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Reader UI of the Week: Simple UIs for laptop gaming
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. Laptops are becoming increasingly more popular for gaming ever since the ascension of the capable laptop video card and the desktop replacement. Coupled with the fact that most developers found the need to make their games laptop-compliant to succeed in the global marketplace, laptops are the big gaming PC for many, many people. World of Warcraft is notorious for being able to run on practically any machine, and I am sure there are some high school kids out there playing during Chemistry right now on their TI-85. That joke hurt because I realized how long it's been since I had a TI-85. Qiuxiang's laptop setup does laptop UIs right -- it's simple, boils the game down to very basic elements, and does not take up the precious screen real estate with too much stuff. Sure, during raiding you get bombarded with notifications and warnings, but everything is manageable with a little bit of legwork. Not everyone raids to the extent many people do, so it's nice to see a user interface setup that makes just playing the day-to-day game something gorgeous.
Reader UI of the Week: Pathanos' clean and simple setup
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. Last week, Reader UI of the Week profiled Lellee's UI and a call for help in fixing up a non-widescreen UI and just making the whole thing work a little bit better. One thing that I try to do during a call-for-help-type article is point people in the direction of an example of what I am trying to articulate. In this case, I wanted to profile a user interface that is simple enough to replicate on your own with a minimal amount of configuration addons, with an acceptable amount of time needed to create it. That's what today is about -- the philosophical process and a general outline to making your user interface look nice and tidy, just like our friend Pathanos has here. Pathanos' UI is built around a Razer Naga-plus-keyboard setup for his tanking paladin. In the screenshot, you will see his sparse raiding UI, a clutterless view space that allows for plenty of information gathering while not being an addon monstrosity. Hopefully we can get you up to speed as well as to what is needed to set up something like this, with a quick understanding of the concepts needed, where to start, and what you want to look for when building it.
Reader UI of the Week: Working with non-widescreen monitors
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. Another day, another call for help from a community member in need. What are we to do, ladies and gents? Not help out this poor soul? Stand idly by when one of our own is in need? No. That's not what we do. We are a loving and caring bunch, a proud and patient people, who take in those downtrodden and emerge with happiness and love in our hearts. Or whatever. Lellee is asking for help. With a non-widescreen monitor and certain UI principles set in stone, we have our work cut out for us. But using solid UI-building tactics and moving out of comfort zones, I think we have the ability to turn this UI into something more akin to the solid and suave-looking examples that this column has showcased before. It just takes time, patience, and a little bit of planning. At this point, it isn't even the addons -- it's all about what you do with them. Read on, champions!
Reader UI of the Week: Recover from corruption with Icewalker
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. Reader UI is no stranger to UI crashes and corruption issues. Believe me, I've had my fair share of UI crashes that completely and utterly obliterated my entire setup. It is a sad state of affairs when your settings just decide to up and leave on you. Not fun, right? Losing your user interface in a crash or through some corruption issue is annoying and demoralizing, to be sure. However, rebuilding usually takes less time than you think and sometimes adds new and unique aspects to your UI that weren't there before. In destruction comes organized rebirth, or something like that. Icewalker sent in his UI with the sad tale of UI failure and starting over, which I felt for. Poor, innocent UIs getting corrupted, probably from Old God influence, just puts me in a bad mood. So today, we will take a look at Icewalker's new, basic UI and grieve together for all of those user interfaces lost in senseless crashes and the wanton ways of home computing.
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? %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: A call for help from Understud
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. One of the more difficult types of user interfaces to address is one in distress, not necessarily because of the lack of skill of the UI's creator but mostly because he or she might not know what questions to ask. When someone asks a pointed question about an addon recommendation or UI fix, there's usually a definitive answer. What can I do to fix my UI?, however, is a different beast of a question altogether. What needs fixing? What do you feel is broken? What if things just work, but you don't know how it could work better because of the lack of knowledge? Understud's UI could use some work, which is why the short but hopeful email that was sent to me caught my eye. If this column is about anything, it is about helping people gain ideas and knowledge and what the WoW interface is capable of. Understud needs help learning and understanding, while at the same time, he seeks to benefit from the generals -- UI-building tips that span all user interfaces. Let's see if we can help him out, because if there is one thing we do here at Reader UI of the Week, it's care.
