in need of a basic UI

[Treerat]

Basically, after 10 years of gaming I've found that the default UI from WoW had one excellent feature that seems rarely used. A main action bar that changes what skills are on it when whatever stance the character is in changes. It was a godsend for reducing the amount of clutter and keeping abilities that were stance-specific within easy reach without needing extensive macros/ aliases.

What I'm looking for something that has that feature combined with freeing up the lower left third of the screen for the chat window, leaves the extra 2-4 hotbars in the middle of the screen stacked on top of the main, and takes all the other buttons (crafting panel, system button, inventory bags, etc) and stacks them up on the left side. Ideally that should open up more of the middle of the screen for viewing and/or raid group windows.

I tried a few other plugins (Tonicbars, BevyOBars, Kragenbars) but they all had non-optional extras in that I just didn't care for or only partially replicated that ability. Given the current limitations of what code Turbine has opened up, would that ability be possible? And if so does anyone feel like taking up the challenge? I would try myself but I'll freely admit that when it come to LUA-type coding and graphics I'm best off never touching a computer.

[matziq]

Kragenbars plugin does exactly that. Been testing the latest version and it works wonderfully.

[NuclearTonic]

The issue is exactly what you said. We are limited based on what Turbine has opened for us. For example TonicBars now supports Attonement, Focus, Furvor (but they didn't even open that up for us until November) and Buffs on a character, but there is a lot more that needs to still be unlocked to get a full-up system.

[Treerat]

@Matziq: I tried Kragen bars - it is exactly what I DON'T want. It adds a lot of extra bars that just end up cluttering the screen for me. What I want is something that changes the existing main bar and gets rid of the wasted space on the default UI. I know the late part can be done since I found a few outdated skins that moved buttons around, but I didn't care for how the rest was set up.

@ Nucleartonic: I take it then that there really isn't any sort of plugin that does what I'm looking for until Turbine decides open up more of the coding? Or is this a case of it could be done using what is available but hasn't been tried?

[Ray]

Kragen Bars opens indeed a new bar with the skills available.
Seeing your comment on it

It adds a lot of extra bars that just end up cluttering the screen for me. What I want is something that changes the existing main bar and gets rid of the wasted space on the default UI.

I think you still have the quickslots open. Do you know you can hide those in the options menu? Then you only have 1 bar (the main bar) with buttons and maybe and extra bar of Kragen Bars.

Personally I don't mind a lot of bars, my resolution is quite high so I still have enough space to look around.

[daimon]

As Ray says you can hide the stock quickslots from the options and then use plugins to use those quickslots instead. however you will lose the ability to use keybindings with skills.

And to move the mainbar stuff the craft etc panel buttons you can currently do only by skinning.

I'm actually adding similar option to my skin (in next update - no idea when it's ready :P) but as it's my skin the rest of the skin won't look like the stock skin.

[Treerat]

Originally Posted by daimon

As Ray says you can hide the stock quickslots from the options and then use plugins to use those quickslots instead. however you will lose the ability to use keybindings with skills.

Well that sort of defeats the whole purpose of bar mods for me. If I have to stop using keybindings then any improvement these bar mods add will be completely lost since I'll be reduced to clicking skills as the same time I'm trying to move with the mouse and target people and pets.

No one has really answered the first part of my question though. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A PLUGIN TO ADD STANCE SWAPPING TO THE MAIN BAR?* I don't care about "extra bars", I don't want half a dozen bells and whistles that only complicate things.

*caps for emphasis since some people seem incapable of actually reading the request*

[daimon]

Then that's a no because with the current Lua you can't assign hotkeys at all - nor you can overwrite the stock quickslots as the original UI is not based at Lua in anyway from my knowledge.

It will most likely be doable when they let the plugins devs to add hotkey support.

[Treerat]

Oh well. Thanks for the info. Back to the brute-force method.