The Great UI Overhaul, Bars (Part 2)

How often do we see this UI?

Yes, that is a lion. We dinged 25 after Sona noticed we were within a million points of achieving max guild level!  But, back to the task at hand.

Creating Something From Nothing

Someone commented on a Youtube video (that was linked by someone else, and now I cannot find it!) that it is generally easier to build up from nothing than to chisel away at default settings. So very true. And so, here you have it, folks, the default UI.  The first addon I installed was Bartender4. As I mentioned in my last post, Bartender has been with me for some time, probably since shortly after I stopped using one of the larger addons (Perl Unit Frames and similar predecessors).

Bartender has some wonderful functionality, but it’s primary purpose for me is moving and resizing my bars.  Sona uses a two bar approach to her actions. Those bars are placed directly under her feet, making them easily accessible.  I decided I’d try that method, though Breige gets three bars – the top bar is actually a combination of two bars: The pet bar and a 4-button bar that has pet commands that come from my resources.

I was suddenly a little sad when I realized a very useful ferocity pet talent didn’t make it onto the action bar, and to be only functional, I would need to remove the play command. Being able to have a dancing pet is too much fun, so instead I removed the defensive status button that I never use. (I would have removed the attack button, but, well, I actually use that one!)  So I urge all you pet wranglers to take a look at your pet’s spellbook to be sure they have the right abilities out on their bars!

I have additional bars out, which run the bottom of my screen. These contain the buttons that I use when I’m not in combat, like professions, my hearthstone mount and pet summoning, and so on.   I current have my XP and Reputation bars stacked on top of them to make a nice smooth break, but I may be moving my XP bar to just below my two action bars (clearly, much smaller!) as I only reference it lightly.

Yay! Pretty Bars!

Next up, Unit Frames!

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