Monday, October 20, 2008

New Hotness


The new UI. Looks much like the old UI. But whateva.

The reason you see 5 of my unit frame is because I'm targeting and focusing myself. From left to right I have my personal unit frame, my target, my target's target, my focus's target, and my focus. The party/raid frames appear in the upper left, and boss timers start at the top and then the critical timers move to the bottom in between the target of target and focus's target frames.

The list:
Aperture - the mod that enables the creation of the "black strip" or "dead space" seen at the bottom of my screen.
Bartender4 - action bar modification, now with Bongos-like "mouse-over keybinding" functionality.
Buffalo - buff/debuff display modification.
Clique - fairly user-friendly mod that allows assignment of spell casting in a mouse-over click-to-cast manner; fairly common amongst healers. I use it solely for Flash of Light and Holy Light - I assigned Flash to shift + left click, Holy Light to shift + right click for ease of healing.
ClosetGnome - alternative to ItemRack and Outfitter. I'm used to it after using it for several months.
CowTip - tooltip modification. CowTip is one of the most comprehensive tooltip mods out there, I've gotten so used to being able to mouse-over a target and have it display who the target is targetting. I can't arena without it.
Deadly Boss Mods - commonly used boss ability notification mod.
OmniCC - displays the numerical value for ability cooldowns on their action bar icon. Knowing that I've got 2 seconds until I can Crusader Strike is a good thing, so I don't waste this next global cooldown on something stupid like a heal (har har).
oRA2 - raid mod for main tank/main assist display.
Parrot - replacement for Scrolling Combat Text. Still trying it on for size, so far I've found it a positive experience.
Prat 3.0 - chat box mod, allows for mouse-wheel scrolling in chat and very customizable chat display.
Proximo - arena mod, nearly essential for arena play.
Quartz - cast bar/swing timer display, complete with latency estimation.
simpleMiniMap - allows for customization and moving of the minimap.
X-Perl Unit Frames - fairly common unit frame mod.

EDIT: Added a short description of functionality next to each mod, because I'm sure there are people out there wondering what each does.

12 comments:

Honors Code said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Honors Code said...

Which mod is it that lets you move all the buttons, minimap,and chat to the bottom the screen?

Shwitz44 said...

Honors,

It's a combo of mods. Aperture creates the dead space at the bottom of the screen. Prat 3.0 modifies the chat window, but you can move the chat window anywhere you want under normal circumstances, just unlock, click and drag. Minimap is modified via simpleMiniMap. And my buttons are modified by Bartender4 (which now has mouse-over binding capability a la Bongos, which makes it freaking awesome).

Anonymous said...

Nifty ifty! I'd never heard of Buffalo before, but I definitely need some sort of buff/debuff display; I downloaded XPerl unit frames after CT Raid Assist finally blew up and I needed new raid frames. Unfortunately, you can't remove the buffs from there and I actually had to create a /dismount macro to get off of my mount rather than right-click it off. I've also seen good things about Parrot, though I was used to SCT. Maybe I'll make a change.

Speaking of XPerl, maybe you can help me with something. I loved CTRA because I could set it up to show specific buffs (Fort, Spirit, Shield, and Res stone) and debuffs (Shield debuff, diseases, magical effects). I can't seem to do that on XPerl no matter what I do and it's driving me crazy! As a result, I either see everyone's damned buffs including the ones I can't cast or see debuffs only. Every option I've selected, every possible combination, just comes up with the same result. Hints or tips for the neophyte user who had been clinging tenaciously to CTRA for three years?

Shwitz44 said...

@CynraAnar
Unfortunately, I'm not an advanced X-Perl user, so I'm not sure if what you speak of is possible. It might be possible with Grid, though. If I were a patient man (which I'm not, instant gratification FTW), I'd have set up Grid and disabled the raid component of the X-Perl display. I'm almost positive that you can set Grid to graphically display certain buffs/debuffs on raid members.

As for debuff monitoring on enemies, I recommend DeMon (Debuff Monitor). It appears as a small black rectangle that is movable around the screen, and red abbreviated text to represent debuffs that you enter into its interface to monitor. If the debuff is present on the target, it lights up green. It also displays a numeric value for the total number of debuffs on the target, for those raid leaders who carefully monitor how close the raid is to the debuff cap.

And as for the dismount macro...
When I get home this evening, I'll make a new post with my nifty ifty mount macro. It mounts my flying mount in flyable zones, my charger in non-flyable zones, and dismounts if I'm mounted when I click it.

Cassini said...

@ cynraanar re. X-Perl:

You should be able to do this. There was an option within X-Perl that allowed you to track only castable buffs on the raid. But this was pre-patch. Post-patch I'm having the same issues as you are. I suspect this means it's not been fully patch-proofed yet so bear with it and I'm sure you'll get the functionality back soon. X-Perl is a nice addon :)

@ josh re. your ui:

That's a really nice job. I'd be interested in seeing how it looks in action during a raid if you have any screenshots of it? Although I never could get used to playing with my own/targets portraits anywhere but the top left corner. ;)

Shwitz44 said...

@cassini

I'll post some raid examples at the earliest convenience. I don't raid with frequency anymore, so I can't just hop into my guild's raids and snap a pic. But next time I do, I'll be sure to take an action shot.

As for the frames placement, I feel ya. I used to have a lot of trouble adjusting to my personal/target frames at the bottom. However, just like with keybinding your abilities, you develop muscle memory and begin to automatically look to that area for your frames after a while. And it keeps your eyes focused in a more central location so that your reaction time is quicker. I tend to look down at my action bars a lot to check on ability cooldowns, so I go through a progression - cooldowns, target status, environment, target status, cooldowns. Repeat. I don't have to look up to the top of the screen, then to the bottom, then to the middle, I just have to do the equivalent of checking the peripherals to get the info I need.

Unknown said...

I couldn't find an updated Aperture. Are you using an old version?

Shwitz44 said...

Yea, my version of Aperture was last updated 9/29. I'm sure there are other viewport mods out there if you want to go with something up to date, though.

Unknown said...

Thanks Josh. I found your blog from the maintankadin forums. I had been using http://www.spartanui.com/ but couldn't get used to their player frames (too accustomed to X-perl). Plus, SUI is buggy with how it interfaces with bartender4.

So I did a mixed ui from Spartan's arrangement and some of your addons.

Tek said...
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Cassini said...

Thanks for your response Josh. I look forward to hopefully seeing it in action.

I actually installed Parrot last night based on your blog post since SCT was giving me a bit of grief since the patch, and I have to say I like it!

AOEing in Sunwell (lol nerf) was made much neater by Parrot combining my hits into 1 total rather than spamming me lots of little 1000's per blizzard tick. So thanks for drawing it to my attention. :)