Reader UI of the Week: Peripherals take center stage with Steppinrazor'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. Reader UI of the Week is an interesting experience for me. There are moments of awe, moments of sadness, and (more than you probably would guess) moments of utter perplexity. Today's submission from Steppinrazor features a peripheral that many players have been asking me to do a spotlight on: the Razer Nostromo. Once developed by Belkin, the Razer version is the updated model, still created in partnership with Belkin but featuring spiffy new features. Many people ask me about peripherals like the Razer Nostromo, and while I would love to have an answer for them about the usefulness of something like the Nostromo, I can't give the best account. I'm a keyboard and mouse guy, through and through. However, there is nothing on the books that says I can't bring in someone who seems to know what he's doing with a peripheral as versatile as the Nostromo. If you've got an interesting UI setup that features peripherals out of the keyboard-and-mouse box, let's see them! Email your UI along with an explanation of your addons, setup, and other details to readerui@wowinsider.com. The community will love you for it, I promise.
Reader UI of the Week: Back to basics with Kahle
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. Firelands, Firelands, Firelands. Oh, Firelands. My new love. I've made a few updates to my own UI based on some of the new Firelands boss encounters, most notably Rhyolith. Have you made any changes to your user interface based on the new content? This week, we've got a user interface from Kahle that is eerily reminiscent of my own UI. I would like to think that my own user interface has inspired thousands, giving many people the hope and the drive to create beautiful and functional UIs of their own. My inspirational columns, combined with my astute reporting, have made someone's game play experience better, which makes me feel awesome and a little weird at the same time. Seriously, I have way too much fun getting to do what I do. So, on to the UI. Kahle is a hunter (pitchforks down, please) who values plenty of space open on the screen and keeping the in-combat, hunter-specific addon elements close to the character. He uses a bottom bar approach with interesting uses of the minimap for gathering. I think you'll enjoy it.
Reader UI of the Week: Troubleshooting patch 4.2
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Reader UI of the Week is a little different this week, considering it is patch time, which can be brutal on players who use a sizable amount of addons. For this edition of Reader UI of the Week, we're running through the patch 4.2 UI changes and giving you the tips and info you need to get up and running faster then ever before. This patch's UI changes were not as substantial (on the user end, anyway) as in the previous patch, so hopefully things won't be too difficult this time around. The first thing you must always do in a patch day scenario is back up your interface. This is an easy thing to do -- just copy the WTF and Interface folders from your WoW directory on your computer, and put those copies in a happy, safe place. Sure, you may need to do some tweaking and changing back to your profiles if you ever lose your UI, but it is better than starting over completely from scratch. Replace your backup frequently, or whenever you make some big change to your setup.
Reader UI of the Week: Go hotkey crazy with Vardelm
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. There are some people who hotkey a few abilities into their interface, relying on the number row and some macros to take care of the brunt of the work when it comes to mashing abilities. Vardelm's UI, however, has taken the notion of "hotkey crazy" to a whole new level. Completely eschewing action bars for an invisible approach to hotkeys, Vardelm makes efficient use of his keyboard while keeping the UI comprehensive and cohesive. Suffice to say, I'm impressed with the hotkeys. There is still something frightening to me about not having action bars readily available and in plain sight. Maybe they're my safety net while I perform the delicate trapeze of raid tanking, comforting me with their visual presence. Take away the net and I could panic so hard that I'd fall harder than Dick Grayson's parents. The upside would be becoming a rich dude's ward, so I guess that isn't so bad. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Diligent planning with Amaus
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Reader UI of the Week is here to turn your UI frowns upside down. Each week, WoW Insider community members send in their own UI creations for us to marvel at, learn from, and occasionally question why people do the crazy things that they do. All in all, it works out pretty well and people seem to have fun. Why should I stop the fun from happening? This week, we're going to take a look at Amaus' user interface, which includes some impressive pre-planning as well as layout control. I've preached over and over that the first step in interface creation for players new to old should be drawing a picture of what you want and where you want it. Not only does it give you a sense of scope, shape, and size, but the drawing gives you a template to work from when you finally get ready to move each addon into place. When the real deal starts to happen, you'll be glad that you had that drawing.
