reader-ui-of-the-week
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Reader UI of the Week: Busy busy busy
This week I'm taking a different approach with the UI sent in to me by Vanard, you can see it in the header image if you squint really hard, but for those of us with normal vision, here's a link to the full size image. Vanard sent me his UI with a detailed email telling me exactly what he's using, and you should do the same! We're getting a lot of healer UIs, we had Synchrony's priest UI last week, and my own UI the week before. We need some tank and DPS UIs! If you do email me on olivia@wowinsider.com, tell me what addons you're using, why you're using them, what you like and what you'd change. And don't think you have to use a ton of addons, I'd love to feature a customized version of the standard UI. I challenge you! Actually, let's call that a challenge! Send me your best UI customization that only uses standard Blizzard UI elements. You can use addons to move them around, reposition, re-size, but it has to be exclusively Blizzard frames visible. Points awarded for using fewer addons, and for innovation, or doing things that most of us don't realize the Blizzard UI can do! Do still send me your normal UIs, as well.
Mat McCurley says goodbye to WoW Insider
Well, here we go. This is my last day at WoW Insider, after two and a half years of writing, podcasting, and interacting with one of the greatest communities online. Having the opportunity to write for you and with these wonderful people has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I started playing World of Warcraft back in May of 2004 during the closed beta test. My time and tenure in Star Wars: Galaxies was winding down, and Dark Age of Camelot was far in the rearview mirror. None of us knew what World of Warcraft would become or how much the game would influence some of our lives. For me, World of Warcraft represents time, effort, passion, and drive; when every other option available was lacking, uninteresting, or just wrong, I wrote about my passion. I'll never stop playing because I see no reason to stop.
About the Bloggers: Mathew McCurley
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more of our staffers in earlier About the Bloggers profiles. What do you do at WoW Insider? Originally, I came on staff to take over the Addon Spotlight column and to help revive and reinvigorate the Reader UI of the Week feature that people have loved in the past but had dropped off as a feature. I applied to work for the site with only the addon columns in mind. Over time, after a few guest stints on The Lawbringer and generally always being around to help with the main site, I've graduated to blogging most days and taking over The Lawbringer full time. It's my labor of love -- I get to teach and discuss my opinions about lots of different esoteric gaming topics. I was into podcasting for a while with my own little network and wanted to be a guest on the WoW Insider Show for a long time, well before applying to work on the site. I bugged Sacco to let me be a guest and, before you know it, I was sleeping on the show's proverbial couch and they couldn't get rid of me. Now my name is on the banner. It's how I roll.
Reader UI of the Week: Metzerott
Reader UI of the Week is back! Each week WoW.com will 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@gmail.com. This interface, by Metzerott, is one of the more unusual I've seen. With 90% of the submissions I get featuring rectangular unit frames towards the bottom, a large bottom panel studded with action buttons, and a customized mini-map moved to the middle of the bottom, it's nice to see something a little different. Well, it still hits the last point, but two out of three ain't bad. More importantly to me, it's very minimal. It covers less of the screen than any interface I've seen recently, including the default UI. I'm going to guess that the left unit frame is the player, the right is the target, and the small user frame to the upper-left of the target frame is target-of-target.
Reader UI of the Week: Kraayliis of Azuremyst
Reader UI of the Week is back! Each week WoW.com will 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@gmail.com. After a bit of a break, Reader UI returns with a nice set-up from Kraayliis, a Death Knight on Azuremyst-US (view large). Here's what he had to say: I've just been working on setting up a clean UI that still retains the look and feel of a full UI while still minimizing the amount of clutter on-screen. I'm currently running WoW @ 1920x1080 resolution. This is my first shot at designing a UI so I just wanted to toss this out there to see what people would think. I started using Btex for the background a few weeks ago and couldn't find what I wanted so I decided to draw my own.
