Reader UI of the Week: Ymïr's UI
by Mathew McCurley 
Jun 15th 2010 at 8:00PM
Welcome friends! I hope your weeks are all off to wonderful starts. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the servers are back up, life is dandy and Dalaran hasn't crashed to pieces on you. Once you log in to your server of choice and choose your character, gaze and marvel upon the user interface before you, for it could one day be here in this very column. Another Reader UI of the Week is upon us!
This week, I chose to feature Ymïr's user interface. His UI is tailored to his shaman, and as I have recently had a renewed interest in my own orc shaman I might be a little bit biased in the selection. For this UI, I wanted to focus more on functionality and spatial concerns, especially with respect to where buffs and debuffs are placed, as well as the tooltip.
Let's hear from the reader himself. What say you, Ymïr?
This is a UI job I came up with recently that was inspired by Aliena's UI(included under uiexp) on Tankspot. The primary philosophy behind the UI is that it cannot burn my eyes, as I've done with previous UIs. I only need a few buttons that actually click(potions, bloodlust, etc) so those that I use regularly are small on the bottom bar. Everything else is handled by Geist. CBH Viewpoint creates a bottom area to work in and KG Panels gives the blank space some style. Satrina's Buff Frame keeps track of most buffs, while an extra frame near the bottom keeps track of Maelstrom/WS/ES/Tidal Waves. I have Gear Score because my server is obsessed with it, and Tip Tac to move the tooltips out of the way.
I use Bartender because the Dominoes Totem bar is lackluster. I also Have WIM which isolates whispers to a different window to keep them from cluttering the chat log.
One is edited to show the different addons(Screen) on the screen. The other UI is unedited.
Names are blacked out to protect the innocent. Also to conveniently hide my shaman's previous life as Alliance.
This UI uses:
- Geist
- CBH Viewpoint
- Satrina's Buff Frames
- Tip Tac
- Gear Score
- DBM
- Prat
- Shields up
- KG Panels
- Quartz
- Pittbull
- Grid(Mana bars included)
- Skada
- Sexy Map
- HuD Map
- Mik's Scrolling Combat Text
- Bartender
- WIM(WoW instant messenger or something)
- Smartres- Not seen
- Clear font
- Rating Buster- Not seen
Seeya later,
Ymïr, Slightly Above Average, US-Gurubashi
Thanks for the email, Ymïr. The UIs that are coming in to my email lately all share a very common bond -- Satrina Buff Frames. This addon is ripe for spotlighting, so look forward to that in the future.
I wanted to spotlight Ymïr's user interface because I feel like his UI is indicative of a lot of people's setup. It is not a masterpiece of minimalism, sure, but it has the successes of a user interface that is well-worn and unobtrusive. Ymïr makes ample use of kgPanels and some easy on the eyes textures, as well as a very compartmentalized approach to buffs and debuffs.
Ymïr's user interface hits a few points that I would love to discuss on a more general level. As a shaman, Ymïr has a few key parts of his user interface that are adequately represented, namely the totem bar and a range finder.
Totem bars and range finders
Ymïr makes use of HudMap, an addon I recently had on Addon Spotlight. While this addon is a powerful tool for raid positioning and general situational awareness, its hidden strength lies in its totem range finders. Circles overlaid on the screen represent the radius of your totems, with a small marker in the middle of the screen representing your position relative to the ranges. Staying inside the circles means you will receive the totem buffs.
Totem bars are important to a shaman, and keeping them close is always a good move in case the shaman wants to switch totems on the fly. Keeping the totem bar central on the user interface is a good choice of position. The choice between Bartender and Dominos for totem bars comes down to preference, really. I am a fan of Dominos, but Bartender works just as well.
Bento box buffs
Ymïr has an excellent little user interface element down on the bottom right side of his setup. Tucked next to the healing meters is a Satrina Buff Frames bar that includes a "specific buffs" section. This area could also be used in the reverse for special debuffs applied to the player. A good example of a beneficial buff or timer would be trinket procs or seeing the remaining time left on your Bloodlust/Heroism. Some good raid debuffs to add to a separate Satrina's frame would be the number of stacks of Mystic Buffet on the Sindragosa encounter, or for tanks a count of Putricide's Mutated Plague.
