW directory.
3) Browse to and open the "WTF" folder in your WoW directory.
4) Open the "Account" folder. You should see a folder named "YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME_HERE". Rename it accordingly.
5) Open that folder and rename the "Your_Server_Name_Here" folder.
6) Open THAT folder and rename the "Your_Character_Name_Here" folder.
7) Load up WoW.
8) Once in game type "/dart".
9) Click on "Misc Options".
10) Click the drop down menu next to "Load Profile" and choose "Taeo Tech AGUF".
11) Click "Load"
12) Good luck. You're on your own from there. The rest should be easy to figure out if it still doesn't look right.
So for those of you looking for cool new UI ideas, or who just appreciate lots of clutter-free screen real estate, check out this week's submission after the jump!
Taeo is a level 70 Gnome Mage with the guild <Epiphany>, which is located on Spinebreaker. As if having a really nice and clean UI and bright colors in his screen shots weren't enough to catch the eye, his actual computer setup (to be featured in an upcoming Reader WoWspace) involves gaming on a 37" HDTV that I admit being supremely jealous of. For those curious, he's running at a resolution of 1920x1080. I don't know if that's native on an HDTV of that size, but I do know it looks really sweet.
Taeo says that his general theme is to "try to go for a very pleasing aesthetic design without cluttering the screen too much with useless information." I can't say as I blame him. One of the things I truly hate on my screen is unneeded clutter and buttons or boxes that I know I'll never use. He further explains that the bottom background "panel" for his UI was something created in Photoshop using a Windows Blinds theme based on a design by JJ Ying. From there the textures were brought into WoW and further manipulated using Discord Art.
Here's the rest of the specs of this lovely clean UI from Taeo directly:
Much of the rest of the UI you can see consists of Ace2 mods. The bars are handled by Bartender3 with a slight face lift from CyCircled's glossy Onyx texture. Every ability in the bottom panel is hotkeyed while the smaller bank of bars on the right are usually clicked. I could probably compress a lot of the Mage abilities on the right side bars but old habits are hard to break.
AGUF handles all of the unit frames including the raid. In between the Self and Target frames are the ToT frame and the Focus frame. As a Mage the ability to actually view the focus frame (with a casting bar) is incredibly helpful for Sheep and Counterspell.
Other Addons:
- Advanced Trade skill Window: Vastly expanded and movable trade skill window.
- Arena Master: Essential for arena.
- Bagnon: Very simple and clean all in one inventory/bank mod.
- Cartographer: Excellent map mod. Displays Herb and Mining nodes.
- ClearFont2: Allows you to change the default Blizzard fonts in game.
- Confab: Provides some convenient chat functionality.
- Deadly Boss Mods: Shows timers and warnings for boss fights.
- eCastingBar: Movable and skinnable casting bar.
- FuBar: Provides quick access to essential game information.
- HitsMode: Easily readable combat log.
- ItemRack: Allows quick gear set switching.
- KLH ThreatMeter: Helps your tanks keep aggro and helps you avoid it!
- MobHealth: Provides estimates of a mob, player, or boss's health.
- MonkeyQuest: Best quest log mod I've yet found.
- Prat: Adds lots of chat options.
- RatingBuster: Converts ratings to percentages and allows easy gear comparison.
- SCT: Shows damage dealt to you near your character's avatar.
- SimpleMinimap: Stripped down and movable minimap.
- SellAlert: Shows warnings for incoming spells. Useful for PvP and bosses.
- SW_Stats: Damage meter. See how well you're performing in raids.
- TipBuddy: Shows a more detailed tool tip at the cursor.
- WoWEcon: Provides average AH prices for nearly all items.
If you'd like to show off your UI to the world, why not drop a mail with screen shots, information on what your UI is all about, and what mods you're running and why to readerui@gmail.com? Who knows -- you might inspire others to go clean up their UI (kind of like I'm about to do) and turn others on to some really good mods!
*edited to add*
Taeo contacted me directly, and has agreed to release a compilation -- BUT... please keep in mind that it was developed for an extremely high resolution, so anyone under 1920x1080 will most have to tweak this UI heavily.
link - http://www.momentummediaservice
If you are not fairly comfortable tweaking your own UI's I would not mess with this UI unless you are fond of headaches. I don't know of any way to package it neatly so all you're getting is the raw UI files and some basic instructions. Use at your own risk! Also I should note that the UI is designed for a very high wide screen resolution. You WILL have to move/resize some objects if you have a smaller resolution.
instructions
1) Delete your Interface and WTF folder backing them up if neccesary.
2) Extract the contents of the zip file to your WoW directory.
3) Browse to and open the "WTF" folder in your WoW directory.
4) Open the "Account" folder. You should see a folder named "YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME_HERE". Rename it accordingly.
5) Open that folder and rename the "Your_Server_Name_Here" folder.
6) Open THAT folder and rename the "Your_Character_Name_Here" folder.
7) Load up WoW.
8) Once in game type "/dart".
9) Click on "Misc Options".
10) Click the drop down menu next to "Load Profile" and choose "Taeo Tech AGUF".
11) Click "Load"
12) Good luck. You're on your own from there. The rest should be easy to figure out if it still doesn't look right.
Filed under: Features, Reader UI of the Week
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![[Taeo's UI. Nice and clean with lots of viewing room!]](http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2007/07/teaobird_sm.jpg)










Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)
Taeo Aug 6th 2007 2:09AM
@72.lothy
I'm not sure about that Bagnon issue. I would have thought getting rid of the WTF files would have solved the issue. Sorry :-(
@77.Ves
You move the "shiny" thing with DART. The texture name is "Map Trans".
