Reader UI of the Week: Scyian's UI

Each week, we bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Welcome to another exciting edition of Reader UI of the Week, your one-stop shop for the WoW Insider community's personal user interfaces. This week, Scyian's UI promises some gasps and shocks, perhaps even a guffaw or two lined up. As you'll soon see, Scyian's user interface is a little bit different, but here at Reader UI of the Week, different is good. Let's check it out!

Lay it down for us, Scyian:

Thanks for the awesome submission, Scyian. I know the big focal point of the discussion here and in the comments is going to be the lack of action bars displayed, even during combat, so let's save that for last. Before we get to that, I have some pretty nice things to say about a user interface that goes against the "bottom bar" mentality that I do like to spotlight here.

The bottom bar mentality versus free-floating

These days, the bottom bar mentality has come to be the default in most WoW user interfaces, mostly because of the traditional user interface setup of massively multiplayers. Star Wars Galaxies, rest her immortal soul, swapped the action bars to the top of the screen, whereas Dark Age of Camelot pulled an interesting vertical twist. Both interfaces were fairly well thought out and accessible, but the predominance of the bottom bar was steadfast into the new generation of MMOs.

Some games in the MMO sphere used the bottom bar mentality but added their own flairs. Warhammer Online, for instance, used a bottom bar set-up with different UI element for each character class. Blizzard transitioned over its expertise with bottom bar user interfaces (the StarCraft, Warcraft and the Diablo series all sport user interfaces that are focused on the bottom of the screen) and crafted the default WoW UI similarly for each class.

The bottom bar mentality is fixed in many people's minds, mine included, as being something of a space-saving template. It just feels right most of the time to have all of your UI elements happy and compacted to the bottom of the screen. But free-floating user interface elements offer something bottom bar interfaces don't most of the time -- a certain degree of freedom.

Scyian brings up an excellent point about free-floating UIS -- elements can get in your way, especially if you need to click through those elements to hit enemies, move or interact with the environment in any way. The simple way around this is that most mods (kgPanels and others notably) have toggles that allow for mouse clicks to either pass through those windows or interact with them. Careful manipulation of your addons can allow you to keep information-gathering addons like DPS/threat meters free-floating and allow mouse-clicks to pass through them. Only the information floats, which keeps you from having to peck around with your mouse pointer for an empty space.

Hiding it all

We have discussed previously how awesome minimalist, hide-everything Dalaran UIs are for the UI connoisseur, especially when admiring some of the awesome scenery the game has to offer. Recapping the tips real fast: Mouseover or hide in combat your action bars and other addons, scale addons to a smaller size, and make occasional-use bars easily accessible with Opie.

The double LDB bars aren't my style but work well enough for the setup Scyian is going for, especially with the list of windows. I would love it if he could post some of his kgPanels scripts, since it's a subject I have woefully failed to keep up on. This type of on-demand user interface is wonderfully conceived and illustrates how a careful understanding of the information you need around your character can transform into something like this.

Inaction bars

Hiding the action bars permanently has been both a goal and a curse of mine. On the one hand, I know my abilities and where they are located like the back of my hand. On the other hand, I love OmniCC as a cooldown tracker and think it suits my playstyle better -- not to mention, I'm adding new buttons all the time. Out of combat, it is a no-brainer to hide your action bars. Hiding them all the time takes nerves of steel.

Now, Scyian acknowledges that this set up isn't for everyone. It isn't. Actually, it's a tough sell. The reason that it deserves a highlight, however, is that one day, it would be wonderful to have a default user interface that almost looks and feels invisible. Scyian's UI aims to get there, in small steps.

Hiding your action bars is controversial, so I'm just going to ramble about it a little bit. I would imagine that enough keybindings would allow you to remove your action bars completely or potentially use a different type of key setup. A warrior I used to raid with had every ability keybound to a letter key, much like a real-time strategy game. He only kept his action bars around because this all took place years ago and, to be frank, we never really thought about getting rid of them. It seemed so novel ...

No bars is a gutsy move that I applaud. Take chances! Live dangerously! Come Cataclysm, though, you may want to turn those back on, as tons of new abilities will be hitting and new rotations forming. There might be a bit of a relearning curve to deal with.

Awesome UI, Scyian. Gorgeous.

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