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Polymorphic: Welcome
Published by on Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Hey everyone, I’m Polydwarf and I’ll be writing up a mini dev blog as Taeo and I work on v2.0 of the UI. Here is where you’ll see the new features as they’re added, and get a chance to offer some feedback. Initially, we’re going to get the original design setup to auto-configure across all resolutions. After that, we’ll look into adding some nifty configuration options (some are already in and previewed below).
Alright, let’s get down to business. TaeoUI is now managed by a configuration addon that takes care of a lot of the setup heavy-lifting. It’s also the place where the configuration options live. But before we dive too deep into that, let’s take a look at the basic operation. When you first start TaeoUI (or whenever you change resolutions), you’ll get a pop-up like the one pictured below. Clicking on the “Configure” option automatically puts the UI elements in their default (Taeo-approved) locations. Next…Well, there isn’t really a next. That’s it for basic configuration.
Getting into the config options, we’ll start with the UI width. Setting the UI width allows you to control how much of the screen the central panel takes up. In the screenshot below, you’ll see two examples of different widths. The top is set to 75%, while the bottom is set to 50%. There are a few things to notice here. First, all the artwork rescales to keep the same “look” in a smaller form factor. Second, the actionbars will actually add and drop buttons as the UI becomes bigger or smaller. This ensures that the buttons will always fit perfectly in their spot. Finally, in the bottom-right corner, you’ll see buff bars (EBB). You may also notice that they automatically rescale to fill the gap on the right side of the screen. However, they don’t always need to be in that part of the screen. If you want the UI to stretch 100% of the way across, you can re-anchor them. We’ll talk about anchoring below, with the other config options.
Below you’ll see the configuration panel for TaeoUI. At the top are the profile settings. TaeoUI 2.0 will allow you to maintain as many custom profiles as you want, so each character can have their own setup if you so desire. Characters can also use each other’s profiles, so there’s no need to redo a setup for another character that wants the same look. If at any time, the custom configuration goes off track, merely click auto-configure and it’ll all be reset to default settings. If you no longer want a profile, just choose delete and it will disappear. TaeoUI will not overwrite your existing addon settings like many UI compilations. Below the profile information is the slider for UI width (as above) and a selection box for “Buffs Anchor.” Setting an anchor tells the UI where you want an addon to reside. Once you’ve chosen, click update and the addon is automatically placed and scaled to fit in its location. Currently, there are 5 anchor options: bottom-left, bottom-right, top-left, top-right, and none (where none hides the addon). In the future, addons like Grid and Recount will be anchorable.
One final note before I wrap up this first update. The fact that TaeoUI auto-configures addons doesn’t mean that you can’t use the component addons’ personal configuration options to change them. If you want to go into Bartender’s settings and play around with position or scale, TaeoUI will respect and preserve your choices. Only when the configuration is reset will the UI move things around on its own. Custom alterations that you choose to make will also be confined to the current profile, so any character using that profile will benefit from your work. However, we here at TaeoUI hope that few changes are needed =). Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time on Polymorphic.
Share One Response to “Polymorphic: Welcome”
when do think 2.0 is out on the street??
great UI