I like to deal with buffs and debuffs in a specific fashion, hence invoking the bento box imagery. Imagine your user interface like a bento box -- pieces of your user interface can be compartmentalized into little areas allowing for easy separation and categorization. Setting aside some of these little boxes can be advantageous when dealing with buffs and debuffs, so that raid and common buffs can be pushed off to a more remote area, whereas the mission critical buffs and debuffs can take center stage closer to your eye's focus.
Why haven't you downloaded TipTac yet?
TipTac is another common thread in many of the user interfaces that come into my inbox. Tooltip addons have been a great boon to interfaces everywhere, but none really come close to utter customization as TipTac does.
Why should you consider TipTac? This versatile tooltip addon boasts an incredible host of options, as well as the ability to show vast amounts of information. Since we are talking about user interfaces here, let me focus on the aesthetic value of TipTac. Changing the scale, font, colors, information displayed and the location of the tooltip is incredible. Having the tooltip in an easy to see location allowed the center of my screen to be free of floating boxes. Keeping the tooltip at my cursor would always find a way to annoy me, and the default bottom right configuration was never conspicuous. TipTac can relieve these problems immediately, much like Ymïr has done here.
Thank you very much for your submission, Ymïr. Functionality is the most important thing and his UI does what it needs to. Can it use some polish? Of course. I bet with a little tweaking and a lot of love, Ymïr could shrink down the bottom bar a good 20% and still have all of the information available to him. The user interface is lucky enough to have the power of malleability, and over time it will change into any shape it needs to exist in. All in all, I'm definitely a fan of the compartments, light action bar usage, and plenty of real estate left bare.
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)
mesoforte Jun 15th 2010 8:26PM
I added power auras for my enhance set after I sent this. :S I also made the extra buff frame larger so I could actually see it. There's also a debuff frame under the target pane now to specifically track flame shock(which I didn't notice until I dragged my elemental set through VoA once.
Also changed servers, but oh well.
mesoforte Jun 15th 2010 8:27PM
Also, thanks for choosing it. :o
splodesondeath Jun 15th 2010 8:59PM
Question:
When you have a notification at the top, say an objectives or reinforcements frame in PvP, or the remaining kills thing in heroic ICC, where does that show up? It looks at little like your UI munched it up. If you have it moved, what addon did you use?
mesoforte Jun 15th 2010 11:17PM
It just sits there. :S
It's something I've been meaning to get around to fixing.
Thorzon Jun 15th 2010 11:28PM
@splodesondeath & mesoforte
Chinchilla Minimap has a function that can move that information around. Also, your minimap doesn't look like it has anything special going on with it so Chinchilla would fit in seamlessly.
Samual Barshow Jun 15th 2010 8:46PM
I need an alternative to dominos as Kong ui hider doesn't seem to work with new version . Unless someone can link me a workaround or tutorial. Would be greatly appreciated.
Thorzon Jun 15th 2010 8:53PM
Bartender4
Koskun Jun 15th 2010 9:14PM
Macaroon. Does a ton more than Bartender and Dominoes, allows as many buttons as you want, with tons of conditions.
Chibiker Jun 15th 2010 8:58PM
Can anyone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me where to find the content of the UI depicted in picture 3 (of 73) in the gallery?
I love it, it's gorgeous, but I on;y hit dead ends trying to find it :)
-Rick
dethpunch Jun 16th 2010 3:30AM
As far as I can tell 3-8 are all from the same person and I believe 6 has a link to the article. Could be wrong though.
Armerad Jun 16th 2010 2:52AM
Well, it should be at
http://www.wow.com/2009/02/16/reader-ui-of-the-week-five-death-knight-uis/
But it is seemingly not there.
(If you look at the date for the photo, and the date for the aforementioned post, they are the same).
Samual Barshow Jun 15th 2010 9:12PM
Problem is I use the razer naga and love th keypress keybindings mode. Does bartender4 provide this functionality? Plus do I have to reassign all previously bound keys and buttons if switching? On bars and bindings.
humperdinck Jun 15th 2010 9:45PM
I use bartender with the Naga and it works perfectly.
I imagine you will have to reassign the bound keys with a new addon, but bartender offers an easy keybinding feature: just mouseover the action button and press the key you want to bind it to.
