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Reader UI of the Week: Ve's 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Twenty-four-hour downtime is upon us again! Oh, the humanity. Well, settle down, because you've got some words to read about user interfaces and ... stuff. Look, I'm going stir crazy over the downtime, too. Maybe we can make the best of this together by checking out Ve's user interface and helping him out with some suggestions.
Addon Spotlight: Community Choice 2
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same! This week, the community's voice has been heard again, and addon suggestions are raining from the sky. Welcome to another exciting addition of Addon Spotlight! This week, we head back to the inbox to check out what the community thinks the WoW community at large should know about, if you already weren't aware of some of these excellent addons. We run the gamut today, from action bar and encounter mod replacements to helping you get you and your army of alts ready for the coming Cataclysm. Let's take a look at what your peers wanted you to see.
Reader UI of the Week: Luis' 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Welcome to another exciting installment of Reader UI of the Week, the greatest user submitted user interface column on WoW.com! This week, a gorgeous compartmentalized UI invaded my inbox, and I had to share. As frequent readers of this column are well aware, I am also a huge fan of using portraits in off-kilter, non-traditional ways. What do you know, Luis' UI does both of these things. Read on, friends!
The Daily Quest: Addons
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites. I love addons. I keep mine to a relative minimum, but one that is enabled on every character is Sexymap. Why? Well just look at it: It's shiny, it spins, it glows, and it's pretty. I like pretty things. I also enjoy addons. Let's see what the blogosphere has to say about them: And Two Rogues fills us in on Shadowed Unit Frames. Flow has a few words about Power Auras for resto shaman. Blessing of Fish talks about two popular addons -- Grid and Clique. Lastly, Mana Obscura discusses the annoyance of addons, and staying on target.
Addon Spotlight: Satrina Buff Frames
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same! This week, Satrina Buff Frames takes your buff and debuff frames to a whole new level. A lot has changed since the early days of buff and debuff presentation. Back in the early days, we were limited by very basic buff and debuff trackers. These days, however, one addon truly stands tall and proud, a giant among men. I speak of the impeccable Satrina Buff Frames, a wonderfully customizable and skinnable buff and debuff frame that can give any user interface awesome amounts of flexibility.
Reader UI of the Week: Ymïr's 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Welcome friends! I hope your weeks are all off to wonderful starts. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the servers are back up, life is dandy and Dalaran hasn't crashed to pieces on you. Once you log in to your server of choice and choose your character, gaze and marvel upon the user interface before you, for it could one day be here in this very column. Another Reader UI of the Week is upon us! This week, I chose to feature Ymïr's user interface. His UI is tailored to his shaman, and as I have recently had a renewed interest in my own orc shaman I might be a little bit biased in the selection. For this UI, I wanted to focus more on functionality and spatial concerns, especially with respect to where buffs and debuffs are placed, as well as the tooltip.
Addon Spotlight: Geist
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same! This week, Geist haunts your action bars. Thursday can only mean one thing -- addons. Earlier in the week, Excellence's UI from Reader UI of the Week made prominent use of Geist, an incredibly useful addon that begged to be in the spotlight. Action bars are an important staple to the World of Warcraft user interface, and most addons in this category are all about changing the attributes of mostly static bars. Geist takes a different approach to action bars, potentially being a full action bar replacement or an augmentation onto existing action bar setups. Click now!
Reader UI of the Week: Excellence's 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Happy Tuesday, friends. Welcome to another exciting Reader UI of the Week, the WoW.com repository for community user interfaces, tips and tricks. This week, I was fortunate to get a user interface in my inbox that used IceHUD, the unit frames replacement that I had spotlighted a few weeks ago. Many people sent in emails asking to talk a little more about HUD-style unit frames, and hopefully those of you playing the home game can get some decent ideas about how to build around IceHUD for a comprehensive raid interface. Let's motor.
