Mitsu's UI

NitF∞ > Mitsu > UI

December 10, 2007 Update:
Party interface (Omen and SW Stats replaced with Assessement):


October 26, 2007 Update:
Raid interface:


September 26, 2007 Update:
Party interface:


Raid interface:


July 2007:
I'm an information junky, I like to know as much about what's going on around me as possible. I'm also easily drawn to new and innovative things, even if they're not necessarily the best possible fit for me. On the other hand, I like my display to be as clean and simple as possible. Those things conflict heavily, and in my recent UI revamp, I had to constantly recite the new mantra: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

The end result was this:

That's the raid interface, so that's as cluttered as I get now. What follows is a more in-depth discussion of each of the main elements.

For a complete list of mods used, check out my mods page.

Action Bar
I've never liked Blizzard's action bars. At release, the problem was there just wasn't enough buttons, which forced me to move to Gypsy. Not only did it add a lot more buttons, but they were positioned more compactly, and without finicky artwork. Here's what my bars looked like at level 28, back in 2004: (yes, those are macros for very simple emotes -- I was a noob)

When Blizz did offer more action bars, they appeared kind of all over the place, which allowed them to be toggled on and off, but for those of us who had already moved to more logical configurations, the positioning of the new bars was a bit of a mess.

The problem with action bars and bindings is that people tend to fill their bar in with skills as they get them, and then they never change them, because they've grown used to that configuration. I started to realize that my particular layout was not optimal, and decided to bite the bullet and relearn a more logical layout. What resulted was a new layout, enhanced by super-flexible FlexBar, around patch 1.9:


Patch 2.0 broke Flexbar, so I went back to a more conventional looking set of action bars for expansion, but the basic layout has remained the same. For the most recent revamp, I opted to keep displaying my action bars -- minimalists insist that anyone using full keybindings ought not to have their bars displayed, since they should know how to control their character without looking at bars. Others argue that action bars are handy for seeing things like range and cooldowns. I'm leaning this way, myself (I also find it handy to click on certain abilities while I'm eating at the keyboard, etc.), so the action bar has stayed, though I did scale them down considerably. The only notable part missing is the stance/shape-shift bar, which I don't need to see. And while I like being able to see my action bars, I do wish there was a combat fader option, so that I could turn the alpha down when not in combat.
New bars in config mode:

I've also hidden Bar 3, which sits below my Autobar along the right side of the screen. It only appears on mouse-over and handles stuff I don't generally use in combat and that aren't keybound.





For a complete list of mods used, check out my mods page.

Ancient History:
October 2006 (in preparation for TBC):


Some time in 2006:


May 2006: