Did anyone check out my little design above, even though it lacked a sort of style or background?

NO OFFENSE, but I don't understand how that layout is minimalist at all. Two XP bars show at all times? Two chat boxes? heroic opportunity contains extra circles that never get used. Also the layout seems extremely clustered yet the way the hot bars are laid out make no comparatively. Thats just my two cents.

Well I don't personally use 2 chat bars. I only included 2 as per the discussion going on before that. I didn't say the layout was super minimalist... just that "I" am a minimalist.
My personal XP bar is resizable to hide and view xp bars, as well as click them to swap between.

Also, I put the hotbars across the top because most would want to be able to click them easily if they are not key-bound. Plus I find a lot of UI's out there in other games have a set up like this.
It's a very basic design. The heroic opportunity window was just a placeholder.

I know I'm coming into this really, really late - but why is the threat meter in a separate window at all, rather than a gauge/display in the target window?

Not sure how GM9 did it for Profit, but for ThorUI I put the flames as a background image in the target window, with the threat number in the corner. I was tweaking with adding a gauge as well, similar to the health meter, but wasn't completely happy with how it looked - I may come back to this later.

There's not really a lot of windows that can be combined without losing some function, but those two definitely could be tweaked to one. Compass to map/minimap might be another, but I'm more iffy on that, since some people toggle the minimap to save screen space, and others still use the old map system.

Short version, I think the first step in designing a base HUD is minimalizing the number of windows which need to be included.

It just comes down to not finding a good way to integrate it into the existing target/implied target window so that it works well with both con modes and isn't distracting for people that don't want to see it. In its own window, people can completely turn it off and its not in the way. Its sizable small enough that it can be placed somewhere and not take up much space.

Had I come up with a good design for the default that included integrating it in the target window, I would have done so. But I would have also wanted to integrate this into the implied target window which would have meant splitting the dynamic data into two values, one for your target and one for your implied target. I didn't want your target to be a group-mate and have the hate info on your target window when it really applied to the mob in your implied window.

If people wanted an option to turn off the tips while zoning, they would most certainly want an option to turn off threat info in the target/implied window. Any design I came up with just looked bad if you turned the threat info off, or didn't give the threat info enough real-estate by shoving the number in a corner.

Trying to design a window that looks good with multiple con modes and options that enable/disable parts of the window is not an easy task if you want it to look good in every situation.

So /GameData.Target.Threat, despite the name and the description in the XML, does in fact also apply to the implied target, whichever is the mob? Hmm, guess I'll have to redesign that again then...

Yeah, I noticed that when I was testing it on my necro.

Thanks for the response, Rothgar. Honestly, I never considered for a moment that someone might not want to know what their threat is, though I certainly wanted that window out of the way. Well, soloing it's not useful, but the intergrated variant, to me, doesn't detract from anything either. The problem of the threat being related to a friend's name when using implied targeting didn't seem a problem to me, though. It just seems obvious to me that the threat would apply to the mob.

Now I'm wondering if I should give a target window variant without the threat meter imbedded...

Now that I've gone back and reviewed our gamedata, I can see why it might be confusing that the "threat" value includes your implied target's threat, whichever is the hated mob.

I overlooked the fact that we had an "ImpliedTarget" section that basically mirrored the "Target" section. I probably should have split the values. Unfortunately if I do this now, the logic in the threat window will be a bit more complex since it'll need to determine which dynamic data element to use.

However, now is the time to do it since theses changes have been pushed back with the fighter revamp.

What would you guys rather see, the dynamic data moved out of the "Target" section so its not confusing, or the data split into 2 different pieces of gamedata and some extra logic in the threat window to switch between them?

Personally I'd like it to be split. Implementation on your window could be pretty easy if you had the data toggle its visibility according to your target/implied target.

I'd think it make more sense and be less confusing to move it out and be it's own... as like a Threat category?

I like the idea of having a target threat and an implied target threat. I was planning to have the threat bar under the target name.

Anyways, knowing the threat level versus one mob is all well and good, but when your in a group (which is where this information is particularly useful) you are normally dealing with multiple mobs. I was wondering if it would be possible to incorporate the threat level into the label that hovers over all the mobs heads. That would make dealing with fights with a lot of bad guys a lot easier, especially for those fighters who can deal with group threat. Of course you should be able to turn that information off if you don't want to see it.

