Psichi's UI Customization Guide part 2  

Part 1: Introduction and Basics |	Part 2: Gathering Components |	Part 3: Building the UI |	Part 4: Examples

You have just finished most of the planning needed for making your own UI. Now you get to start picking out the specific pieces you want to use in your UI.

Contents [hide]

Gather Components Mandatory Mod Basic Mod Categories Unit Frame World Map Minimap Bags Cast Bar Chat Frame Action Bars Buff/Debuff Panels Other Mods Data Center Raiding Mods PvP Mods Class Specific Mods

Gather Components

Now that you have all of the pre-planning done, it is time to start gathering up the various mods you will need for your UI.

Here are some of the sites you should visit when looking for your mods:

• Curse Gamaing
• WoW Ace
• WoWInterface

Since you will have specific mods for your needs, there is no way to give you a list of "must have" mods. The following list contains mods that are popular in the WoW community, but are not the only ones available. Take the time to find the one that fits your needs best.

Mandatory Mod

Align: This mod will let you set up a grid on your screen, making layout and alignment of mods much easier. It is strongly suggested that you use this mod when configuring your UI. After you are finished with the layout, you can delete this, as it will no longer be needed.

Basic Mod Categories

The following categories cover the basic sections of the UI

Unit Frame

The health and energy/mana/rage of players and NPC

• Popular Mods
• xPerl
• Pitbull
• ag_unitframes

World Map

This is the full-screen map that opens when you press M (Default key). Many mods will alter this to add information (i.e. vendor locations, quest destinations, level suggestions, gathering node locations)

• Popular Mods
• Cartographer
• Atlas

Minimap

This is the map showing your immediate surroundings.

Minimap mods will alter the position, shape, and size of the minimap.

• Popular Mods
• Simple Minimap
• Mappy

Bags

Bag mods will alter the display of your inventory. They may add sorting and search functions.

• Popular Mods
• baggins
• one bag
• tbag

Cast Bar

The cast bar displays the time needed to both cast spells and abilities. This can be either for yourself or your target.

• Popular mods
• quartz
• Witch hunt

Chat Frame

The chat frame displays communication between players and any information from combat.

• Popular Mods
• Prat

Action Bars

Action bars are where you will place your spells, abilities, macros, and items that you want to use.

• Popular Mods
• Bongos
• Bartender

Buff/Debuff

These mods will alter the way any buffs and debuffs are displayed. This can range from moving the buff and debuff displays to changing the default icons to timer bars

• Popular Mods
• Buffalo
• Elkano's Buff Bars

Panels

These mods will add panels to the top and bottom of your screen and are useful for holding mods that display information which is helpful but not always necessary to see. Panel mods have options to allow them to be hidden unless moused over, which will increase the amount of screen space available. It is good habit to place extraneous mods in a panel.

• Popular Mods
• Fubar
• Titan Panel

Other Mods

There are many other mods that you may need depending on your focus (PvE or PvP), your class, your talent choices, or your personal preference.

Data Center

A data center will display various pieces of system information, including the current time, memory usage, current gold, current XP, friends online, etc.

• SLDataText
• Lynstats

Raiding Mods

Each guild will have specific requirements for raiding mods, but the common ones will include a boss timer and a threat meter:

• Boss Timers
• Bigwigs
• Deadly Boss Mod

• Threat Meters
• Omen
• KLH Threat Meter

PvP Mods

PvP mods usually cover two facets:

1. Battleground Timers: These display timer bars for various aspects of Battlegrounds (Time to win, time to "cap" a resource, etc.)
• Deadly Boss Mod
• SSPvP
2. Arena Frames: These will create unit frames for the opposing Arena team.
• Proximo
• Control Arena

Class Specific Mods

There are far too many class specific mods to list for each class, but these range from healing meters to poison counters to totem timers. Examples of class specific mods:

• Mage :Sheep Watch
• Priest: Serenity
• Shaman: Totem Timer
• Paladin: Holy Hope
• Rogue: Poisoner
• Warlock: Necrosis
• Hunter: FloAspectBar
• Warrior: TankAlert
• Druid: Druid Bar. Recommended Druid Addons

In the next section, you will learn how to install mods and the recommended process for configuring mods. | Continue to Part 3

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