3. Advanced Mode
Advanced will bring you full control of every aspects of the buttons. you can create an infinite number of bars with up to 120 buttons, and specify the button-ids used for those bars. Basically you can re-use the same buttons twice if you can think of any use for that.
You can specify directly which button ids to switch to on stance/shape shift or with Pagemaster.
Setting a Advanced setup up for the first time will probably be hard. But if you managed to get it working like you want, it will be the best you can get :)
I think the best compromise between an advanced mode and a simple mode would be a nice dewdrop menu that allows you to create and delete bars, with sliders where you can set the number of buttons per bar. Then, for each bar or button you could set if the button should change page by modifier key or stance. A button ID pooling system will automatically assign IDs to bars/buttons as needed... Here's an example.
The user already got one bar with 10 buttons, which means he's using IDs 1-10. The user then presses "Create new bar", and adjusts the number of buttons for Bar2 to 5 using the dewdrop menu. He's now using IDs 1-15. He now sets Bar2 to change page on stance. He's playing a character with 3 stances, so the system will now assign 3 IDs per button on Bar2, which means he's now using button IDs 1-25. He now sets Bar1 to change page on modifier key shift down. He's now using IDs 1-35. If he decides to delete Bar1, he will now free up IDs 1-10 and 26-35.
This is the approach pubcrawl and discord action bars uses.
Yeah and i had a lot of problems with this, at least with bongos. The ids was all over all bars in a mess so buttons was a hell to manage. In discord you are able to set what IDs the bars use, so I think its important for BT3 to be able to configure manually what range of ids a bar uses. In bongos i end up having a bar using ids like 45-48, 56, 58 and 67. A complete mess!
Yeah and i had a lot of problems with this, at least with bongos. The ids was all over all bars in a mess so buttons was a hell to manage. In discord you are able to set what IDs the bars use, so I think its important for BT3 to be able to configure manually what range of ids a bar uses. In bongos i end up having a bar using ids like 45-48, 56, 58 and 67. A complete mess!
I thought about a UI for that like DAB has, but somehow that was too much ..
I might go for a pooling system like ag described, and add an option to adjust the ranges per commandline, if you really want that and know what you do.
Yeah and i had a lot of problems with this, at least with bongos. The ids was all over all bars in a mess so buttons was a hell to manage. In discord you are able to set what IDs the bars use, so I think its important for BT3 to be able to configure manually what range of ids a bar uses. In bongos i end up having a bar using ids like 45-48, 56, 58 and 67. A complete mess!
As we still have to use those IDs there's no easy way around this one. I guess 90% of all users doesn't care if their bars have beautifully ordered IDs.
The nice thing about having consecutive layout of action IDs is that if you keep bars of about 8-14 buttons, when you disable the addon (or go to another computer), your bars look somewhat decent. Also, when first setting up the addon, the bars look familiar to the user (oh, my potions seem to be on bar4, and my portals on bar3) instead of having the main bar composed of find minerals, shoot bow, and recklessness.
The nice thing about having consecutive layout of action IDs is that if you keep bars of about 8-14 buttons, when you disable the addon (or go to another computer), your bars look somewhat decent. Also, when first setting up the addon, the bars look familiar to the user (oh, my potions seem to be on bar4, and my portals on bar3) instead of having the main bar composed of find minerals, shoot bow, and recklessness.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like Bartender as it currently is, it means if for any reason I can't run Bartender, at least my buttons aren't all over the place when using the Blizzard bars.
Bartender2 is fine for me. The only things i miss is a keyring button/single bag button and bar2 swap to bar X on my healer/hibrid classes.
Bartender2 ain't going to be fine with you in TBC. It simply doesn't work the way we wanted it to work so that's why Nevvie is doing Bartender3.
I know BT2 it's not going to work on TBC, just wanted to say that current BT2's features plus the two that i miss would make my ideal of BT3.. With the dreamlayout ofcourse.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like Bartender as it currently is, it means if for any reason I can't run Bartender, at least my buttons aren't all over the place when using the Blizzard bars.
