Zaqzon's UI (circa August 2009)

This is my brand-spanking new UI in its raid mode. I'll blog a bit about how and why I made it later.

TLDR: a different approach to UI layout from what I'm used to, but I like it! Any comments, criticisms or suggestions on how to improve it?

There are pictures of it here - this battle shot, another battle shot, an idle shot and a shot of it with a (fairly empty) Grid setup. And, just for comparison, here is what I was using just before I decided to improve it (lol - I think you can see why I wanted to clean it up! :-D) and here is what it was like in February (not much layout changed between February and July, but I did add a few new addons).

It's a bit, well, different :-) There are panels bottom, left and right so I can position my UI elements without obstructing my view of the world (kgPanels, SharedMedia, Zaqtastic) and I run the world frame viewport at a slightly reduced size (Aperture) so I don't have things trampling all over the important fires to get out of and so I can see what is happening all around.

NB. this image is slightly pinker/redder around the edges than normal (yes, pink! :-p) because there is an active aggro warning (BanzaiAlert)- I am tanking Mimi's Aerial Command Unit - but this is the best screenie I've got so far to show off most of the UI elements. The other screenies might give you a better idea of the actual colour of the side panels.

Here's a what I used to construct it:

• World frame:
  • Casting bars: mine courtesy of Quartz because I love the latency measurer and swing timer amongst many many other lovely things, and target/focus casting bars provided by eCastingBar
  • Unit frames: Me and pet to the left. Target, targettarget and targettargettarget to the right. Focus (when active) is above the target frame half-way towards the top of the screen (ag_UnitFrames)
  • Scrolling combat text (MikScrollingBattleText)
  • Tank boxes middle bottom (oRA2)
  • Boss encounter warnings/raid warnings top middle. Emphasized boss timer bars in the centre, below enemy cast bar and warnings. Normal boss timer bars above the enemy cast bar (BigWigs)
  • Warlock specific stuff: active DoTs above target unit frame sorted by time remaining (first to fall off is at the top) (ClassTimer) and a similar but different approach below with action buttons with candy bars showing either time remaining of effect or cooldown until effect next available (these never disappear which makes it very easy to see which one is missing!) (ButtonTimers)
  • Visual cues to remind me to do things (PowerAuras) - visible in this shot: EAT! no food buff, as I've died and resurrected, Green Glowy Circle: t7 4-piece bonus not active. Not visible: many many things, also have a FLASK! reminder, a GONE FISHING! reminder whenever i'm carrying my fishing rod ;-) reminders to self-buff, shadow trance warning etc.
  • Not visible in this shot: buffs on the target (ElkanoBuffBars) - useful to see what is on boss sometimes!
• Bottom panel with (from left to right):
  • Guild chat and channels ie. guild, officer :), MalEPGP, MalHealers, MalSpam (Prat, Zaqtastic) with macro and rarely used skill action bar above
  • Minimap (Chinchilla) with minimap buttons and coordinates above (MinimapButtonFrame)
  • Context pane. In a raid this is where my raid unit frames live - I'm using agUnitFrames in 10-man and Grid in 25-man.
  • Action bars (Bartender4). Left of context is pet, right of context is class-specific ie. stances, auras, warlock gadget (ShardAceWoTLK), above context are my two main bars (ie. 1 thru = and shift-1 thru shift-= hotkeys). All action buttons have a cooldown counter if applicable (OmniCC)
  • Above main action bars is my chat edit box (Prat)
  • Threat meters (Omen3), with class-specific action bar above (AutoBar) - for warlock this is: pets, rituals, shields
  • Below the context pane is my XP/rep bar (XPBarNone)
  • Context chat and channels (party, raid, trade, general, addon spam), with combat log on the second chat tab (Prat,Zaqtastic,YurrCombatLog). Action bar above containing buttons for consumables, mounts, hearthstone. (AutoBar)
• Left panel containing task-specific addons (in this case raiding addons) from top to bottom:
  • Loot monitor (XLootMonitor) to see who has looted what
  • Raid status pane (XRS) to keep an eye on various buffs and things
  • Cooldown status pane tracking SS, Rebirth, Ankh, Innervate, Reincarnation (RaidCooldowns)
  • Raid targets pane so I can keep an eye on who is targetting (or not targetting) what - "Everybody should be on the slimes!!!" ;-) (MagicTargets)
  • Left-hand docking pane (Dock) where I keep my damage meters (Recount)
• Right panel containing things about my status (from top to bottom):
  • Reminders pane telling me things I should have enabled, drunk, eaten, summoned, cast (yes, I'm a forgetful lock ;-)) (Cork)
  • The all important buffs/debuffs list (ElkanoBuffBars) - from top to bottom I have: debuffs (red), self-buffs (blue), temporary enchants/effects (purple), raid buffs (pink), short buffs (blue) and auras (colourless)
  • Right-hand docking pane (Dock) where I stash various bits and pieces that I want to keep accessible - I always have the guild status window in here (GuildOrg), but it often also takes quest trackers (BetterQuest), active /w conversations (WIM) and various addon configuration windows if I'm messing about with something
• Top bar for LDB and FuBar plugins (DockingStation) containing three sections (from left to right):
  • Left section - character information
    • Bag spaces (Broker_Bags)
    • My fiscal situation on current toon and across all toons (Auditor2)
    • Fun stuff! High scores (FuBar_TopScoreFu), language switcher (FuBar_BabelFu)
    • Mailbox tracker so I can see which characters have unread or mail that might expire (FuBar_MailExpiryFu)
    • Quick access to addon settings (Opticon)
    • Durability tracker and auto-repairer (RapairBroker)
  • Middle section - task performing addons, many of which are context specific:
    • Main tank and player target setter (Broker_oRA2Targets)
    • Raid/party target assignment (MagicMarker)
    • Raid organization addon (oRA2)
    • Unit name toggler - useful for those boss kill screenies! (FuBar_NameToggleFu)
    • Trash cleaner - auto-sell trash to vendors and in situations where bag space is running low click-to-destroy greys with prices so you can destroy the least profitable trash! (Broker_GarbageFu)
    • Boss mod (BigWigs)
    • Raid member preparation addon - check for raid buffs, flasks, food buffs etc. (BigBrother)
    • Soul stone monitor (Broker_SoulJar)
  • Right section - performance and setup:
    • Volume control (Volumizer)
    • Addon set switching (woohoo! ribbit! Toad :))
    • Quick access to addon LDB launchers (MakeRocketGoNow)
    • Latency (laaaag!) and frame rate monitors (Broker_SysMon)
    • Quick bar configuration access (DockingStation)
    • The time! (FuBar_MiniClockFu)

A couple of notes:

Dock is a new discovery of mine and it is, quite frankly, awesome for this kind of layout. You drag windows into it and they sit there, scaled down until you mouse over/near them, when they zoom in. Click them, and they move back to where they were before you dragged them to the dock. Really very nice! :)

Zaqtastic is my hand-rolled layout addon that registers the art-work textures, positions my chatframes, joins the right chat channels in the right places, modifies some window behaviours, and other custom things that I need to make the UI work how I want!

Any comments, criticisms or suggestions on how to improve it would be most welcome!