The UI screenie thread

[JonnyAppleSeed]

tiz ok for me

[Michelanio]

says invalid for me as well...

[Sneakytiger]

here's mine not uber gr8 but its ok
 
http://img192.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot083010112102.jpg/

[vladic]

Hey guys, was tlakin to some raiders about UI's after the raid as some people dont seem to see/get the DBM or other Raider addon warnings (they display in Text and in Sound) so to help people clear up UI's or just to see what others UI's look like and comment for Feedback or helping them find smaller alternate addons Please post Pictures and reply with respect

Vladic The Watermelon

[Jewelz^]

 
Ta Daaa?
Very Messy during fights! But it tells me whats going down and what not

[Tirkad]

I'm a huge fan of minimalistic UIs. That means just one action bar with cooldowns on the screen (i have all the useful spells binded and each keybind now comes naturally instinctive), the raid group panels (i use the standard blizzard ones, they can be set to display all the nasy buff you need), the boss mod (here i prefere bigwigs: the sound countdown warning on the selected ability is priceless and saved me lots of times) and of course a minimized chat and player/target frame. You don't need anything else, at least as healer (dps meters can be very distracting - you should already do your best, not waiting for an addon to tell you're sucking to get the hint -) and of course i don't use omen on tirkad: i only use heals when needed and if the tank can't keep aggro from me... well, he was going to die anyway (btw, skada can be set as threatmeter too, so no need of omen).

[TeaLeaf]

One of the major real-estate savers is swapping out Recount and and Omen and replacing them a single addon, Skada.

Skada's most useful setting allows you to have a 'default' preferred page (e.g. damage, healing & absorbs, interrupts, deaths etc), but that when you go into combat it switches display to become a threat meter.  When combat is over it reverts to your chosen default again .  It's well worth using imo.

I'm with Tirk here, minimalist raid displays let you focus on the info that's really important - but it is minimalist in the sense that it still shows you what you need to see, not necessarily what you think 'looks most artistically minimalist'!  But, here's my biggest tip to improve your raid display:  work out which area of the screen you usually focus on and then centre your important 'must know' info in that area.  I see so many UIs with raid UI in one corner, bossmod warnings in the other, boss and your feet in yet another place etc.

Healers need to:
-see the raid UI all the time, so the most key information has to be placed in the same area.  If you have to focus on the raid UI to do the healing, it's no good having your boss mod ability timers on the opposite side of the screen!
-likewise your healing UI should be in view of your feet - if you're focused on the raid UI and that is nowhere near your feet you are far more likely to stand in fire!
-have a separate boss/target cast bar in the same area as your raid UI - again this helps you pre-heal on things and see what is about to be cast without needing to move your eyes from the all important raid UI for healing.

DPS need to:
-focus their important info around the target & your own feet area.  That's where you spend 90% of your time looking, so make sure 90% of your needed info is in that area too.

I'll not bother for tanking, it's pretty obvious what the trend is here!

Finally, it is massively important, once you have all the 'Blizzard warning messages' turned off in macros (see the above "Spell is not ready yet" or "Another action is in progress" messages), to move all non-essential info out of the way to less used parts of your UI or just to turn it off altogether.  That's the bit that de-clutters your raid UI and makes it look minimalist!

...and I think this would be good to tie up with the UI thread, losts of piccies there and it might prompt people (liek me) to update their picture and UI as a result of comments made!

[Twyst]

Another thumbs up for skada.

As tank, my prio is staying alive, interrupting the target, positioning / kiting, monitoring debuffs, HP + power bar percent and finally managing my threat. My UI reflects this as I move the player and target frames either side of the default cast bar. Below the player frame sits skada and left of them the chat window. Just below the cast bar I get DXE (alternative to DBM and bigwigs) to show Very Important timers. To the right I place DXE arrows and longer DXE timers. This means my eyes are ALWAYS just below my toon on the screen and don't flick around too much. I get the frames to show bar totals as the total IS important on some fights. However, HP percentage is also important, so I use the TargetHealthPercent addon to show this just above the target frame.