Yeah thats the thing. As long as you run bartender and don't lose your configuration your find but on another computer its a hell...
I think it by default should have a button layout that matches the blizzard bars. Then it should be possible to add/remove/delete buttons and bars using a button ID pooling system, and for the advanced user it should be possible to set the button ID manually for each button if needed. That should take care of everyones needs.
Yeah, i would like to see a option for right click self cast.
Thats perfectly possible, thanks for the idea :)
And it will probably get ALT-selfcast, or any other modifier if you want.
Forgive me but does that mean only alt-selfcast (or <modifier>-selfcast) and not pure right click self cast? Plain old right click self cast is so much nicer ;) (If you meant <modifier>-selfcast in addition to rightclick, then just ignore me)
Also, is it possible to get built in cooldown info and out-of-range checking? Hey, it's a feature request thread :)
I think it by default should have a button layout that matches the blizzard bars. Then it should be possible to add/remove/delete buttons and bars using a button ID pooling system, and for the advanced user it should be possible to set the button ID manually for each button if needed. That should take care of everyones needs.
Yeah i agree. And if for example you change bar1 to only show 8 buttons bar2 is still using id 13-24 and so on unless you change it manually.
The user already got one bar with 10 buttons, which means he's using IDs 1-10. The user then presses "Create new bar", and adjusts the number of buttons for Bar2 to 5 using the dewdrop menu. He's now using IDs 1-15. He now sets Bar2 to change page on stance. He's playing a character with 3 stances, so the system will now assign 3 IDs per button on Bar2, which means he's now using button IDs 1-25. He now sets Bar1 to change page on modifier key shift down. He's now using IDs 1-35. If he decides to delete Bar1, he will now free up IDs 1-10 and 26-35.
This is the approach pubcrawl and discord action bars uses.
I feel it is better to share Button ID's when it is the same action instead of assigning them uniquely and replicating the spell. If I understood your description correctly, my warrior wanting to use Sunder Armor in a stance bar and in each of 3 stances would consume 3 ID's for the same skill. Instead, ID's should be mapped into the 120 ID's Blizzard provides and then Button Frames simply share the ID needed. This is the approach FlexBar (and now FB2) took. It makes for a challenging configuration scheme but is something I've wanted in various Bar mods. Something like a Spell Book metaphor but with the book representing the 120 available slots would be ideal.
The other challenge I've faced is having instances of playing on different computers. As a result of this, I set up my buttons with the default UI and then use FlexBar on my home machine to manipulate buttons into a layout and logic I desire.
Mainly because I set up key arrangements differently based upon stance and specific fights. So sunder in one stance bar is not in the same place for a second stance as I may not use it as much. Sunder may be a bad example (HS or Thunderclap are probably better) but you hopefully get the point. I organize buttons based upon frequency of use on a per stance basis.
The new macro mechanism is nice but I've not been particularly pleased with the visuals of doing it this way since the cooldowns and icons are used only for the first spell in the macro. There are some interesting macro ideas but then the same issue applies; personally I'd want that ID used only once regardless of where or how many places I put the macro in my UI.
IMHO, the enhanced and the advanced user are trying to replicate something that is not possible in the default blizzard layout. Given that, I would say manually that the specific ID of a button isn't so critical, since the UI the user will create cannot be replicated well without the mod. Simple users, however, should have something that is relatively close to the blizzard layout (since simple users aren't really looking for enhanced functionality as much as aesthetics).
In the event that Button ID's are editable by the user (or even if not), may I suggest using an option to "autosort" the button ID's?
Let's say you have bar 1 with ID's 1-10, and bar 2 with 11-20. However, you decide that Bar 1 should have 12 buttons instead, and what happens normally is that Bar 1 gets buttons 1-10, 21, 22. Pressing autosort would then correct this to 1-12, 13-22.
pressing that button would nuke your button layout though :D!
