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Reader UI of the Week: Jake's Larger UI
Each week WoW.com brings 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. This week on Reader UI of the Week I've decided to focus on helping people in need of user interface tips for smaller screen resolutions or the need to have buttons larger, as you will see in just a short time. It's kind of like Dear Abby, except with more video games and less mouthy grandmas. The Community has been great in its response to sending in your user interfaces, so keep them coming! Without further ado, let's go a user interfacin'...
The Creamy GUI Center: CTMod
Each week Matthew Porter contributes The Creamy GUI Center, a column aimed at helping you enhance your WoW experience by offering an in depth guide to addons, macros and other tools we use to play WoW, along with commentary on issues that affect how we all play. Collecting and updating addons can be a time consuming hassle. Wouldn't it be great if you could install a collection of addons that's all packaged together to eliminate the hunting and updating of each addon individually? Well there is an answer to this problem, addon compilations. What are they? What are the pros and cons of using a compilation? What options do I have when looking for a compilation that's right for me? This week I'll answer all of these questions and more as we begin a multi-part series on addon compilations. Over the course of the next few weeks we'll be taking a look at CTMod, Cosmos, MazzleUI, and Mirage UI (formerly Insomniax Recompilation). Let's get started!
CTProfiles is shutting down
WoW Insider reader Rakuen sent us a tip about a posting on the CTProfiles forums from the beginning of the month. It seems that even before this Tuesday's change to the Armory, the writing was on the wall for CTProfiles. In fact, if you try to go to the main site, you're redirected to the forum with this posting.From the post:It has finally got to the point where it's simply too much work to 'fix' things. With several offers of help, only a few minor things were ever completed, and leaving Cide as the only coder was just not enough to get out from the overwhelming load. We're not happy to see things not working, but it just isn't feasible to attempt to fix them. We still feel there is a very viable use for a custom profiling site, even with the armory out. The armory can't help you compare your crafted set to tier4 or 5, nor your arena gear vs. misc. pieces. We've started a very early stage of development for a CTProfiles2.0 project, which is essentially a complete recode, however we won't be releasing it any time soon. Our focus is going to be shifted back to CTMod, and we'll be working on a new unannounced mod that's been in the works for a few weeks, CT_RaidAssist2.0, some fixes and updates to older mods, and we'll continue to go from there. As for development of the CTP2 site, I won't even set an estimate of when we'd be starting work on it again. So, what's your take on CTProfiles shutting down? Did you ever get a chance to use this site? What will you miss, and what are you looking forward to seeing the CT team do next?
Getting your addons 2.1 compatible
In expectation of the coming patch (though it might still be a while), Curse has posted a compiled list of all their known 2.1 compatible addons. Unfortunately, that list is of Curse-only addons, so while both KLHThreatmeter and Healbot are on there, lots of other high profile addons are not.That doesn't mean they won't be 2.1 compatible, however-- it just means that, well, in most cases we don't know. Titanbar (an addon I live by) was updated after the last big patch, but hasn't yet been updated for the new one. It's the same story with Auctioneer. CTMod hasn't mentioned 2.1 yet, but they update pretty quickly, and even if they don't get a new version out before the patch appears, it's very likely the latest version (v2.001) will still work.Since I'm not an addon creator, I'm not sure how much functionality is changing in 2.1, but from what I can make of the UI Forum, it won't be nearly as much as the expansion patch did. There may be a few problems (ui.worldofwar.net has a short list of known problematic addons on the PTR), but for the most part, we can probably expect 2.1's addon changes to go pretty smoothly. You'll still have to manually enable your addons (since they'll all be out of date), but chances are none of them will be really broken.
Interface Changes in Patch 1.12
I find some of the interface changes included in patch 1.12 to be quite interesting, and they follow the recent trend of integrating popular addon features into the core UI. Feature number one on my list is the new "floating combat text" functionality. You'll find options for it under the interface options menu (see right), and it mimics the Scrolling Combat Text addon, which shows combat information floating over your character. I've always found this to be a more convenient place to view information, but it can be too spammy at times. And, if you've never played with Scrolling Combat Text, I'd recommend giving it a try now that it can be enabled without downloading anything. The look of the addition is dead-on, though it's a bit less customizable than the real thing, which allows you to select more precisely which messages you'd like to see, as well as customizing colors and fonts. This simplified interface may be more accessible to more users, however, as the number of options Scrolling Combat Text provided could be a bit daunting. However, I may end up sticking with the original, because I prefer to be able to resize the font used.Of special interest to me as a healer is the new name plate functionality. If you aren't familiar with the phrase, name plates are the little health bars that show up over enemy and friendly NPCs when you hit the "V" key. In the past, name plates would only appear above hostile targets and NPCs. It's long been on my wish-list of features to have the ability to have name plates over friendly targets as well - for ease of seeing the health of players around me when either ungrouped or in a scattered raid, where you may not necessarily be near your own party. (Battlegrounds, anyone?)Now, if you check your key bindings (see above), you will see a binding for showing name plates (for the existing functionality) as well as one that allows you to show friendly name plates or all name plates. Combined with the battlegrounds change that automatically groups players on joining, and my priest may have to respec holy and go back to trying to heal in battlegrounds. Next up is a feature that came as a complete surprise to all of us - iTunes integration. This is a Mac-only feature, as, apparently, the Mac development team managed to get it working first. If you're running the Mac client, you'll see the above options at the bottom of the list of key bindings, allowing you to bind keys to basic iTunes functions.The final feature addition, at least that I noticed, is the new auto self cast checkbox in the interface option. I've used a feature like this before - as part of CTMod, and probably other addons as well. With this option checked, if you do not have anyone targeted when you try to cast a friendly spell (a buff or heal spell, for example), it will automatically be cast on yourself. In some situations, and for some character classes, this can be very useful - allowing you to keep a hostile target selected while casting useful spells on yourself. But it can be difficult to get used to, especially for healing classes who frequently use little but friendly spells.
