Reader UI of the Week: Set things straight with Ardor's UI

Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter.

Welcome back to Reader UI of the Week, WoW Insider's community UI spotlight feature where you bare your interface soul to me and I tell you that your action bars could use some work and maybe to move things off to the side of your screen. This week, I don't get to do either of those things, because Ardor's UI impressed me with its clean layout and kgPanels organization.

Here's a dumb admission: More than once, I've made the observation (while reading the new Thrall book) that I've imagined what was going on in the book as an in-game scenario -- user interface included. Maybe it is just natural for me to layer the WoW UI on top of everything WoW-related at this point. It wasn't intentional, mind you, just something that happened and I sort of caught accidentally.

Where would Thrall put his minimap, anyway?

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Ardors' UI: hunter, organized, kgPanels, pew pew pew

Take it away, Ardor (whose name is so similar to Aldor, that I want to turn in Sarg Marks to gain rep with him).

Thank you for the email and submission, Ardor. Ardor's UI boiled down to three learning experiences, including organization, fit, and priority. You've seen all of these before, but let's put each lesson together with Ardor's UI as the template for what amounts to a good interpretation of all three.

Organization

Using kgPanels to set up a UI and then just making those backgrounds and boxes go away is, admittedly, something that I had not thought of doing. I've always been such a bottom-opaque-bar type of guy, always relying on eAlign as my organizational tool of choice. Using kgPanels and a grid like eAlign is a perfect way to set up zones for your UI elements to occupy. You can even name them so that you are never without reference to where you're going to be sticking addons all over the screen.

Start with simple black boxes that approximate the size you want to make certain addons. Put them all over the screen wherever you want them, but make sure they are all set to be backgrounds or set the layer as the lowest possible, to avoid these boxes lying on top of your addons. This is unlikely to happen, however. Lay it all on the table, so to speak, then start fitting addons into the boxes.

Ardor uses kgPanels in a very unique way, to set up his scrolling combat text. Sometimes finding exactly where you want scrolling combat text to appear is a bit of a pain. While MSBT has its own system, it is nice to see where text will be flying around while setting up your other addons as well, especially others that will be occupying adjacent areas.

Fit

Ardor's hunter UI, which is seen above, keeps each aspect of the UI to its own fitted area. Personal action buttons and targets are middle bottom. Pet controls, targets, and health are located next to the main action bars to the left. Cooldowns, consumables, and the rest are directly to the right. Everything has its little place, and depending on the situation, Ardor just has to go right or go left.

Slapping buffs and debuffs on to the sides of these areas is also an awesome way to keep them from interfering too much with the UI as a whole. Using an addon like Raven to make your debuffs vertical instead of horizontal can free up space and make you think about debuffs a little differently.

Marvel at how snugly Skada fits up against the minimap in that tiny area between the top of the minimap and the calendar icon. Tell me that doesn't give you all sorts of awesome ideas and make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. No? Oh... me, either... The greatest feeling is watching little pieces of the UI come together in that way. Seriously, no greater feeling. I love it.

Priority

This is a tough aspect to deal with, mostly because sometimes players don't even know what they should or even want to prioritize. Ardor's minimap is small enough not to be a burden on the UI while still being prominent enough to use effectively. The double chat window is also great because one side deals with status messages while the other deals with chat. I'm starting to work something like this into my own UI, since I've been craving better damage reporting during raids.

For Ardor's hunter, damage and cooldowns are the priority aspects, so he has two sets of scrolling text to let him know about cooldowns and debuffs expiring, as well as plenty of targeting options just above his chat windows to make sure he is always aiming at the right target. Priority is key in raiding environments, and it is a treat to see something so neat and tidy.

A clean setup

Good times, Ardor. The setup is clean, and I think we can all get some pretty good ideas off of all of this addon placement. kgPanels as a tool to organize and shape your UI is a wonderful idea, and I hope that plenty of people run with that. It's been done before, sure, but doesn't it look great? Very excited.

Remember, if you'd like to have your UI featured on Reader UI of the Week, send an email, your own explanation, and screenshots to readerui@wowinsider.com.

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Interested in getting the most out of your user interface? Come back once a week for more examples of reader UIs. For more details on individual addons, check out Addon Spotlight, or visit Addons 101 for help getting started.