Submit your UI to Reader UI of the Week
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 31st 2011 at 7:00PM
Here are some guidelines to follow for submitting your user interface:
- Wordy is good. Talk about your user interface and why you made your interface decisions. You put the map in the center of the screen, covering your character -- we can clearly see that. But why? We want to know!
- Bigger is better for images. .Jpgs are best; .png works. But remember, the bigger the better.
- Keys help. Show us where you put each addon in an image or a text key. People love replicating UIs and taking ideas from one another. This helps everyone out. Some of the best innovations have come from iteration -- just ask Blizzard!
- List your addons. Let us know what addons you use, and maybe give us a little bit of insight as to why you like that addon. People get pretty defensive about their addon preferences, so stand up and fight for your mans.
- Raid screenshots help, if you're a raider. Not everyone raids, so don't feel like it is absolutely necessary to include a screenshot while raiding. However, a lot of people do like to see screenshots during a raid, so indulge if you'd like.
Submit your interfaces for Reader UI of the Week to readerui@wowinsider.com. New email address, yay!
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, or visit Addons 101 for help getting started.Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Cassie Jan 31st 2011 7:33PM
I would, but I just use TukUI, which was already featured here a while back. :P
However, I do LOVE it, and how I can use it on every character and in any spec without any issues. And the low memory usage is awesome for those of us who play on a laptop!
Revynn Jan 31st 2011 7:34PM
Sent mine in last monday, I'm going to pretend that it got lost in "ZOMG submission overload!!" pile and tell myself that it wasn't just rejected outright as a pile of crap.
I kinda wanted to rewrite it anyway.
CaryEverett Jan 31st 2011 8:31PM
I'm not surprised mine got rejected as a pile of crap. It's probably overly minimalistic for most people. Seriously, I use up like, only around 1-2% of my entire screenspace with UI elements.
Mathew Jan 31st 2011 9:26PM
No UI is ever really rejected for being good or bad. I choose UIs mostly on what I would want to talk about that go-around. Also, stuff gets lost in the massive email box I have, so sending your thing in once or twice isn't going to hurt. Emaaaaaaails
Cryptic Jan 31st 2011 7:46PM
I had just written a post covering my UI then saw the call for submissions. I may send it in just the same.
http://resto.blog.com/2011/01/31/u-i-how-i-heal/
If you are interested take a look and let me know what you all think. It is for a resto druid so it wouldn't be optimized for most but other healers might like it or find something useful.
Blessing of the Grove
resto.blog.com
Pyromelter Jan 31st 2011 11:00PM
I like the concepts, but feel it can be improved in certain ways:
1. Get a chat addon. I know you used moveanything to move the default chat frame, but really, unless you are skimming the bottom of the fps for your framerates, you should get one.
2. A lot of your buttons are too spread out. You can bring them much closer together - compress everything for more screen space.
3. This kind of goes with #2, but deserves it's own mention. I like your raid frames concept. However, I feel that you can save a lot of space by compressing the frames and having your HoTs tracking right on the frames, as opposed to just under them.
Overall, you can gain a lot of vertical space by compressing the buttons and the raidframes, and by using prat to resize the chat window to a much smaller size.
The only other thing I worry about is 25 main raids. I don't see how that setup can work in 25 mans - and let's hope you're not even considering 40man bg's. The selected area is just far too small to be effective for larger raid sizes.
That being said, if you are doing 10mans almost exclusively, the concept of your UI is magnificent. Just need a few tweaks for perfection.
Chinmay Jan 31st 2011 8:30PM
I use TUKUI as welll with some minor edits. Added just a few more datatext, using it with TukuiBroker and I am set. I don't think I have any persistent UI element that is not Tukui except Autobar, which I am thinking of getting rid off.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5983/wowscrnshot011711220604.jpg
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/6963/wowscrnshot011711220911.jpg
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/4748/wowscrnshot011711220927.jpg
Malozing Jan 31st 2011 9:19PM
But I am still working on it Mat. I won't send it in until I like it :p
Lord Plaza Jan 31st 2011 9:35PM
Woo! Totally just sent in my clicker-oriented setup. We clickers have a stigma attached as bad, unorganized beings, and that must be changed!