Reader UI of the Week: Frogs of Korgath
World of Warcraft allows an unprecedented ability to modify the user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it to us, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@gmail.com. After a couple of weeks /afk, Reader UI of the Week is back with a Druid UI on our hands from Frogs of Korgath. I'll let him explain his setup from here: I'm a raiding resto druid, though I don't have much time for that as a full-time student. But I've been a UI fanatic ever since I was a wee young lowbie, years ago, and like to have a neat and well designed interface. Here's what I like in a UI: first of all, it must show all the information I need. Namely, I need a unit frame, cast bar, action bars, and chat, as well as the other less important things like damage text, minimap, and buffs. Secondly, it must not be cluttered: everything should have its place and that place should not be in front of a void zone. I like to have as much free space as I can manage. Thirdly, it must look nice. I like to look at my UI and see something to be proud of. So, how do I do it?Hmm, I wonder! Full details from Frogs after the break.%Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Three UIs for your consideration
World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com. Our Reader UI of the Week feature has been on ice for a while now, but is back by popular demand. To make up for lost time, today we're going to feature three, count 'em, three different UIs followers of our Twitter feed sent in. Though there's plenty we might say about each UI, we're just going to toss out the raw data for your consideration. Is there more to say? Let us know in the comments! We'll get started with the above from Byron, who tells us, "This is a modified and customized version of DaedhirUI, which you featured a couple months ago. The main addons I use are Dominos, Pitbull, and Healbot." He's using Ampere, Atlas, AtlasLoot, Buffalo, Chatter, Class Timer, CowTip 3.0, Deadly Boss Mods, Decursive, Dominos, eePanels2, EnhTooltip, Fubar 3.5, Good Damage Font 2.0, Healbot, Informant, Omen3, OmniCC, Pitbull 3.0, Portfolio, Postal, Quartz, Rating Buster, Red Range, Scrolling Combat Text, Sexy Map, and Stubby.Two more UIs -- and your comments -- are still to come, so read on!%Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week - Special Patch 3.0.2 edition
Welcome to a special edition of Reader UI of the Week – just for patch 3.0.2. We'll take a look at a few complete UIs submitted by WoW Insider readers that are fully compatible with patch 3.0.2 and Wrath of the Lich King.Patch 3.0.2 is bringing a lot of expanded functionality to the underlying API (Application Programming Interface). The changes will not be as drastic as we all experienced when Burning Crusade was released, however there still will be a fair amount of problems that will have to be solved. After the break are a few complete lists of addons that are reported to at least work somewhat well together.For a complete list of functioning addons, along with download sources, check out our list of essential addons for patch 3.0.2. We'll keep that list updated throughout the day. %Gallery-34425%
Reader UI of the Week: Osullavan of Eldre'Thalas
World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com.This week I want to take a break from reader submitted user interfaces and profile my own. Pictured above is a compilation of what I like to call "my baby." It's a UI that's taken me over a year to perfect, and I like it quite a bit. What we'll do is take a look at the philosophy behind the interface and what addons I use.I wear many hats in my guild. I'm the GM, the main tank, and help drive the raids. My UI serves me well in all these roles, and it allows me a plethora of options at my disposal. My multiple duties in my guild means that I not only have to be fully accountable for everything the boss does to me (and for a tank in and end game guild that's a lot), but I also have to keep an eye on everything else that is happening in the raid. The Philosophy Behind My UIInformation and functions need to be easy to access, and be accessed quickly. In addition to the ease of use, it is vital to have a clear view of the play field when engaging in raids and groups. When getting the raid ready and driving the trash pulls, I need to be able to see everything and hear everything. It's unacceptable to have information more than a click away – if that. If someone sends me a tell, I want to know about it right away, and if someone dies I want to see it in bright colors in my chat windows.Since my in-game responsibilities are numerous, I have to be able quickly switch between them. To do this I have to utilize both my keyboard and my mouse. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Draxyl of Turalyon
World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com.Draxyl from the Turalyon U.S. server submits to us his Warlock UI. It's actually very reminiscent of the UI that I had for quite some time until I upgraded my graphics card and started using a lot of alpha-blending (transparency). He uses Fubar across the top with several key pieces of information and quick to reach options, and then has the bottom of the screen filled with status indicators, chat, and action buttons.I think it's a common theme amongst most UI enthusiasts to focus the information in one or two places. This has several benefits, from limiting eye movement when trying to pickup information, to allowing more space to see what's going on in the rest of the environment.%Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Zerfall of Eonar
World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com.Today's Reader UI of the Week comes from Zerfall, and Undead Warlock on server Eonar. He has many addons working together to support his game play. What I particularly like about his UI is that it's not cluttered, allows for good visibility, and uses what I would consider to be critical addons that everyone should at least try out.I always find that Warlocks and Tanks have the most complicated UIs. Tanks because of the necessary information they need to have about everything and everyone, and Warlocks because of the large amount of spells at their disposal. Zerfall does a good job at organizing all his abilities using his action bars. One area is for miscellaneous items, one area for his pet bar, one for his curses and often used spells, and another for his lesser used spells and abilities. I always find that this kind of distinction is critical in a successful UI.%Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Selece of Deathwing