Yep =). But it would likewise make your button layout much easier to recreate in the future or on a different machine.
I'm the kind of user that doesn't really match my button layout to my actual buttons, but rather to my "finger" interface: I have my standard numbers, the thumb buttons on my mouse, and the 18 keys from my G15 board, and I like to have associated button layouts for all of them. A feature like this would make reproducing that layout a breeze between machines or if I wipe my PC for any reason.
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Yeah and i had a lot of problems with this, at least with bongos. The ids was all over all bars in a mess so buttons was a hell to manage. In discord you are able to set what IDs the bars use, so I think its important for BT3 to be able to configure manually what range of ids a bar uses. In bongos i end up having a bar using ids like 45-48, 56, 58 and 67. A complete mess!
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Forum ModeratorI thought about a UI for that like DAB has, but somehow that was too much ..
I might go for a pooling system like ag described, and add an option to adjust the ranges per commandline, if you really want that and know what you do.
As we still have to use those IDs there's no easy way around this one. I guess 90% of all users doesn't care if their bars have beautifully ordered IDs.
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Forum ModeratorYeah, that's one of the reasons I like Bartender as it currently is, it means if for any reason I can't run Bartender, at least my buttons aren't all over the place when using the Blizzard bars.
I know BT2 it's not going to work on TBC, just wanted to say that current BT2's features plus the two that i miss would make my ideal of BT3.. With the dreamlayout ofcourse.
Yeah thats the thing. As long as you run bartender and don't lose your configuration your find but on another computer its a hell...
Forgive me but does that mean only alt-selfcast (or <modifier>-selfcast) and not pure right click self cast? Plain old right click self cast is so much nicer ;) (If you meant <modifier>-selfcast in addition to rightclick, then just ignore me)
Also, is it possible to get built in cooldown info and out-of-range checking? Hey, it's a feature request thread :)
Yeah i agree. And if for example you change bar1 to only show 8 buttons bar2 is still using id 13-24 and so on unless you change it manually.
I feel it is better to share Button ID's when it is the same action instead of assigning them uniquely and replicating the spell. If I understood your description correctly, my warrior wanting to use Sunder Armor in a stance bar and in each of 3 stances would consume 3 ID's for the same skill. Instead, ID's should be mapped into the 120 ID's Blizzard provides and then Button Frames simply share the ID needed. This is the approach FlexBar (and now FB2) took. It makes for a challenging configuration scheme but is something I've wanted in various Bar mods. Something like a Spell Book metaphor but with the book representing the 120 available slots would be ideal.
The other challenge I've faced is having instances of playing on different computers. As a result of this, I set up my buttons with the default UI and then use FlexBar on my home machine to manipulate buttons into a layout and logic I desire.
When I follow the ui board correctly you won't have spells in your bars anymore but small nifty macros with small conditionals ;)
The new macro mechanism is nice but I've not been particularly pleased with the visuals of doing it this way since the cooldowns and icons are used only for the first spell in the macro. There are some interesting macro ideas but then the same issue applies; personally I'd want that ID used only once regardless of where or how many places I put the macro in my UI.
In the event that Button ID's are editable by the user (or even if not), may I suggest using an option to "autosort" the button ID's?
Let's say you have bar 1 with ID's 1-10, and bar 2 with 11-20. However, you decide that Bar 1 should have 12 buttons instead, and what happens normally is that Bar 1 gets buttons 1-10, 21, 22. Pressing autosort would then correct this to 1-12, 13-22.
Yep =). But it would likewise make your button layout much easier to recreate in the future or on a different machine.
I'm the kind of user that doesn't really match my button layout to my actual buttons, but rather to my "finger" interface: I have my standard numbers, the thumb buttons on my mouse, and the 18 keys from my G15 board, and I like to have associated button layouts for all of them. A feature like this would make reproducing that layout a breeze between machines or if I wipe my PC for any reason.