Just my two cents.

If you go on Test you'll see that's already the case. ;)

Only cause my account isn't on atm so I can't check yet... but does it show over all the encounter, or only target/imlpied?

Are you talking about the hate bar over the mobs head? It shows up for any mob that hates you. They don't have to be your target or even part of the same encounter.

gm9, As far as implementing the threat meter with 2 dynamic values, were you suggesting making 2 of every element and toggling their visibility? That thought crossed my mind when I first contemplated splitting them, but it just seemed a little hacky. If you've thought of a way to do it with just 1 of each element, do tell.

You'd only need a duplicate text element, nothing else would need to be changed.

Or, if even one duplicate is a no no to you could add something like this:

<Page DynamicData="/GameData.ImpliedTarget.Threat" DynamicDataFilter="0001" Name="Toggle" OnShow="Parent.Value.DynamicData='/GameData.ImpliedTarget.Threat'" OnHide="Parent.Value.DynamicData='/GameData.Target.Threat'" Visible="false" />

I've gone ahead and split the threat into multiple values and set up the UI to have two Text labels. Since you shouldn't be able to have threat on your target and implied target at the same time, this should work fine.

When are the new UI updates specifically raid wide detrimentals, OnTextChanged and TimeSinceAutoAttack going to live?

I believe with GU51 but I think that's delayed because the fighter changes are still being pushed back?

Gu51 minus the fighter changes practically went live today as a "hotfix" But none of the UI fixes went in.

Today was a hotfix, it wasn't technically GU51. This hotfix included as many features as we could get in.

GU51 with the fighter revamp and all of the UI mods will be going in about the time that would have been GU52. I'm hoping it'll be around the end of February or first week of March but I'm not sure exactly what day.

I've been watching the test UI for this, but so far haven't seen the split values show up in the threat meter. Has this split not been patched through yet, or am I missing something obvious?

As for the HUD layout suggestions, I keep trying things, but everything I try using the windows you suggested just puts too much in one place - my hud goes halfway up my screen. I personally prefer a more split layout - most things in one area, but things like target/group/player up top, away from the general crush. Because in combat I don't want to check through this huge mass of stuff to see how everyone's doing - if the tank is about to drop I want it to stand out immediately.

I'll try working on the layout some more when I get a decent monitor again, possibly with less elements involved.

Question I had about the idea of telescoping potions button - you mentioned being able to hover over/click on one potion, and it'd expand to show all your potions, so you could have them all available with less hotbar space taken. Currently a great many of the potions look the same - all cures, all power regen, etc - would there also be plans to add distinguishing marks to each of the potions? Say the cure potions include the icon for what affect they cure?

We haven't published to test yet but hopefully that will be soon.

As far as the window layout, it sounds like I gave you the impression that all those windows should be at the bottom of the screen. This isn't what I was thinking at all. I envision a smaller top bar that would incorporate several of the UI elements there with a larger bottom bar that would include hotbars, chat windows and a few other elements.

I'm not sure if there are any plans to make more potion icons, but I completely agree with you. I was just organizing my bags last night and making sure my stacks of cure potions were topped off. I was thinking the exact same thing because so many of those potions look similar. I don't think it would be possible to distinguish every one of them, but I think making a few more icons would go a long way. I'll pass it along to the art team and see what we can do.

Speaking of potions and stacks...(this might not be quite on topic) please allow stacking of potions/poisons/totems. PvP is horrible when you have 200 of each of them and have to re auto-consume each time 1 stack is done.

At the very least, please give CURE pots an icon distinct from all other clickies. While you're at it, please make sure this icon is NEVER used for anything else.

Probably the biggest source of the "I deleted xyz by mistake" petition is due to the icon for a useful/important item being used for nearly uselesss grabage. Do you realize how flippin annoying it is that the very best Mage Secondary item in game for 3 expansions running shares an icon with the oh so common and oh so worthless unstackable avatar crystals? :P

Haha, yeah I agree they need to use way more icons than they do now. And make more of them to use, even. I know art resources are limited, but icons shouldn't be too bad to make. I guess perhaps one of the biggest annoyances is the shared nature of them... belts with icons that look like and are used on earrings, etc.