World of Warcraft allows all of us an unprecedented ability to modify our user interface to meet our needs. Each week WoW Insider will bring you a fresh and detailed look at reader submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send it, along with your character name and server, to readerui@gmail.com.This week the column returns to give you your dose of regularly scheduled UIs. We'll be looking at the UI provided to use by Selece of the Deathwing server. He's submitted a UI back in March of 2007, but the one he sent us a couple weeks ago was so slick we just couldn't pass it up.Selece tells us his UI is designed for end game Hunters and has four primary goals: Clean lines – He needs to see what's happening without the UI getting in his way. Readability – Text elements need to be clean and crisp, everything has to be easily identifiable. Clear center – He needs to be able to see what's going on around him, and the center of the screen is his place for that. Visible cooldowns – Cooldowns need to be easy and quick to see, so he knows what's up next. I really find those four pieces of advice to be very useful for not only a ranged DPS class like Hunters, but also for any class. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Adoru
It lives! Yes, indeed. As promised in my recent appearance in About the Bloggers, the leads of WoW Insider and I have finally worked out scheduling and the like to bring back two of the posts you've been asking for -- Reader UI of the Week and Reader WoWspace of the Week! From now on, you'll see Reader UI appearing on Sunday, and Reader WoWspace coming to you on Tuesday, just in time to help shake those downtime blues. But enough with the promotion, let's get on with the show! This week's Reader UI of the Week comes to us courtesy of Adoru, level 60 Night Elf Rogue of "It Hurts when I PvP" on Sen'Jin. (Bonus points for the lolworthy guild name!) Adoru not only sent in a fantastic breakdown of all the mods involved in this week's Reader UI and the reasons for building it, (hint, hint) but additionally sent us a bunch of screenshots to choose from! So without further ado, here's your long-awaited (and hopefully welcomed-back) Reader UI of the Week.While my WoW UI modifications don't give me an UberL33t look, they do provide a clean, consistent and usable interface. It's a work in process that never ends -- but I think it is coming along nicely. I started with a set of goals and they have been met for the most part:
Reader UI of the Week: Slazareth the Moonkin
After an extended absence, we're back with Reader UI of the Week! Did you miss us? If so, take a moment and drop us a mail with your UIs! Since most of the ones we've got in the mailbox are pre-2.3, we're looking for lots and lots of new (or updated) screenshots of amazing UIs to feature. Without your screens and info we can't come back strong. (Besides, you know you wanna join the fun!) This week we're bringing you a Druid UI that (unlike the Druid MovieWatch yesterday) features a lot more than just an action bar full of Moonfire. For those interested in this week's Boomkin UI, check out all the information after the jump from Slazareth!
Reader UI of the Week: Kirrina
For this week's edition of Reader UI of the Week, we're featuring a pretty swank layout designed by Kirrina, L70 Night Elf Hunter of <Kiss of Ysera> from Emerald Dream, EU. For those of you curious of all the mods at work on this setup, here's what Kirrina had to say:The focus here is to clear the majority of my screen so that I can just enjoy the game, seeing the really rather nice graphics that Blizz have made the effort to produce. I'm the raid leader in our Karazhan raids, so I also need to see how the raid is doing, have the healers got enough mana, who's targeting who and so on.
Reader UI of the Week: AareDub
Have you missed us? We're sorry for the extended break, but as you now know, we've been slammed under helping to get Massively off the ground. (Speaking of which, if you haven't been over there, you do know we're giving away a Murloc suit, right?) But we're back now with lots of Reader UIs to show you -- so on we go with this week's featured UI, courtesy of AareDub from the guild <Sonic Death Monkey> on Eitrigg.I have to give credit to Taeo for giving me the inspiration. I saw a very crisp UI and thought, "I can do that." I've always tried to re-arrange my UI to allow for the most viewing space possible, but Taeo's UI just made something click for me. It only took me a few days to complete, but it took a month or so for my server transfer cooldown to get me back in a raid for some screenshots.Curious? Join me after the break for more from AareDub!
Reader UI of the Week: Luminesce
This week we have a really lovely Reader UI for you all! This was sent in by Luminesce, level 57 Blood Elf Mage of Chaos Incarnate from the Arygos server. As I'm fond of letting folks speak for themselves, let's jump straight into this week's Reader UI note!Hey WoW Insider! I decided to send in mine. It doesn't have any high level stuff like Deadly Boss Mods or CT Raid because my main is only 57. A lot of my UI can be "closed" for times when I am just hangin' out in the cities (mostly my combat mods). Nothing special about my resolution. The standard 1280x1024 on my 19" monitor.That said, for a full listing of the mods Luminesce used in this pretty cool UI, join us after the jump!
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!
Reader UI of the Week: Nikkita
This week we feature the UI of Nikkita, level 70 Gnome Warrior from the guild <Vagrant> on the US PvP server, Dunemaul. I must confess -- while there are parts of Nikkita's UI I would never use, I was especially glad to get this one. I've always said if I was going to jump to the Alliance side, it was going to be to play a Gnome Warrior. Something about the idea of a wee bite-sized Gnome tanking a boss as ridiculously enormous as Rags just makes me giggle. Apparently the fellow at the helm of Nikkita agreed that it was a fun idea!Nikkita sent two screen shots just chock-full of UI for us. The above shot is him on the flying mount, checking out bags, quest items and quests before touching down. (I can't tell you how many times I've kicked myself for forgetting shards in the bank after raiding the night before... gah!) The second screen shot of Nikkita in all his raiding glory can be found after the jump as well as a really great listing of all the mods involved in this week's Reader UI!
Reader UI of the Week: Justo
This week's Reader UI of the Week submission is from Justo, level 70 Dwarven Hunter from the guild <Lux Aeterna> on the Aerie Peak PVE server. As he told me in his note to me (short and sweet, but full of the important information) he likes to call this setup "controlled clutter" because he just likes to have lots of information on-screen at all times. For those who are curious to see this UI in action, as well as Justo's listing of the mods he uses and what their different purposes are, check out the run-down he sent me after the jump!
