How To Make a Good UIFollow

Rather simple topic that I'm sure I'll be elaborating on in the future, but I'm incredibly bored right now and it's Friday night, so I can't go to sleep before 3am.

Any questions can of course be adressed, but I'd rather keep this for more advanced discussion rather than "lol wut addons r gud 4 rogs?"

Other tutorials/important posts in this thread:
eePanels2 Tutorial
Theo's UI download

Now, to start out, this is what my current UI looks like.

Here are the addons that are absolutely essential to any good UI:

Pitbull (ag_Unitframes is alright, but Pitbull is just plain better)
simpleMinimap
Bongos2
Bagnon
Elkano's BuffBars
FuBar

That's it. Nearly everything I've done with my UI can be done with those addons.

Simple, right?

Hardly.

A good UI will organize information in such a way that it's pleasing to the eye (I stare at my UI for hours on end, I dunno about anyone else), while still showing relevant information. Achieveing a balance is the most important thing when making a good UI, so let's talk about what makes a good UI and what makes a bad one.

Good:

Small screen footprint-
This means that you can still see a lot of your screen. Stuff like art bars and things like that, while looking cool, obstruct your view and don't do anything but look pretty. Avoid these.

Less is more-
As you can see, I don't have portraits shown. They're not relevant to anything. Yeah, they look nice, but in the end they 1) drag your FPS down, and 2) are distracting. To that end, I have very small unit frames as well. My party/party target frames are the easiest to click other than my Gladiator frame, and that's for a reason. I usually assist party members, especially in arena. Being able to click their target rather than having to actually click someone is incredibly useful. It also lets me see what my group is doing.

Also thrown into the category we can add raid frames: don't use them unless you're a raid leader or a @#%^ing healer. There's absolutely no point. If you can come up with one good reason why a rogue should have raid frames enabled, I'd like to know, because I honestly can't think of one other than "oo i liek 2 b distarcted during pewpew tyme11!"

Bad:

Large anything-
Large is bad. Big unit frames, big action bars, big minimap, big cast bars (unless it's your target cast bar, that sh*t is important to see for kicks!), etc are all completely pointless in a good UI. I don't care how leet your portrait looks, it's blocking my view and I'm trying to focus here, not become ADD and stare at my portrait.

Too much info-
Too much can be a bad thing. As rogues, we're lucky that really all we have to worry about is SnD time, Rupture time, our CPs (including where we are in our cycle), and our threat, in simple terms. To that end, we really only need something like ClassTimers and Omen (both found on files.wowace.com; you'll need Threat 1.0 for Omen) for on-screen info in PvE.

In PvP, there are a few more things we need. We need stun/CC timers, cooldown timers, and health/energy bars or both us and our target. As we get better at PvP, we start to add in more to that, but those are the basics.

So, we can see what makes a good addon already. Organization, simplicity, and to a lesser extent, looks.

That's it for now, since I just ate up a good chunk of the AV I was in (). Until next time.

Feedback is welcome both in the form of PMs and posts. Rate ups/downs are welcome too.

I'll be going more in-depth into UI creation as this post grows.

Edited, Sep 19th 2007 8:44pm by Theophany

Theo, if I did use Bongos2, would I have to be a clicker? ><

Do you know an addon that will let me see the names/health and stuff of the players I'm fighting against in the arena?

Yeah, that looks good.

on another note, what is the combo point display mod in theo's UI? I like it.

double post lolz

Edited, Sep 15th 2007 1:18pm by Theophany

How are you keeping track of your long cooldowns?

I'll have to check that out.
Do you have anything that indicates when you're within range of a throw?

(And also thanks for your input on keybinding. I've changed a lot based on the description you gave.)

I really need a heads up display which, of course, some people hate. I use MazzleUI and honestly I couldn't live without it. However I do turn some options off and add others. If you look up Mazzle on wowinterface, you can see the mods it uses including bongos and other must haves. It is very customizable and clean while still providing a small footprint. There is nothing along the sides or the top of my screen which is great.

This isn't rogue specific, but I couldn't live without WoWEcon or The Low Health Warning (Try this! It is so simple but very informative for letting you know when to hit vanish :) ).

I will try to post a pic later.

Looks like it's Theo's turn to make a guide. MYTEDDY and Tyrandor, I'm calling you guys out :D. Nice guide BTW, going to DL some of these right now.

Theo-I downloaded the addons and now there's a huge ******** on my screen. How can I make some bars invisible (roll sheet, and i have like 4 bars I don't use) confusing >_>.

While moving the bars around, you can turn em off with shift right click I think. They should go away once you lock movement.

You waste so much screen space.

It seriously pains me, which is why I made this thread.

Some people like that interface design though, it's personal preference. I don't really look at the corners or edges of my screen very much, so it makes no difference to me personally if that space is open or taken up by a mod. I basically just use a HUD and focus mainly on that... my chat frames, raid frames, etc... are down on the edges of my screen for when I need that information. With a 24" wide screen at 1920x1200 I don't really have problems acquiring targets with the amount of screen space that I do have...