Reader UI of the Week: Crazyates' UI Mk.II
by Mathew McCurley 
May 4th 2010 at 9:00PM
Welcome to Reader UI of the Week. You might remember Crazyate's UI a few weeks back (April 6, 2010, to be exact). Crazyates had a problem -- too much stuff in too little of a space. SpartanUI was a large culprit, and his unit frames in general were unwieldy. Today, we revisit Crazyates' UI in a Reader UI of the Week success story and show you how user interface drab becomes user interface fab! My strength is returning! Read on, heroes!
Followups to Reader UI of the Week columns are very much encouraged. Crazyates, how have things been since we last heard from you?
Wow! Look what a little bit of work can do to a user interface that was too messy for its own britches. Let's go over some of Crazyate's modifications and see what ideas we can incorporate into our own endeavours.Hello again!
Here are a few pics of my new UI. Here's what I've done per your article, reader comments, and a few people irl.
- Ditched SpartanUI, Decursive, Recount, PallyPower, and Omen.
- I've kept Bartender, FuBar, CowTip, powerauras, buffalo, and a few more small ones.
- I'm now using Shadowed Unit frames, Grid (with clique), skada, sexymap, kgpanels, SCT, and chatter.
- I have shrunk down a few addons, giving me more space. (only using 1 FuBar up top, scaling my Action bars and cowtip, etc.)
- I tried both Xperl and PitBull, but SUF was able to do what i want, which is what you see. (my ToT is nothing more than a 3D profile, no bars)
- GRID! I must say that I was skeptical of using this at first, but this addon truly is amazing. I have grid and clique set up for taunting/healing, depending on spec, and solves my problem of screen space, especially in a raid.
- Skada has replaced omen and recount. having 1 addon instead of 2? Sold.
- I'm using sexymap, chatter, and kgpanels as well on the bottom, and I think it helps separate my UI from my viewing area.
- I'm also using SCT, with incoming dmg/heals on the far left side, and outgoing dmg/heals on the right.
This is still a work in progress, and I continue to make changes daily, but my list of overhauls is growing shorter! I'm still working on fitting in a focus and TOF unit frames, replacing FuBar with something current, tweaking SCT, and maybe even weaning myself off of that 4th action bar that's partially hidden.
Overall, though, this is miles ahead of where I was. It may not be the most minimal UI (which I know you love), but it works for me, and I'm happy with where it's at. Thank you again!
Crazyates
<Dragon Knights>
The Scryers
Design to fit
Crazyates' user interface originally was based around the SpartanUI user interface package, but was definitely too large and cumbersome for his 13-inch Macbook. My recommendation was to ditch the UI compilation altogether and start from scratch using simpler UI elements. Crazyates did just that, designing around the size of his screen opposed to shoehorning in a user interface compilation that, admittedly, works much better on larger screens.
In addition, Crazyates was not afraid to scale down user interface elements that did not necessarily need to be large in order to be useful. Take a look at the bags bar and menu bar. While I still advocate getting rid of these two bars altogether, Crazyates has at least used the space wisely and used these two bars as a space filler. Again, using every piece of screen real estate you allow yourself is crucial and, to me at least, cathartic.
Borders? What borders?
Keeping your minimap simple is a tough thing to do, especially because all of those Sexymap presets look really cool and the minimap is the focus of a good deal of information gathering. Crazyates eschewed the glamorous map for the "Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" motif -- a simple, useful item.
By completely removing the minimap's border and leaving it as a simple square, Crazyates gives the minimap total movability and versatility. The minimap can go practically anywhere! In his case, it sits in a nice central location as a complementary piece to the bottom HUD bar.
Clean attic
Crazyates' user interface has one bar at the top to dock any dockable modules, as well as a simple buff interface. I am a fan of the single bar approach and especially like keeping the top of the screen as free from clutter as possible. Crazyates did some excellent work keeping things from getting out of control, while at the same time keeping all of the relevant information docked to the bar and up out of the way. His use of Power Auras, however, is a topic for another day.
I cannot commend you enough, Crazyates. You took a prefab user interface, gutted and renovated the proverbial user interface house and came back strong with a well defined, simplistic and clean UI. You get a gold star. I encourage anyone who has asked for interface guidance in the past, as well as people who ask in the future, to follow up so we can all see the wonderful progress made on your UIs. Crazyates' UI is a great example of how you guys, our awesome community, can help each other out in making this whole game experience better for everyone. Thank you!
Let's take a question, shall we?