Totem Talk: Basic Power Auras for enhancement
Rich Maloy developed a location-aware, augmented-reality GuinnessAura application for his DROID that would automatically guide him to the nearest bar with perfectly poured pints while simultaneous putting 10 yard radius red warning rings in virtual space around the attractive women in said bar. His girlfriend declared it a little too close to a "do everything and go everywhere this app tells you to" and subsequently broke it. Thankfully Rich has an innate sense for well poured pints--and only that, baby, I swear. In an ongoing effort to spend my extremely limited time doing things that aren't critically important, I undertook some UI tweaking. Granted, everyone that watches Big Crits is subject to my UI, so I do try to keep it clean enough for the show but functional enough to play and raid lead. I wanted to replace the memory-hog Shock and Awe with the lighter and more configurable Power Auras. Surprisingly it wasn't that difficult, and so after just over an hour I had auras set up for Maelstrom Weapon, Lightning Shield, and Water Shield. To get Shock and Awe setup to display MW counts, shield status, and other enhancement-specific items is very easy: open the options panel and enable the ones you want. I wrote about Shock and Awe a few months back, wherein my poor choice of font was quickly noted. The plus side of SaA is its ease of use and quick setup, the downside is the limited customization and massive amounts of memory. Besides, it's well established that using the SaA priority system is a net dps loss for experienced enhancement players. Once you learn your enhancement rotation the priority window is nothing but a distraction. I wasn't using the priority system in SaA. I was only using the bars for MW, wolves, and shields so I could replace it with something better. After the break we'll dive in to a basic enhancement shaman Power Auras setup as well as some good suggestions from the WoW Twitter crew for more information on shaman UIs and PA setups.
Addon Spotlight: HudMap
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW game play experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same! This week, HudMap replaces the hole AVR will eventually leave in your heart when it is destroyed in patch 3.3.5. With the imminent demise of AVR and AVR Encounters, the World of Warcraft community was torn in two. The prominent issue that resulted in the destruction of AVR and its ilk was the simple fact that the game world could be "drawn" on, modified without Blizzard's consent. This simple fact lead to some of the most hilarious comedy and the saddest, depressing tragedies. We even did a podcast about it! In swoops addon guru Antiarc, famous for Omen, Sexymap and Sexycooldown, to deliver us the functionality of AVR and AVR-e without the game breaking, world drawing and inexplicable phalluses. Praise to HudMap, an addon marvel.
Reader UI of the Week: Tyrias' 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Another week, another reader UI of said week. I hope that everyone in the United States had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We went to a birthday party for a dog. I know, right? This week, we take a look at Tyrias' user interface. As a warrior, he has some unique needs coupled with a nice, simple layout and some awesome uses of Power Auras and opacity. We get to talk about opacity today! Yay! Why aren't you as excited as I am? Opacity is awesome. Click! Click!
Addon Spotlight: Gathering and trade skill helpers
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. We'll look at everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your interface folder will never be the same! This week, Addon Spotlight lies to you, ditches Power Auras and shows you some resource gathering and trade skill addons instead. Hello, addon enthusiasts. I know that I promised some more Power Auras this week in the form of some more advanced techniques, but as I was writing it, I realized I wanted more time to flesh out some concepts. So, you'll have to cut me the tiniest bit of slack and give me until next week for some more excellent Power Auras selections and suggestions from the community, as well as some of my own tips and tricks. Instead, here are three addons that will greatly enhance your trade skill gathering and crafting. Who doesn't love addons that make things easier? I know I do. Trade skills used to be my favorite thing about World of Warcraft. Then they petered off in usefulness for a while, making a triumphant return in Wrath. I remember back when the game was announced and the Blizzard dev team said you couldn't fail on crafting! As long as you had the materials, you were good. Amazing! What other fun surprises await you? Click on, heroes.
Reader UI of the Week: Perasite's 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Greetings, Reader UI of the Week fans. Did you take some time over the weekend to ponder whether or not you could make some fun changes to your user interface? No? Everyone doesn't pour over user interface submissions all weekend like I do? You guys are really missing out! This week, Reader UI looks at Perasite's user interface, which has a pretty neat layout on the bottom half that pulls off a nice motif with simple borders. The top half of the screen, however, we can talk about. Let's learn a little something from Perasite!
