Reader UI of the Week: Bixxi
This week we've got a UI to share that has been some time in the making. Bixxi sent me the first draft of his UI in the first of August, but then sent along several more versions as the weeks went by. After a change of pace (and guilds) for him, he sent along the current incarnation of this lovely UI. I suspect he'll probably keep tweaking it even further, but so far so good!
For more screen shots of Bixxi's nifty wee tiny UI and all the information on his choice of mods, join us past the jump!
Here's the word from Bixxi himself about this marvelous UI:
When designing the UI, I basically started by looking at other UI's like Mazzle but found they don't really do things the way I like them. So I started to pick and choose addons and after a few days of trial and error, the basic structure was in place.
My interface is very much a work in progress. I constantly try out new addons and if they suit me (like Chronometer for example) they go in, if they don't (like Quartz and CowTip last week) I kick them out again. The underlying concept is minimalism -- I want as much info as possible without cluttering my screen with more doodads (and losing valuable screen real estate) than absolutely necessary.
Bear in mind my screen is quite small (1280x800) and I'm playing on a 13.3" laptop, so space, contrast and readability are important. Most information panels are transparent and faded out a little bit to make the text easier to read.
One thing you might notice is the toolbar. "How is this guy a 70 Mage and only has 1 toolbar?" Well, this comes back to the space-saving thing. The toolbar you see can be "flipped" up and down with two buttons on my mouse, for things I might need out of combat -- conjure water, teleports, Gnomish transporters, portals, and the like. All the combat actions are mapped to keys anyway -- things like Frost Nova, Blink, AP, trinkets etc. are all bound and I just know where they are. They are also strategically located on the keyboard so that, for example, I can hit PoM with one finger and Pyro with another on the same hand, while using the mouse, to move ;)
As I play a DPS class, knowing where I stand is important to me. That's why I'm a big fan of Recount, which you see in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It also lets you analyze how and why you died, who broke polymorph, and the like.
Just above Recount, I have Chronometer timer bars popping up when I cast spells that have a duration. This way I can see when, for example, when I have to re-sheep a mob on a big pull without having to target it constantly. In heroics, where trash mobs hit for 7.7k+, missing a breaking sheep can be deadly!
Some of the other addons: X-Perl Unit Frames are excellent. They flash like a fruit machine in standard mode so I've toned the settings down quite a bit, but they do an awesome job of telling me whats going on with my group. Fubar and various plugins for that let me know all the standard stuff like reagents, money, coords, time and when I need to repair. Lukewarm MageTimers (on the right side under the threat meter) lets me know when my abilities are cooled down. (the actual action buttons for them are hidden)
Also, I run the WowAceUpdater about once a day, which automatically downloads all the latest updates for your addons. Highly recommended!
And a bonus screenshot -- one of the earlier renditions of this UI including Bixxi's Sheep Timer!
I can't imagine trying to play WoW on a 13.3" screen, but it appears that Bixxi's got it down to a science. His compact UI is full of lots of good information all at your fingertips. I really like the graph mod too! Add to it the WoWAceUpdater functionality (which I have mad love for) and I've no doubt that this UI will continue to get better and better as it did in the short month between first submission and current incarnation.
As always, if you'd like to show your UI off to the rest of the Insider crowd, send along pictures and all the 411 to me at readerui@gmail.com. Yours could be next!