Biskit333 Feb 1st 2011 1:28AM
Perfect timing! I am just putting the finishing touches on my new setup. I am planning on making a video tutorial on my method because I think I have stumbled upon some useful techniques that I'd like to share. Once I've got a couple of bugs worked out I'll get started on the video and then submit it.
Speaking of bugs, I was wondering if anyone could help me out with 2 that I have. The first is an intermittent chattbox spam message that says "scan guild". If anyone has seen this message before could you please tell me what addon it is?
The second is some sort of boss health bar frame. I've ruled out the usual suspects, DBM, pitbull, quartz, and vuhdo. I keep forgetting to use a ui window macro to catch it because it only appears in boss fights. Can anyone think of any other addons that create boss health bars? I should be able to figure it out, but any help would be greatly appreciated.
Helston Feb 1st 2011 4:34AM
Stuf Unit Frames has a configurable boss frames, and up four if you happen to be fighting a council of some sort.
Sorcha Feb 1st 2011 4:48AM
My Sexymap has a boss health bar frame. If you use that addon you need to enable 'show movers' and see if that's what's popping up.
Neyssa Feb 1st 2011 3:24AM
Could someone recommend me a mod that would switch some of my UI settings on a keybind? When I am farming or doing archeology, I would love to see the minimap in the middle, where usually my raidframes are (these two are not really shown at the same time :) It would be great if I could find a mod that would let me switch settings based on what I do (PVP/arena/farming/raiding).
Sorcha Feb 1st 2011 4:51AM
What you could use is not a keybind but a different profile within your addons. I'm sure whatever map addon you use would let you set up a new profile that you switch to when you're doing archeology. Same with your raidframes (although surely those aren't showing when you're not in a raid anyway?)
Neyssa Feb 1st 2011 9:56AM
Good idea, I dont know if Chincilla has profile settings but I will check when I get home. I might get back to Sexymap, although i had some issues with it before. As a healer I use Healbot and that wont show up anyways.
jacksworth Feb 1st 2011 6:00AM
they're all the same
black strip down the bottom containing bars, map, chat, meters. just in slightly different positions
would be nice to see something original
Pyromelter Feb 1st 2011 8:00AM
The problem with a lot of the UI's that get shown is that they are not in raids or in action. Most people have everything on the bottom because it's easier on the eyes to have the information in one place, as opposed to having your unit frame in the upper left with your action bars on the bottom, as is the default UI.
That never really made sense to me, especially when you consider the UI for warcraft and starcraft are so freaking good - and, by the way, are completely on the bottom in a shallow "U" shape.
Most of us move everything to the bottom so everything is in one place, and fit in like a puzzle, instead of spread out which gives you a double whammy of killing your visual space for gameplay, as well as forcing you to move your eyes all over the place for the information you need.
This brings us to the problem that I started with - we don't see these UI's in action. In reality, it's virtually impossible to judge a UI even based on multiple pictures of raids, dungeons, and pvp, simply because we don't see it moving. We can't hear any audio triggers. We can't see how and when a cool power aura lights up, or how the color of your icehud health bar might change, or how someone uses a custom sound as a tank when they dip below 30% health.
I happen to favor pitbull as my raid frame addon (not just unit frame), and one of the reasons why is that any time a cleansible debuff appears on you or a raidmate, Pitbull will light up that unit frame like a christmas tree showing you that you can cleanse it. That's not something that is easily viewable in a format like this, but can be very, very important to the success of a raid.
And finally, I'll just leave with the fact that we as a society are used to having our instruments below our field of vision. Think airplanes, automobiles, even bicycles. It strains our eyes to look at information that is at or above eye-level. In other words, bottom-based user interfaces are used because they work, and the ergonomics and human factors just fit in with standard human interaction with those interfaces.
Balmazer Feb 1st 2011 7:29AM
"Bigger is better for images. .Jpgs are best; .png works. But remember, the bigger the better."
You mean PNG > JPG. Right? RIGHT!
WGSXFrank Feb 1st 2011 10:16AM
I've been thinking about submitting my steampunk-inspired UI for a long time... but I fear the hate I'll receive due to the fat that I do NOT raid and don't use any raiding mods and actually like the character frames in their default positions (but skinned of course).
Biskit333 Feb 1st 2011 5:05PM
I think you should submit it. The articles and comments on the reader ui of the weeks are usually pretty friendly. You might get some constructive criticism, but the readers usually know that they can't force their style of interface on someone.