Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Reader UI of the Week: Taeo


Taeo is a level 70 Gnome Mage with the guild , which is located on Spinebreaker. As if having a really nice and clean UI and bright colors in his screen shots weren't enough to catch the eye, his actual computer setup (to be featured in an upcoming Reader WoWspace) involves gaming on a 37" HDTV that I admit being supremely jealous of. For those curious, he's running at a resolution of 1920x1080. I don't know if that's native on an HDTV of that size, but I do know it looks really sweet.

Taeo says that his general theme is to "try to go for a very pleasing aesthetic design without cluttering the screen too much with useless information." I can't say as I blame him. One of the things I truly hate on my screen is unneeded clutter and buttons or boxes that I know I'll never use. He further explains that the bottom background "panel" for his UI was something created in Photoshop using a Windows Blinds theme based on a design by JJ Ying. From there the textures were brought into WoW and further manipulated using Discord Art.


Taeo is a level 70 Gnome Mage with the guild , which is located on Spinebreaker. As if having a really nice and clean UI and bright colors in his screen shots weren't enough to catch the eye, his actual computer setup (to be featured in an upcoming Reader WoWspace) involves gaming on a 37" HDTV that I admit being supremely jealous of. For those curious, he's running at a resolution of 1920x1080. I don't know if that's native on an HDTV of that size, but I do know it looks really sweet.

Taeo says that his general theme is to "try to go for a very pleasing aesthetic design without cluttering the screen too much with useless information." I can't say as I blame him. One of the things I truly hate on my screen is unneeded clutter and buttons or boxes that I know I'll never use. He further explains that the bottom background "panel" for his UI was something created in Photoshop using a Windows Blinds theme based on a design by JJ Ying. From there the textures were brought into WoW and further manipulated using Discord Art.


Here's the rest of the specs of this lovely clean UI from Taeo directly:
Much of the rest of the UI you can see consists of Ace2 mods. The bars are handled by Bartender3 with a slight face lift from CyCircled's glossy Onyx texture. Every ability in the bottom panel is hotkeyed while the smaller bank of bars on the right are usually clicked. I could probably compress a lot of the Mage abilities on the right side bars but old habits are hard to break.

AGUF handles all of the unit frames including the raid. In between the Self and Target frames are the ToT frame and the Focus frame. As a Mage the ability to actually view the focus frame (with a casting bar) is incredibly helpful for Sheep and Counterspell.

Other Addons:
  • Advanced Trade skill Window: Vastly expanded and movable trade skill window.
  • Arena Master: Essential for arena.
  • Bagnon: Very simple and clean all in one inventory/bank mod.
  • Cartographer: Excellent map mod. Displays Herb and Mining nodes.
  • ClearFont2: Allows you to change the default Blizzard fonts in game.
  • Confab: Provides some convenient chat functionality.
  • Deadly Boss Mods: Shows timers and warnings for boss fights.
  • eCastingBar: Movable and skinnable casting bar.
  • FuBar: Provides quick access to essential game information.
  • HitsMode: Easily readable combat log.
  • ItemRack: Allows quick gear set switching.
  • KLH ThreatMeter: Helps your tanks keep aggro and helps you avoid it!
  • MobHealth: Provides estimates of a mob, player, or boss's health.
  • MonkeyQuest: Best quest log mod I've yet found.
  • Prat: Adds lots of chat options.
  • RatingBuster: Converts ratings to percentages and allows easy gear comparison.
  • SCT: Shows damage dealt to you near your character's avatar.
  • SimpleMinimap: Stripped down and movable minimap.
  • SellAlert: Shows warnings for incoming spells. Useful for PvP and bosses.
  • SW_Stats: Damage meter. See how well you're performing in raids.
  • TipBuddy: Shows a more detailed tool tip at the cursor.
  • WoWEcon: Provides average AH prices for nearly all items.
If you'd like to show off your UI to the world, why not drop a mail with screen shots, information on what your UI is all about, and what mods you're running and why to readerui@gmail.com? Who knows -- you might inspire others to go clean up their UI (kind of like I'm about to do) and turn others on to some really good mods!

*edited to add*

Taeo contacted me directly, and has agreed to release a compilation -- BUT... please keep in mind that it was developed for an extremely high resolution, so anyone under 1920x1080 will most have to tweak this UI heavily.

link - http://www.momentummediaservices.com/taeo/TaeoUI.zip

If you are not fairly comfortable tweaking your own UI's I would not mess with this UI unless you are fond of headaches. I don't know of any way to package it neatly so all you're getting is the raw UI files and some basic instructions. Use at your own risk! Also I should note that the UI is designed for a very high wide screen resolution. You WILL have to move/resize some objects if you have a smaller resolution.

instructions

1) Delete your Interface and WTF folder backing them up if neccesary.
2) Extract the contents of the zip file to your WoW directory.
3) Browse to and open the "WTF" folder in your WoW directory.
4) Open the "Account" folder. You should see a folder named "YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME_HERE". Rename it accordingly.
5) Open that folder and rename the "Your_Server_Name_Here" folder.
6) Open THAT folder and rename the "Your_Character_Name_Here" folder.
7) Load up WoW.
8) Once in game type "/dart".
9) Click on "Misc Options".
10) Click the drop down menu next to "Load Profile" and choose "Taeo Tech AGUF".
11) Click "Load"
12) Good luck. You're on your own from there. The rest should be easy to figure out if it still doesn't look right.

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