Reader UI of the Week: Hunting and scaling with Elleyna
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Welcome to Reader UI of the Week, WoW Insider's weekly sojourn into other people's lives by looking through their eyes. I am always looking for more submissions from players, so keep sending those screenshots and emails and you could see your setup on the site. Plus, you get to bask in the wonderful advice of our awesome community in the comments, which is what this is all really about, isn't it? Send those user interfaces to readerui@wowinsider.com today! This week, we've got a nice, solid hunter UI from Elleyna, who admits to a cluttered bottom screen but keeps the pieces working cleanly. I think that the community can learn a lot from this UI, mostly because I want to promote that lived-in look that is so popular these days with user interfaces and jeans. There is no shame in not being perfect, because the beauty of customizable user interfaces is that they are customizable to our liking. Settling into a UI is uniquely you. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Naina's UI and comfortable clutter
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Hello, friends. I hope you all had a nice three-day weekend (the Americans, at least) and ate all the ridiculous BBQ you could. I did, and it was glorious. I have a very special relationship with grills and grilling food, and we will leave it at that. This week's Reader UI of the Week is dedicated to healers and clutter and finding the right amount of compromise to make a UI work. Clutter isn't all bad, you know. Sometimes we pride ourselves on getting the bare minimum of "stuff" on the screen. Others pride themselves on fitting the most they can. Today, we're going to take pride in making sense of simple yet substantial. As usual, don't forget to send me your Reader UIs! I want to see everything from the most minimal concoctions to the biggest messes in need of some love. Send your submissions to readerui@wowinsider.com. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Germany represents with Viday's UI
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Tuesday is here, and you know what that means: We are one week away from a WoW Insider Show special live show extravaganza! You heard me right, folks: Next Tuesday, May 31, Mike Sacco, Matthew Rossi, and myself will hit the live stream for a full show dedicated to all things WoW. Plus, we're doing the show during downtime, starting at 11 a.m. Eastern/8 a.m. Pacific, so you won't be busy and can totally listen. We'll be giving away prizes, too. That rules! Anyway, we've got other business to attend to right now. Reader UI of the Week gets a good number of submissions from both Europe and the United States, but there is a really fun factor in seeing non-English UIs. The localization process is awesome and incredibly intriguing to me, and I love seeing what different UI elements are labeled as and how UI issues are dealt with. Imagine my utter disappointment when German native Viday changed his entire interface to English so it would be more understandable. Story of my life. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Bloom with Skoddie's UI
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Welcome, friends, to another exciting week here at Reader UI of the Week. I am your ever-vigilant host, Mathew McCurley. Before we begin, I wanted to remind everyone about the submission process for sending your Reader UI to be thrust into the spotlight for all readers to see. First, send images, not videos. I appreciate you taking the time to put together a video showing how your UI works, but for the purposes of the column, I do need some screenshots to go along with it. Second, "here's my UI, I hope you like it" is great, but it cannot be the only content you send along. We need more! What do you like about your UI? What was your design goal? Do you have any pieces of the UI that you just can't live without? You don't have to write a novel, I swear. Other than that, submissions are easy! Big screenshots, please, and your WoW character's name is suitable. If I cannot tell what gender you are from the screenshots or your name, a gender-identifying pronoun will be provided for you at random. Submit your UI to readerui@wowinsider.com! %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Vanity and Vanid's UI