Koskun Jun 15th 2010 9:24PM
@ Yimir - why do yo cover the bottom 15% or so of your screen, thus reducing what you can see? You then put the raid frames right in the middle of the screen covering even more.
Get rid of viewport, or at least skin it so it isn't taking up the complete bottom of the screen. Take Grid, drop it down and to the left. Use a bar mod that allows you to hide bars till they are moused over.
So much needlessly wasted space.
Groth Jun 16th 2010 2:44PM
I'm not sure that having two hidden action bars and a hidden totem bar are really going to achieve much more screen real estate, (and I say this as someone who has all his bars hidden).
As for moving Grid down and left, that'd put it over his health & mana bar- down and right I'd guess would be the target's health and mana. So some useful information would be lost.
On the same topic, as a healer, I've found that tunnel vision means that having grid sat directly under my character in the centre means that I stand a greater hope in hades of noticing when my feet are on fire.
Not having grid perfectly centered would drive me nuts though (Align ftw).
I do agree that having viewport makes life alot neater, but cuts down on what you can see. I'm just never entirely sure how much of the floor behind me I need to see (assuming that something isn't runnning up from behind to eat me or anyone else).
Darrk_Hammer Jun 15th 2010 9:58PM
I KNOW HIM I LEFT THE GUILD AFTER IT FELL APART NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MrJackSauce Jun 15th 2010 11:15PM
(This is just me and people will downrate me for this but hey)
Using a mod to show you where things are on the ground is flat cheating. AVR was cheating, seeing where your totems are on your screen like that is cheating.
Please note: You are NOT cheating the game. The game design is such that you can make these addons and use them. You are on the other hand: cheating yourself.
By not learning how to judge distances accurately in game with using a band-aid like that addon doesn't make a good player, even if you survive the boss. It's makes a lazy player.
Lazy players are the players that don't know how far to run during the whirl on blood queen, they don't know how far they need to cut across the wall before icehowl charges into them (you all know this happens. How? Who knows, but it DOES happen -.-), and even all the players that can't see where the edge of a void zone is.
All these things are just being band-aided over by addons like these and I can only hope that blizzard does more to accentuate the fact that they want you to learn the game and not just chuck a HuD over it.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE BOSS, NOT YOUR UI.
Thanks for listening yo.
/endrantwithlove
Yakuko Jun 16th 2010 12:12AM
While I personally do not use AVR and similar addons, I can understand why someone would. Not everyone processes information the same way nor do they all perceive things such as distance the same way. I know I have a lot of trouble judging distance ingame, though in my defence I have terrible depth perception IRL as well (I'm partially blind in one eye).
I'm honestly getting tired of people judging others based on the addons they use and think that because they see information one way, everyone should see it how they do. Personally, I work better with symbol and audio queues as opposed to scrolling combat text or raid warnings. My brain subconsciously ignores them for whatever reason. Heck, even the DBM timer bars have become white noise to me, however I have no problem seeing fire, void zones, etc. on the ground. Only warnings in DBM I use (for times I may miss something or something that isn't instantly obvious visually) are the audio warnings.
Everyone has their weaknesses and strengths, and while you judge those who may have trouble in areas you excel at in the game, they may very well excel at parts you don't. Not to mention, some people have legitimate disabilities, even if minor. As long as they are doing their job efficiently and having fun, what right do you have to judge them?
Koskun Jun 16th 2010 4:09AM
I play the game to have fun, not get an anurism trying to figure out the difference between 6 and 7 yards in a pixel world from an over-the-top sudo 3d perspective.
Also, troll elsewhere. The debate has been done over and over about AVR (and the new hud as well), Blizzard has stated it's stance on it. Yes, you win because you don't "cheat" while killing pixel dragons. Congrats.
Cyanea Jun 16th 2010 6:39AM
"By not learning how to judge distances accurately in game with using a band-aid like that addon doesn't make a good player, even if you survive the boss. It's makes a lazy player."
Sorry...I'm too busy watching debuffs, watching my mana, making sure I'm not standing in fire, making sure DPS aren't standing in fire, and making sure that people are STAYING ALIVE to try and gauge out using only text whether or not I'm standing too close to somebody. You know...I'm doing all of those things that involve PLAYING MY CLASS.
Do you use only text directions when you're trying to drive somewhere new because you consider maps to be cheating? It's the same damn thing.