Addon Spotlight: IceHUD
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. We'll look at everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your interface folder will never be the same! This week, Addon Spotlight enters the world of HUDs and presents IceHUD, based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire. The response to my Power Auras Spotlight last week has astounded me. I have been receiving nothing but good wishes and comments from so many people perplexed by Power Auras who are now using it for simple tasks. Next week, we will delve a little deeper with Power Auras for a bit of an advanced class. That is all for another time, however. Today we discuss a different style of unit frames -- the H.U.D. An acronym for "heads up display," HUD references an interface style like that of the information meters on your car or the targeting system on a fighter jet. HUD-style unit frames have pros and cons and aren't always the best thing for everyone's playstyle. However, their straightforward information approach as well as points for style make HUD displays a compelling alternative to the regular batch of unit frame modifications out there. The best HUD, in my opinion, is IceHUD.
Reader UI of the Week: Acacià's 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Happy Tuesday, Reader UI of the Week fans. Aren't Tuesdays wonderful? Tuesdays are now all about finding something in your user interface that you want to improve upon or could stand to make changes in. This week, we are going to look at the improvements made by reader Acacià and her new, simpler user interface. This UI definitely has some great ideas for managing space using bar grouping and some compacted frames. Let's see if we can get some tips for ourselves by rifling through Acacià's proverbial user interface drawer.
Addon Spotlight: Power Auras
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. We'll look at everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your interface folder will never be the same! This week, I give in to demand and talk about Power Auras. The time has come. The granddaddy of notification addons is again at the forefront of Addon Spotlight, and for good reason. Power Auras comes with an ingrained passionate user base of people who swear by the addon. But why? Today, we take a look at the fervor behind Power Auras and some wonderful use cases, and we declare the winners of the TCG loot card raffle for a Tiny! and Slashdance card for two lucky winners. Speaking of the contest, thank you all for responding so positively to the Power Auras submission contest. I received so many amazing emails that ran the gamut of suggestions and use cases for Power Auras that it was incredibly difficult to choose who to feature in this spotlight.
Reader UI of the Week: Gerzroz' 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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Happy belated Mother's Day, moms. That's about the best I can do for mothers as the addon/UI columnist, unless someone develops a mom addon. Anyway, another week and another reader's user interface. This week we get to take a look at some simple art, give some castbar recommendations and tips, and talk way too much about minimap placement. Let's get to it, shall we?
AddOn Spotlight: TellMeWhen
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. We'll look at everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your interface folder will never be the same! This week, TellMeWhen tells you when to do something, because you were too busy reading illicit tells or drawing male anatomy with AVR all over Dalaran. Welcome, friends! Since the Cataclysm friends and family hoo-hah was announced, all anyone wants to talk about is the future. "Future this" and "Deathwing that." Enough! Live your lives in the moment. What better way to live in the moment than have an addon help you know when things will be ready? TellMeWhen might be able to help you.
Reader UI of the Week: Crazyates' UI Mk.II
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 and some background information, to readerui@wow.com. Welcome to Reader UI of the Week. You might remember Crazyate's UI a few weeks back (April 6, 2010, to be exact). Crazyates had a problem -- too much stuff in too little of a space. SpartanUI was a large culprit, and his unit frames in general were unwieldy. Today, we revisit Crazyates' UI in a Reader UI of the Week success story and show you how user interface drab becomes user interface fab! My strength is returning! Read on, heroes!
AddOn Spotlight: NeedToKnow
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. We'll look at everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your interface folder will never be the same! This week, we look at a different style of cooldown, debuff and buff tracker. In a previous Addon Spotlight, I reviewed Sexycooldown, a timeline-style buff/debuff/cooldown timer that brings with it functionality and an awesome look and feel. This week, I wanted to showcase another of my new favorite addons that performs certain tasks similar Sexycooldown/ForteXorcist, but does so in a different style. A few emails that I have received have asked for a bar-style cooldown and debuff tracker. Well, here is your answer: NeedToKnow. I've tried my absolute best to avoid a dumb joke about "you're on a need-to-know basis," but you do need to know about NeedToKnow! NeedToKnow.
