A Very Anea UI

Thanks to several people that requested a more in-depth UI post, I will give you a closer look at what WoW looks like through my UI.

Way back before 1680×1050 became a more popular screen size, I stumbled upon Discern and went /squee in delight, because someone had actually made a clean UI for the resolution I was using(!) and I used it off and on; I had forays into other UIs but always came back to this one, over a year after it broke and was no longer updated.  I’ve had to tweak things here and there, substitute addons in when others broke and made it my own, but the original Discern look is still very much there.

First are a few unsullied screenshots, then we’ll get down and dirty.  (For those of you that want a full, unadulterated list of addons only, click here.)  Click to embiggen any of the screenshots.

This is what I usually see – clean screen, with CowTip over there in the bottom right corner.

A Pitbull configuration shot, to show all unit frames and positioning.

At the Sarth raid you read about in the last post.

Color by number:

1. Map – Squeenix
   Simple and square.  I don’t need anything fancy.   I need to see where I am, where I’m going, and where the flowers are.
2. Raid Frames – Pitbull
   See no. 5
3. Chat – Prat
   Chat frame enhancement.  You can also see a few instances in the chat logs of a new addon I only downloaded a few days ago to try out, ChatIcons.  As the name implies, it will put a little bitty icon of an item, spell or achievement in chat – there are also options to show an icon next to a player denoting their class.
4. Combat Text – Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text
   Simple, configurable combat text.   I don’t think that many people use Mik’s, but I found this in an addon pack way back when, on my rogue and have stuck with it since.
5. Unit Frames – Pitbull
   Everyone’s heard of Pitbull, right?  It’s so darn famous, I don’t know what I could say about it to recommend it more.   I choose it ’cause it can be made plain and simple.   (Geez, I keep saying simple. How boring and vanilla, right?)
6. Bars – Bartender4
   Extremely customizable combat bar addon.  Even though you can only see two bars, I am utilizing several full bars with keybinds.
7. zomghaelmenao – Healbot
   This is where the magic happens.   My one-stop-shop for healing.   Simplifies healing, decursing and provides raid frames, all with the ease of key/click binds.   Ignore this part of the screenshot if you’re not a healer.  You can instead focus on the raidframes I’ve so kindly showed you on the left.
8. Buffs – ElkBuffBars
   Buffs, debuffs and weapon enhancements – set up so I can see the icon and the text at a glance.   I like to have the text showing so I can read at a glance exactly what it is that’s affecting me, instead of having to mouse over. (I can’t have all the icons memorized, you know!)
9. Omen – Omen
   I would have put “threat meter” but Omen is Omen is Omen.  Tracks your threat – lets you choose your warning noise!  I have the regular thunderclap, Lus just changed his to “You. Will. DIE.”

Stuff you can’t see but I couldn’t live without:

• Auctioneer – helping me shop smart since… whenever I started using it.
• Auditor – cash auditing fun!
• Automaton – does a whole bunch of little helpful things that are otherwise an annoyance, such as auto-dismount/flight/stand & group/summon options.   And the thing I love it for most: it will auto-decline all duel challenges.  And not slowly, either – that flag barely hits the ground, then bounces right back up as it’s declined.  The other player is usually so confused they’ll challenge you again and again until they get the hint.  I find this extremely gratifying.  Automaton also has options for auto-selling grays and auto-repairing at vendors, which is why I originally downloaded this addon, but I now assign those jobs to Auditor, to avoid double notifications in chat.
• Baggins – I couldn’t function without this addon.   Endless categories for the super-OCD in all of us.  My post about what’s in my bags (and consequently, a little bit about Baggins) here.
• Cartographer – there are so many ways to utilize Cartographer that I don’t use, but there are lots.  I particularly like how you can hover over an area and it tells you the name, recommended levels to quest, the instances in the zone and fishing skill level. Nifty!
• Eepanels – working behind the scenes is eepanels.  I opted for the “barely there” look, giving my Bartender bars something to sit on, but just outlining them so that they are more aesthetically pleasing and don’t take up tons of space.  (Thank you, Grimtorn!)
• FuBar – FuBar is hiding stealthily at the very bottom of all these scre
  enshots, only to show up when I mouseover.   On my FuBar I have AuditorFu, DurabilityFu, ExperienceFu, GarbageFu, MicroMenuFu & MiniPerfsFu.  I find that FuBar is an extremely personal bar so I will leave you to peruse the myriad of FuBar choices out there (and there are millions, let me assure you).
• LightHeaded & DoubleWide – LightHeaded – it’s the power of Wowhead, baby!  DoubleWide makes my questlog bigger and easier to navigate.  ’cause itsy bitsy quest log windows make my head asplode.
• SpamMeNot – to quote: “SpamMeNot intelligently detects, blocks and reports commercial and annoying spam messages before you even see them, without relying on an extensive list of blacklisted domain names.”  Doesn’t get any better than that.

I have not covered every single addon that I use, but these are the major players in my UI – the mods left out are not essential to the look and function of the UI and only to my personal playing experience.  If you have any questions about what you see, please feel free to ask!