I agree with Tirk that the display should be minimal, but I use 4 actions bars. Of which I mainly use 2 (normal + 1 above). The other two I don't use (or very very rarely) during the raid and are tucked away off too one side. Keeping with the minimal theme, I now use generic blizzard raid frames. As tank or DPS, I don't give two hoots about the raid HP or mana levels so I don't show it. It gets in the way and isn't needed. However since 4.1, the gods have given DK's a battle rez show I now show it *purely* to rez someone if it's not going to affect my role as tank. But I make it nice and small. If your role is DPS and don't have a brez, don't show the frames. Less is more.

Lastly, the *one* addon essential for every class I play is OmniCC. This beauty puts a CD timer onto each button on your action bars AND any debuffs YOU placed on the target. This saves vital real estate from equivalent mods like DoTimer or TellMeWhen. If someone pokes me, I'll try and take a screenie of this when I next raid.

[Twyst]

Finally, it is massively important, once you have all the 'Blizzard warning messages' turned off in macros (see the above "Spell is not ready yet" or "Another action is in progress" messages), to move all non-essential info out of the way to less used parts of your UI or just to turn it off altogether.  That's the bit that de-clutters your raid UI and makes it look minimalist!

Can you share with us how this is done?

[Tirkad]

Another suggestion some of you may find useful is to try some addons like Cooline OR Fortexorcist. The first displays a timer bar with the icons of all the cooldowns you have, moving to the start of the bar as their cooldown is expiring allowing a fast track of every cooldown with just one glimpse. The second (Fortexorcist - thanks TL) is much more than that. Once you fell absolutely sure you can track everything you have on your ui with ease, you may want to try this addon to minmax your performance. It's a really powerful tracking addon, originally designed for warlocks (i use it on desade and it covers half of the screen as affliction in some aoe groups, but it's damn satisfying ): it tracks each and every dooldown, spell, buff or debuff both on you and or the target/s you are fighting. It's highly customizable and it provides a timeline pretty much like cooline. The feature that makes it really awesome for locks is that it displays the "ticks" of your dots calculated dinamically on your haste, so you can refresh the dot just before the last tick and thus maximizing your dps. However it can be very "aggressive" as addon in terms of screen space used.

[Jewelz^]

Moved my raidframes to under my feet, also downloaded CoolLine, new screenie will be up after Monday's raid.. downloading skada now also

[Grimnar]

Here is mine, where i feel comfortable with. tried many things but always went back to the standard stuff.
 

[Legolei]

I noticed that my focus is primarily on my character, so I moved the essential information to the middle of my screen in the lower half. This way I have a clean view on the surroundings and mobs, and the information close to my focus point.

The red is NeedToKnow, some major cooldown timers are shown just above the minor information, a bit bigger.
The blue are DBM timers. The long term timers were by default somewhere on the top right, but glancing there might just be those valuable tens of a second that your are in the damaging patches. So I moved them just left of my character. The short term timers are where they draw my attention.

I tried Skada a while back, but somehow I did not like it. Recount and Omen are moved to the side. During fights I only look at Omen when I have reason to think my aggro is too high (e.g when the audible warning comes). Recount is only looked upon after the fight.

Essential shots for a fight are always bound to 1 to =. I have a G15 keyboard, with G1 - G6 bound to actions bars on the right, lower 6 spots of the left column.

[Jewelz^]

Here is my newly changed UI, like lego i have moved things closer to my player so i can see more important things. Iv also installed Skada and CoolLine.

[Azunai]

Something I did since Cata is move my minimap to the midcentre. I use Sexymap and took a less obstructive design, the burning sun one. Around it (above and to the sides) are my action bars. Further up my HP on the left and Target's on the right. Still thinking of a place to put Grid reliably, it's currently to the left, above my chat pane. Bottom right is for meters.

Maybe someone here has a suggestion. I'm looking for a cast bar addon that let's me do the following:

A) I want to keep the Blizzard cast bar for my own spells. I like its position and I'm used to its looks.
B) I want target's casts to display above their HP bar.

Currently I can do either A or B with Pitbull, but not both. If I do B, it also puts my own cast bar above my own hp bars, as you cannot set different bar layouts for individual units in Pitbull.