Completely redoing my UI

[kate]

Well, with the advent of 4.01 I've decided to completely redo my UI and also start using some of the more advanced features of IS/ISBoxer & Jamba. My plan right now is to dump ALL of my addons except for Jamba & ISBoxer and rebuild from the ground up. I'd really love suggestions from anyone about good addons to try. Here's what I used to use:

- Gatherer (though I wound up having so many troubles trying to get the node tracking to work that I dumped it)
- Bagnon (makes all your bags one big bag, lets you look at the inventory & bank contents of all other characters on that account)
- Dominos (toolbar modification)
- AtlasLoot
- Auctionator
- PitBull unit frames
- Postal
- QuestHelper
- Recount

I know that I want to start using repeater regions for mouseover healing - and everyone tells me Healbot is the way to go for that since I can have it sort teams alphabetically/in the same way each time. I also want to start using larger macros - I know that click functionality (commas, specifically) has been changed, but I just want to have more space for my macros, and from what I hear Macaroon! works with 4.01 - is this good?

I'm also looking to have my interface be identical across toons now - all unit frames in the same place, all buttons in the same place, basically I'd like to be able to take advantage of full mouse + keyboard broadcasting in ways that I currently cannot because everyone's UI is *slightly* different. Some differences are unavoidable - classbars etc - but I think I can get mostly there for the important stuff.

Currently I run WoW on one 24" monitor, but I do have another 17" monitor I'd like to turn into the place where my followers dwell. Right now I have the 4 of them stacked up vertically on the left-hand side of the 24" and I'm thinking of going to having them be a little larger and taking up a quarter of the 17" monitor each. BUT, I also often will watch stuff like Hulu or other videos etc. while I play - and I guess I've gotten used to my current layout, so maybe I will just keep that other monitor free for videos, web surfing, etc. Is there a way I can have IS/ISboxer quickly swap between using 2 different layouts?

Finally, I'd REALLY like to reduce the amount of crap I have on my UI. Maybe something that makes my mini-map a little less ornate and lets me change the size would be good - everything else, I think I can just re-scale my bars to about 75% of the default size to have more space.

Any other suggestions for must-have addons? Any tricks and tips that people here have found helpful when it comes to cleaning up their UI?

[Svpernova09]

If you're using ISBoxer you do not need macaroon. Just make your macros in ISBoxer.

[kate]

If you're using ISBoxer you do not need macaroon. Just make your macros in ISBoxer.

You may have just blown my mind. I... I did not even think of this. Do you mean setting up keymaps that have stepped actions, or do you mean actual macros like in-game macros? I'm looking through the documentation for ISBoxer right now and all I'm seeing is stuff about creating keybinds that perform actions - is that what you meant?

I guess I'm not clear on how ISBoxer really works - I mean, for example, where are all the FTL keymap macros actually stored? I just don't want to run the risk of accidentally making something in ISBoxer (such as an extremely long cast sequence) that isn't legit according to Blizzard.

[Ualaa]

Grid + Grid Custom Layouts + Clique // Vuhdo // Healbot.
Either of the three options will get you a fixed order (probably alphabetical sort) for your team.
Clique interprets clicks for the Grid route, Vuhdo or Healbot interpret the clicks without another addon.

I like:
Cooldown Count, for the reuse timer on individual buttons.
Deadly Boss Mods, for heroics/raids and pvp timers.
Dot Timer for buffs/debuffs.
Fubar, to have lots of information plugged into it.
Jamba for flights and quests.
Mapster for the world map.
MoveAnything, to rearrange where stuff is.
Pit Bull for my unit frames.
Postal for mail.
Prat for the chat window.
Quest Helper for questing.

[Whowantstoknow]

You may have just blown my mind. I... I did not even think of this. Do you mean setting up keymaps that have stepped actions, or do you mean actual macros like in-game macros? I'm looking through the documentation for ISBoxer right now and all I'm seeing is stuff about creating keybinds that perform actions - is that what you meant?

I guess I'm not clear on how ISBoxer really works - I mean, for example, where are all the FTL keymap macros actually stored? I just don't want to run the risk of accidentally making something in ISBoxer (such as an extremely long cast sequence) that isn't legit according to Blizzard.

You can write Wow macros directly in ISBoxer. I believe the limit to the number of characters is 1023 same as any other macro extending addons ie Superdupermacro etc and is completely legit.

I would also look at using the new raid frames as they have been much improved though you can sort Vuhdu and Grid as well as Healbot by Name.

[JackBurton]

.....

[kate]

You can write Wow macros directly in ISBoxer. I believe the limit to the number of characters is 1023 same as any other macro extending addons ie Superdupermacro etc and is completely legit.