@80.citroid
I think you're referring to FuBar. I haven't actually move the map icons, i've just gotten the FuBar plugins for the mods. Grab FuBar and it will make sense.
Usul Aug 6th 2007 2:07PM
Taeo,
I have imported your textures (l,c,rpanel and sidebar) into eePanels and have been configuring it ever since. I currently have a scaled version of it running on a minimum amount of mods (Bongos, Fubar, SMM and a few other minor ACE ones).
With your permission, I would like to release this back to the community (once its done). In the end, I would like to use your inspiration and textures to provide an easy to use setup for the most common resolutions.
The only thing I have tried replicating from the base TaeoUI that I can't seem to recreate is the large damage font used in SCT. I tried copying over your LUAs from it, to no avail. Is there a secondary mod playing with the damage numbers? Is there a way to have "crits" appear differently?
Thanks again for the wonderful work on these beautiful textures and your keen eye for making WoW a more beautiful experience.
- Usul
PS: Here is what my setup looked like. I will probably be switching to Bartender so that all mods are ACE related, and therefore WoW Ace Updater would work for it :)
http://www.divshare.com/download/1484826-bf5
Taeo Aug 7th 2007 9:15AM
@82.usul
I apologize but I would prefer that it not be released into the community. Call me selfish if you would like :-P
As for the damage font, it is not controlled by SCT. Blizzard's default damage font is being manipulated by ClearFont. The font itself is called Hotel Coral Essex.
Flitch Aug 7th 2007 10:28AM
What addon sends quest updates to the party chat? I've loved pretty much everything about the UI, but this can be pretty annoying to other people. =P
Flitch Aug 7th 2007 10:53AM
Nevermind, its Quest Announce, I dunno why I didnt see it there before.
Usul Aug 7th 2007 6:36PM
"I apologize but I would prefer that it not be released into the community. Call me selfish if you would like :-P
As for the damage font, it is not controlled by SCT. Blizzard's default damage font is being manipulated by ClearFont. The font itself is called Hotel Coral Essex."
Thanks for the heads up.
I'm sorry you feel that way :( I will see if I can whip up something similar on my own using Photoshop for the ACE community.
Thank you very much for the inspiration. Your hard work and effort have convinced me to get into the UI game because you have proven that it can be done right!
idburns Aug 8th 2007 1:03PM
KTM sucks, Omen is sooo much better and since the guy is already using Ace2 there is no reason not to use Omen.
Omen - multiple mob tracking and much less of a resource hog. Those 2 reasons alone are enough reason to ditch KTM. But, if people insist on using KTM it's compatible.
eMarkM Aug 16th 2007 10:37AM
I got it working with 1680x1050. It's definitely a project you have to set aside a couple hours for, but absolutely worth it. Some things gets screwed up, like ItemRack since it's all set to Taeo's mage and he has some other Mage add-ons I don't need. I like Bongos instead of Bartender, etc. Once you get the hang of /dart interface, you can move around the background art to your liking.
Here's mine now: http://www.bob-guild.org/images/WoWScrnShot_081507_162753_1024x640.jpg
Korynthe Sep 25th 2007 6:55AM
Yea, seriously .. going through all the past UI's of the week and upon seeing this one .. my eyes grew huge, my jaw dropped down, and my pulse quickened with anticipation...
This is THE most beautiful and clean UI I have EVER seen .. Major Kudos to Taeo for putting together this package for us all .. I shall definately be using this .. hopefully ^.^
Eskimio Oct 8th 2007 12:10AM
This is an amazing UI for many reasons. One, which gave me quite a laugh at the time, is that I (only a few hours ago) reinstalled Windows on this computer. So, I went around trying to find a new WindowBlind theme. My search subsequently took me to JJYing's Background, WindowBlind Theme and Logon screen. After installing the trio, I went about reinstalling WoW and came here while I waited. I found your comment on JJYing being the inspiration for your UI. =] Pretty neat imo. And the second reason for this UI being so amazing is its fluid integration into WoW. The bottom-center console has all the necessities while the less-used and not-as-critical objects were pushed to the outside (raid icons in top-left, party on bottom-left, buffs on bottom-right and extra action-bar on right). Overall, i'm jealous of your prowess in UI capabilites. Now, being 77% done downloading all the patches for WoW and it being midnight. I'm very much NOT looking forward to tinkering with this UI to make it fit my 1280x1024 monitor. =P Nevertheless, I will persevere and end my day with a beautiful WoW UI that will match my computer's theme as a whole. Thankyou very much for such a wonderful UI Taeo.
(Ramble much? To much time on my hands waiting for those darned patches to dl... >_
Taeo Oct 8th 2007 6:22PM
Thanks for the compliments guys.
For those interested, I'll likely be releasing a new version of the UI sometime this week. The last round of patches broke a few of the mods I use. I've also replaced several of the mods I used with better alternatives such as AGUF -> Pitbull.
I'll comment here when it is complete.
Snapphanen Oct 16th 2007 8:40PM
I really like your UI, Taeo. I downloaded it and after many hours of work I got it working at 1280x1024. I'm just having one problem at the moment, thought. The item tooltip has stopped working! I've been looking through the AddOns-folder but I don't know which addon you are using that can be causing this bug. It's quite annoying because I got no idea what items I have now, lol.
thefrek Oct 26th 2007 12:31PM
@Taeo: Since you're remaking the UI, would it be possible to make different versions for it for different resolutions? It would certainly relieve many readers' headaches.
bugpig Nov 28th 2007 9:59PM
it so beautiful,I love it very much