How do YOU create a UI?

[MushroomBomb]

The question is simple, how do you go about creating a UI? I'm currently tinkering around a new one, and thought about how I always make my UIs in the exactly same way. Following that train of thought, I was wondering how all of you do it.

Personally, I always start with just enough addons to hide away all the Blizzard stuff I don't want (usually all of it, except perhaps the chat window). Then, I go on to the bars, first the action bar followed by the cast bar. After this, I'll go onto the unit frames. After this, buff trackers, raid frames, encounter addons, SLDT and the Minimap follow suit. One of the last things to fix in terms of placement is buff bars. This, however, is all placement and size. No design is involved during this part.

Once I'm done with all the above, I'll generally start designing the UI. This includes, but is not limited to, the general colour scheme, textures, button skins, the whole works concerning the aesthetics. And then comes the endless tinkering with stuff that isn't immediately visible. Stuff like bag addons, map addons and the likes.

And, for some odd reason, I always finish off with the chat window. Don't know why, I just do.

So... what do YOU do?

[Deleted]

i leave my ui cos im awesome... but when i did use mods i had like 5 buttons on my screen all for cooldowns, no chatbox, no map and quartz. tbh i find that a cluttered screen is usually a bad one.

[BOBL1N]

I generally just install all my addons, put them where I can handle them, get into a BG. Realise half a ton of addons just popped up in the center of my screen, so I leave, find somewhere to AFK, and get to work with KGpanels and various other artistic addons until I feel it's perfect :P

[Deleted]

I download all the addons I want/need. Spread em out all over my screen and slowly starts configing all the addons one by one.

[Perfectdark]

I personally havent created a UI.......yet
I work at a restaurant and I'm the sort of person to doodle during his breaks and after work waiting for the bus. So sitting there I whip out my sketchpad and I literally draw UI frames and cool little shit that I'd be proud to release to the general public. I don't have any scans of the works but most of it looks pretty badass. Some are tribal, some are tech or lines, etc. even done a Pokemon one when my kid nephew was over one time (and im embarassed to say it turned out kinda cool). One of these days I'll get motivated to actually go find a UI creator program or something. Usually the addons out there right now are sufficient for my needs. SexyMap for a square map and more minimap button space, Xperl, Bartender, Elkano's Buffbars for a slim feeling on buffs, Prat 3.0 for smaller chat, ButtonFacade for the glossy button look, and a AtlasLoot to peek at upcoming raid loots (because I like drooling over new 2H weapons).

my UI
http://tucker933.com/pd/hatebringer.jpg
(dont really care who looks at my profile or whatever :P)(Yes I'm redoing mechanar, <3 BC instances)

[MushroomBomb]

I started with Tukui (tukui.org), learned some LUA (easy), and made my own UI. Took me about two weeks of working on it for about... 10 hours a week. But I ended up with a good knowledge of LUA, and a sexy UI.

Speaking of that, where did you learn LUA? I've been trying a few times (though, admittedly, not with a huge amount of fervor) to find a site that could easily explain it in terms that would apply to working towards WoW addons, but no luck so far.

I personally havent created a UI.......yet
I work at a restaurant and I'm the sort of person to doodle during his breaks and after work waiting for the bus. So sitting there I whip out my sketchpad and I literally draw UI frames and cool little shit that I'd be proud to release to the general public. I don't have any scans of the works but most of it looks pretty badass. Some are tribal, some are tech or lines, etc. even done a Pokemon one when my kid nephew was over one time (and im embarassed to say it turned out kinda cool).)

I would occasionally do that when bored in class (while I was still in school), although I'd generally just draw it on Adobe Illustrator or create a mock-up in Photoshop in classes where we were supposed to be making totally different stuff (usually because I'd already made said totally different stuff and couldn't bother with additional assignments).

[Antuzin]

I generally just install all my addons, put them where I can handle them, get into a BG. Realise half a ton of addons just popped up in the center of my screen, so I leave, find somewhere to AFK, and get to work with KGpanels and various other artistic addons until I feel it's perfect :P

This.

[waitwut]

Typically I take inspiration off of other UIs and then pretty much pretend like a have a blank slate.