Firstly I realise that this might not be the place to email you for this subject, but after reading your latest post on Stympa's UI (which was very informative by the way, learning about new Addons and seeing them in action = double win) I thought I would ask anyway :)
The low down is that I need "help with my UI" as you so put: I really really like the default UI, it keeps the whole warcraft flavour about things. I do however use some addons which are needed such as omen, DBM, Healbot etc.. but it always feels cluttered around my big clunky default UI when I go too far. Are there any UI addons such as the tukui you described in your column that allow you to organise your UI while still keeping a warcraft flavour? Yes I realise "warcraft flavour" is a loose term that could mean anything, but I mean in the sense, the UI would look like it came from world of warcraft not changed so much that it looked like something out of a sci-fi. Carbonite for example which I love, I have to turn off when not questing or mining because it truly and utterly destroys the "warcraft flavour" I've been rabitting on about :)
I hope all that makes at least some sense :D
Aka'magosh,
James
(Infernodeath, EU-Draenor)
Aka'magosh! Thank you for the email, James. There are a few pieces of information I can give that might help you achieve that "Warcraft" look. First, ButtonFacade has a great skin (I think it still might be the default) called "Apathy." The Apathy skin has a nice back texture and reminds me of the original action bar graphics and the gryphons to the left and right side of said bars. Secondly, some action bar mods have the ability to turn back on the graphics on the sides of the actions bars, which is a good go-to, easy art selection to keep Warcraft looking like Warcraft. I'm sure the commenters will have plenty to say about this issue, however, so get requestin'!
Finally, if you love Power Auras, then I have got the contest for you!
Power Auras needs you (to win this contest!)
Power Auras is a big deal for many people. It's one of those addons that fundamentally changed the way I played World of Warcraft. This addon has an amazing following, so let's do something awesome utilizing that fan fervor.
Next week, I want to do a big spotlight on Power Auras. We have done a Power Auras spotlight in the past, but this time around we are going to get not only my insight into my favorite uses for Power Auras but the community's, as well. And here's the best part -- when you submit an entry for our little Power Auras exposé, it's your entry into winning a WoW TCG loot card! The powers that be have given me both a Tiny and Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E. cards, so two random contributors will get a card.
Here's the deal: Submit your favorite uses for Power Auras, including the actual code if you would like (it helps), before Friday, May 7, 2010. Sending in multiples doesn't get you a better chance -- just one entry per person. Let's see if we can pool lots of community resources together and make a really awesome repository of Power Auras for all the people our there who don't know how incredibly awesome this addon is.
Send your Power Auras ideas/submissions/code to mat@wow.com, with Power Auras in the subject. See you all next week!
Interested in getting the most out of your user interface? Come back once a week for more examples of reader UIs. For more details on individual addons, check out Addon Spotlight, your source for everything addon-related.
Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pumabackup May 4th 2010 10:08PM
hey, im on there, too!!!! :-D
(that is actually me...)
Pumabackup May 4th 2010 10:10PM
hey, im on there, too!!!! :-D
(that is actually me....)
Pumabackup May 4th 2010 10:11PM
gah, double post... >.
Namdrof May 4th 2010 10:14PM
One suggestion is to use an addon like Sunn - Viewport Art (http://www.empoweredfire.com/2009/10/23/mage-leveling-guide) to adjust the viewport so that the game is not hidden behind kgPanels or FuBar or anything else. For those that do not know, the viewport is the area of the screen in which the game is rendered. Basically, if you setup that big rectangular area at the bottom for all your stuff and have FuBar / Titan at the top then you cannot see what is going on in the game behind those areas. If you adjust your viewport then the entirety of the game is drawn above your bottom rectangle and below your top bar and, thus, no part of the game is hidden behind something that is static and opaque.
Namdrof May 4th 2010 10:15PM
Nothing like pasting the wrong link... http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/sunn-viewport-art.aspx
Crazyates May 5th 2010 1:28AM
Hello.
I tried Sunn, but it made the screen too squished and narrow for my tastes, so i decided to keep it how it is. I didn't see any fps increase, so i saw no need to keep it. The art panels looked good tho!
-Crazyates
Rob47 May 4th 2010 11:37PM
Crazyates
Whats giving you the little orange bubble around your character? is it an addon or a spell?
Raedonic May 5th 2010 1:18AM
One addon I've liked in the past is Warcrafty, it basically makes your ui look like the WCIII UI.
Haven't used it in ages, so I'm not sure if it's still up and running, but it was a decent addon for it's purpose. Not sure how cluttered it'd look though, as I haven't played ona small screen in ages.
Crazyates May 5th 2010 1:39AM
@Rob47
That's PowerAuras Classic, as was mentioned briefly in the article. I have the same animation for 2 different spells: for when i have Holy Shield up (tanking), or Beacon of Light (healing). The squiglys on the bottom side of that "bubble" also change color depending on what seal/blessings i have up, but they weren't quite set up right in that first screenshot. I'm interested to hear what Matthew has to say about PowerAuras next week.
-Crazyates
Rob47 May 5th 2010 11:06AM
Sweet Is power auras hard to set up and does it do anything useful for a DK?
Crazyates May 5th 2010 11:39AM
I just use it to display what buffs/proc's are active (plus to look cool). I'm sure you could find some use for it (similar to what i did, but change the color for what presence you're in?)
But don't listen to me. We'll see what he has to say next week.
cidninja May 4th 2010 10:36PM
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info11225-DaedhirUI.html
DaedhirUI was featured here a little while ago and i was drawn to it specifically because of that "warcraft flavor." i'd say james should check that one out.
roguebait May 5th 2010 12:12AM
To replace your fubar, I recommend looking into something like Statblock Core. You can use any lib data feed, and SBC latches together side-side or tob-bottom. I was going to crop an image down, but I'm lazy, so you get the whole picture:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7853/wowscrnshot050310213234.jpg
I have my SBC modules huddled around my minimap. You may also want to look into something like pminimap. It's much, much more lightweight than sexymap, and if you're just going for a square shape, why have all the extra fluff?
Minimap: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info8389-pMinimap.html
StatBlock Core and Lib Data Broker Plugins: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/cat108.html
Kyrro May 5th 2010 3:27AM
If you'd like too keep the "warcraft feel" while still making your own ui i suggest you take a look at "rBottombarstyler". Cool animations and you dont need a ui frame for your character as it's built-in in the addon!
Lemons May 5th 2010 6:32AM
This UI just bothers me. The minimap does not belong in the middle of the screen unless you're some sort of gold farmer who flys around WG all day spamming his gathering macro. Even the default Blizzard UI knew enough to put it in a corner.
Ultimately, when you're fighting a boss looking at your map is usually the last thing you should be doing.
Groth May 5th 2010 7:17AM
Ultimately, when you're doing a boss fight, you also shouldnt be watching your DPS meter, or chatting with a mate, but you have no problem with the placement of those boxes right next to the map.
The guy's playing on a small screen, and has done a really nice job of consolidating almost all of his addons into one area.
He may well have several gathering professions, and personally, I prefer to have one UI for all the gameplay rather than a raid UI and a grinding one.
I dont see how taking a corner up and having a big gap in the middle of the bottom (or just offset) would improve the look of this UI.
Baba May 5th 2010 1:12PM
@Groth Personally I agree with Lemons, the positioning of the actionbars raised an eyebrow for me, as well as the target bars.
When someones chat bar is bigger than their actionbar, it's not for me :/
Lemons May 5th 2010 3:30PM
Who says that I don't have a problem with the chatbox or the dps meter? Do I need to write an exhuastive list of everything I disprove of in this UI? Hell no. I just highlighted the major issue I saw with it.
And who says that I'm advocating putting the map in the corner and then replacing it with NOTHING and leaving a large blank gap? Are you just not smart enough to make the logical conclusion that if I were to move the minimap from the center of the screen (specifically because I feel that area is so important) that I would not replace it with another UI element that's more deserving of that position? Is that too big of a mental leap for you...you think I'd just leave it blank? You're retarded! Next time I'll remeber to fully outline all my intentions because there are some wow.com readers who are literally mentally challenged, and whose reasoning skills need some serious work.
I agree he's done a nice job, but I feel he should move his action bar and unit frames from the extreme leftside of his screen into the center where they belong and just put the minimap somewhere else.
Groth May 5th 2010 6:23PM
@ Lemons, first of all, thanks for keeping the discussion civil and mature, it's always tedious when people decend into juvenile name calling.
If you had said that you felt that his action bars and unit frames would look better in the centre, then that would have made more sense, rather than just saying how poor his location of minimap is. Personally, I have all my action bars hidden on my laptop UI- I know my keybinds well enough, and clique healing means that with a HUD as unit frames, all I really need on screen is grid and my mini map (which is in the middle).
@ Baba, ordinarily I'd agree that having a chat box the same size as your action bars is a no-no, but understandable for a 13 inch screen!
Mvin May 5th 2010 7:15AM
Hm, at first his UI still looks as if there is still plenty of room for improvement, because it is very compact, build in one big block and does not have the "style" of other UI's that are featured here. In short, it isnt visually appealing.
However, one thing struck me halfway along my inner rant: This UI is made to work on an 13-inch monitor - a fact that changed my opinion almost completely. It isn't supposed to be pretty - rather practical and clear. Yes, the Action Bars, Minimap and other Frames may seem big at first, but there is simply no room to make them more decent because the information would be unreadeable without stressing your eyes too much. Taking these things into account, almost every design decision of Crazyates suddenly makes sense to me.
On top of that, its nice to see how Crazyates took the comments of his last entry to heart and tried to improve his UI accordingly - it definitely looks less cluttered now and I thank Crazyates for sharing the evolution with us, I'm sure he wasn't the only one with a small monitor who can put use out of this.
greets
Mvin