I would also look at using the new raid frames as they have been much improved though you can sort Vuhdu and Grid as well as Healbot by Name.

With regards to macros in ISBoxer, I guess I'm just really confused by the way they need to be set up through the keymaps section. I'm just completely confused because there is WAY more stuff to that macro section than I think I need.

For example, here's what I want:

I have a castsequence macro assigned to my toolbar, and when I press 1 it fires through that macro.

So, within ISBoxer, what I seem to have to do is:

1 - Create a new command on a keymap
2 - Assign that new command a hotkey (let's be easy and say it is the number 1)
3 - Go to the new key and change it's action to a "New World of Warcraft Macro Action"
4 - Select what window/s I want it to be sent to
5 - Tell it what key combination to send to wow (This is where I'm getting confused, which I will describe below)
6 - Type in the full macro.

With step 5, what's confusing is this - how exactly does this work? Do I just find an empty action bar spot and bind some keystroke combo to it (lets say ctrl+shift+alt+backspace) without dragging ANYTHING onto that hotbar in game? Then, basically, when WoW is running, if I press 1, ISBoxer actually sends c+s+a+backspace to WoW, and then... ? There's no macro assigned to that spot, there's nothing in that action bar spot, so there's no macro for it to run, at least that WoW can see, and to me that really feels like an obvious way to get banned for 3rd party software because it's clicking an empty space in the client but doing commands?

I guess I'm just completely failing to see how this translates into me being able to have a /castsequence macro that goes longer than 255 characters which is what I ultimately want to have.

Edit: Or, maybe it's just not possible to have a castsequence macro extended like that and still work?

[Whowantstoknow]

Macros do not need to be on your action bar to function with or without ISBoxer. BindPad is an addon that makes it easy to bind macros without using an action bar but you can use a /script to do it completely natively in WoW without any addons at all.


/script SetBindingMacro("K", "KatesMacro"); SaveBindings(GetCurrentBindingSet())

[kate]

Okay, so basically then what ISBoxer is doing, in the above mentioned example that I gave before, remapping ctrl+shift+alt+backspace to execute my 1023 character long /castsequence macro?

I think I am starting to understand - guess I have to wait for WoW to come back up so I can play with it and see how it works. Thanks for the patient responses :) This is breaking my noggin.

[Jafula]

Putting my 2 cents in for Jamba-Macro. It works the same way, but you can enable/disable "sets" of macros on the fly in game. For instance, my priest has a "priest dps" set which I enable when I am questing, then disable when I go into dungeons (where isboxer/healbot) take over.

Also I would not recommend using repeater regions with healbot. I recommend using click bars with healbot instead. Repeater regions repeat modifiers (shift, ctrl, alt) and this can cause havoc with healbot if you are a key spammer (like I am). Click bars do not have this disadvantage. You can find a post on how to setup click bars here (its part of a thread that originally shows how to use repeater regions).

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=286019&postcount=19

Hope some of that helps!

Edit: Having said that, Jamba (and Jamba-Macro especially) is broken as of the patch and it'll be a few days before I can get a working version out.

[kate]

Putting my 2 cents in for Jamba-Macro. It works the same way, but you can enable/disable "sets" of macros on the fly in game. For instance, my priest has a "priest dps" set which I enable when I am questing, then disable when I go into dungeons (where isboxer/healbot) take over.

Also I would not recommend using repeater regions with healbot. I recommend using click bars with healbot instead. Repeater regions repeat modifiers (shift, ctrl, alt) and this can cause havoc with healbot if you are a key spammer (like I am). Click bars do not have this disadvantage. You can find a post on how to setup click bars here (its part of a thread that originally shows how to use repeater regions).

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showpost.php?p=286019&postcount=19

Hope some of that helps!

Edit: Having said that, Jamba (and Jamba-Macro especially) is broken as of the patch and it'll be a few days before I can get a working version out.

I use and love Jamba, and am terrified of life without it :D Thank you for an awesome piece of software!

Checking into the click bars - thanks!

[birdbleed]

Here's a couple of my "Must-Haves":

TipTac
OmniCC
Carbonite
Shadowed Unit Frames - Edit: Just found out this isnt working atm :(

To make everything look nice, I use KG Panels to make some background boxes for my chat window, action bars, etc. all along the bottom of the screen. I use Dominos with button facade (caith skin is my fav).

Ofc jamba, isboxer, and some other that were already mentioned.

[kate]

Lovely suggestions, thank you! I think I waited a bit too long to do this because all of the addon sites are slooooooooow right now. It's pretty strange seeing the default UI after so long of not seeing it!

[birdbleed]

wowinterface is running pretty smoothly. I just downloaded a bunch of addons from there. That's addon site of choice anyway.