I always start with my unit frames as that's the, what I like to consider, template for the UI. The position, size, color, etc. dictates how nearly everything else on my UI will look. From then I typically work on my buff frame which will always go in the very top right corner, because that's just what I've grown accustomed to. I work on the buffs next because the way they are displayed largely depends on what information, (regarding buffs) I decide to show on my unit frames. From there, I position my minimap which pretty much always go in the very top left corner which is always pretty much the same add on and set up. Even though I mainly play dps classes, I like to have an idea of how the raid is so from there I typically create my unit frames which are generally from grid. That usually leads me to create my action bars which vary from a minimalistic single bar with a few spells and a lot of hidden bars or a bit larger 2 bars that display all key and commonly used spells. The chat frame comes next into the bottom left corner, usually looking the same as well. The SLDT concludes my UI with whatever data I chose to show fitting into a good spot I see available.

[Venndiagram]

I started with Tukui (tukui.org), learned some LUA (easy), and made my own UI. Took me about two weeks of working on it for about... 10 hours a week. But I ended up with a good knowledge of LUA, and a sexy UI.

Picture


DK

I love your ui. Teach meh

[Bearshield]

Honestly I usually start by browsing other people's ui's for ideas. When I find a few things I like then I get to work attempting to duplicate the things I liked from other ui's. The actual process is pretty chaotic. I'll have several menus open at a time such as Bartender, KG Panels, and Xperl and usually try to configure them all together since those are the biggest aspects of my ui. After that it's just a matter of moving around the chatbox, recount, omen and last but not least, my buff frames.

Probably the worst part of me working on my ui is that I hate change. So when I get bored enough to actually overhaul my ui, half the time I end up going back to the setup I was using before hehe.

[Droit]

I'll sit around on an alt for a couple hours in a major city while I work on the unit frames. Action bars are pretty easy, position them all where I'll remember and then hide them. Maybe have one with 30% opacity just because I click on it instead of keybinds (totems/seals). After the unit frames are positioned, mess around on a target dummy to test things out and put the cast bars in place and check that different addons aren't overlapping. I also have a bit of OCD so this goes from a few hours to maybe two days. After that comes things like Omen, the minimap and a damage meter.

[VenoM]

Do want, upload please!

[Direfen]

I seem to enjoy having everything on the bottom of my screen so I have a large view window. My bars, minimap, chat, omen, recount etc are all on a bar at the bottom, taking up like 1/5th of my screen while my buffs remain in the top right corner and party/raid icons remain in my top left.

My player, target, target target and pet frames sit just above the bar at the bottom.

Depending on that addons used (such as Stuf, KGpanels, Satrina Buff Frames etc) it can take me a few hours just to perfect it. Then a month later I find I don't like it as much as Id hoped, scrap the whole thing and make it all over again.

[aclockworkrobot]

Mine, I start by setting up all the basics that are needed and reposition a lot of the add-ons that I have applied. Normally starting with my action bars/minimap and chat window. I move around both my targets "Lifebar" and my own and play around with the sizes. I fix recount and omen into a visible position and the proceed to make sure everything functions smoothly, doesn't cause too much lag and has a viable use in my overall set-up and will be fuctionable as well as useful. I usually have to set up things differently for my healers and DPS, and I'm sure when my paladin starts tanking I'll have another set up specifically for that. Since usually I have different focuses when doing different things.

See picture here! (Set up for my mage)

[Tore]

How I do it:

1- Go to UI thread, get inspiration. Don't copy someones UI, jut look for good ideas that you like.

2- Choose a theme. "Themes" can be many things. A color is a theme. An idea or thing is a theme. A purpose is a theme. An old UI of mine was designed with several of these themes--a blue shaman-oriented UI with minimal vision disruption for raiding. That was my theme, my guide.

3- Visualize. Come up with the UI in your mind before even downloading a single addon.

4- Download the addons you need to make your visualized UI a reality.

4.5- Download an addon called Align and thank God an addon like that exists.

5- Log in, configure addon options to personal preferences.

6- Organize, create, move, script, arrange.

7- Copy all to new addon profiles. Backup WTF and Interface folders.

8- ???

9- Profit

Here's a little list of a bunch of my last UIs. The screenshots are quite old by now. http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...=1#post7391146

[Schippi]

since vanilla ->
loop(
realize i need an add on
get it, position it where it fits well & configure it until it fits your needs
rearange other addons
realize there is a better add on or yours isnt supported anymore you dont need mobmap anymore, delete addon
rearange other addons
realize your addons clutter your screen / new character - go through add ons & disable everything but the basics
)loop end