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. I am a man of many words, as you fine readers have grown to understand over the course of my tenure here at WoW Insider. Talking about stuff in the most proverbial sense is where I feel the most comfortable. Sometimes the columns that I write take on this rambling nature, mostly because the dialogue that I am having with myself is accurately portrayed and transcribed on the digital page. For instance, when I first saw Vanid's user interface, I was impressed with the careful minimalism but wanted to ramble on and on and on about the bottom action bar. A single, solitary bar caused me much vexation. Maybe, if I use my words correctly, I can paint a beautiful picture of why style occasionally fights with form. %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Controlling chaos with Melosh's UI
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Chaos is inevitable. Our universe favors the breakdown of everything and anything, with order being held together by the most primitive of bonds, hanging by a thread over our celestial doom. Too high concept? Fine. Sometimes user interfaces get out of control, and there is little to do to stop it besides control whatever amount of chaos we bring about upon ourselves. This week's UI is from Melosh on the Wyrmrest Accord server, who does his best to control the chaos of a large amount of addons while still remaining information-viable. Plus, this topic lets me write blowhard-y introductions. First, a request. Many people have emailed me and asked if I still do UI renovation-type columns, where people email in their UI and ask for a fix or ideas on how to change something. Of course I do! People have sent in some decent examples of stuff they wanted fixed, but I kept answering them in personal emails, forgetting it might be pretty great for the column. So if you have an interface fixer-upper question you want answered here or want to show us your UI looking for a makeover, send it to me at readerui@wowinsider.com. Yay! %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Ozmorgius' UI and simplicity for tanks
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. Since Reader UI of the Week is written before (obviously) the date of publication, my opening remarks about the present are actually predictions from a past devoid of clairvoyance. However, today (yesterday), I can say with the utmost confidence and fact (prediction) that patch 4.1 went off without a hitch, children are playing in the streets (of Azeroth), and sunshine and rainbows (of the double variety) have graced our presence. Truly, we live in an age of kings and men. Speaking of that, I need to watch the second episode of Game of Thrones. Enough of this! Enough, I say. You're here on business, aren't you? A stalwart soldier in the fight against UI clutter and an investigator of all things creative. This week's Reader UI of the Week comes from reader Ozmorgius, whose bottom bar-based user interface is simple enough to take care of clutter but advanced enough to be an effective death knight tanking user interface that facilitates rather than hinders. Let's take a look, shall we? %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Triple play with Shaynk's UI
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. As we push forward toward patch 4.1 and the ensuing fun and merriment that awaits all patch launches, we must temper our excitement with good, old-fashioned introspection. What better way to introspect (whatever!) than to explore one of the community's fascinating user interfaces? There is a sense of curiosity, a kind of magic moment when you look at a screenshot of someone else's user interface and, for a split second, realize that you are looking through their eyes. Every day or night they sit down to play World of Warcraft, this is what they see. It's like Being John Malkovich, except without the controlling part or the John Cusack part. Today's interface gave me that sense of wonder for a longer time than the average. Why? You'll see ... %Gallery-19902%
Reader UI of the Week: Simple symmetry and Wavelength's UI
Each week, WoW Insider brings 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. If Reader UI had a theme song, what would it be? According to my play list while writing (and for those of you who follow me on Twitter), you know it's probably one of the songs that appears on my Aqua play list on Pandora. So with that in mind, you can pretty much guess my mental state while putting together Reader UI of the Week. This week, I wanted to go with another smaller UI, something that feels laptop or low-res focuses, while still keeping things nice and neat. A few weeks back, I said that I wanted to categorize the reader UIs that I spotlight in order to better facilitate the information that people could gain from the articles. Well, I've finally figured out my little system. Wavelength's UI is the first to be hit with my super category system! %Gallery-19902%
