The "UberBar"

[Hancoque]

As far as I know there are three systems available that have something to do with bars that provide action buttons: SecondBar, PopBar and SideBar. As everyone knows, Blizzard recently intruced their own bar addon with the 1.3 patch. I read that the Cosmos developers have replaced SideBar by BarOptions and took SecondBar out. PopBar remains unchanged and intact. So far the status quo.

I think it's the right approach to utilize Blizzard's new action bars and just make them more customizable. But in my opinion this can be improved even further, which is why I start this thread.

Personally I like the sides of the screen stay as free as possible. But I also need to have many buttons accessible. All in all I need five action bars on my screen to have quick access to all major functions of my character, which means the old standard bar and the four new bars introduced with the patch. But I'm unhappy with the layout of the two action bars. BarOptions and MobileFrames allow to move one of the bars to the left side, but that still narrows down the visible screen by the same amount and doesn't go well with group portraits.

Now the suggestion(s):
1. Combine all the mentioned bar systems to one system, including all the options.

2. One of those options would be to turn Blizzard's action bars by 90° and make them horizontal bars instead of vertical ones.

3. Allow to add further bars like in PopBar and make them all configurable as vertical or horizontal bars.

4. Of course every bar is freely movable and can be fixed after it has the right position.

5. Re-introduce the possibility to use one or more of the bars (including Blizzard's bars) to position like the SecondBar: over the standard bar(s) but under the stance/pet/... bar and under the chat. Everything should align itself automatically, so that the chat window is lowered if no stance/pet... bar is displayed and that the stance/pet... bar is also automatically displayed on top of this new "SecondBar". I hope it's clear what I mean. ;)

I think if there's one addon that does all the mentioned things, no one would ever complain about bars anymore.

[jpeyper]

man... thats too complicated.


ok... if you cant get all the skills in in 12+12+12 slots (the three blizzard bars without the side ones) then i think you need to relook your stratergy because you are using way to many things.

thats 36 slots.... i know some of the higher levels have more than 36 skills.... but really, are you going to use them all?

[Zyin]

Yes, I use all 36 buttons with my level 33 Hunter. In the main bar i have mainly my arrows, and ohter important abilities. On the bar above that I have some abilities i use less often, such as Traps. On the bar thats by the Bags I put things like my hearthstone, pets, proffesion buttons (first aid, alchemy, cooking, fishing) and potions/bandages. And then the on the bar on the right side of the screen I have my 3 aspects, various forms of Tracking, and then some misc. abilities like Eyes of the Beast, the super sight one, etc. And of course im just 33, and i have more abilities to come, and im plum outta space. I would encourage for someone to make the UberBar Addon to make these bars customizable, and possible even make more bars.

[ACN]

Hi,

While I'm largely for this suggestion, or at least that there ought to be plenty of flexible (configurable) bars and bar-related options in a good UI mod (like Cosmos!) I would like to suggest a possible solution to the problem of having too few bars, at least while we wait for more bars and options to become available (I'm sure they will in due time, knowing how quickly Cosmos have evolved so far...)

I have configured my "PopBar" so as to hide ALL buttons when not "activated" (by mouse-overing the "P" button), and showing ALL buttons and bars (ie. 12 buttons in how many rows supported by Wow, 6 I think? Possibly more can be shown/used?) I have then moved the "P" button to the edge of the mini-map (you can of course do as you please in this regard). I've also set the mouse-over delay for the PopBar to 0.1 sec. (to avoid it popping when moving the mouse past it to get to the minimap etc.)

This allows you to reserve any bars you use (I use just the original plus the "SecondBar", which is now a std. WoW UI feature) for those "important" ("in combat") buttons (which are also the ones needing keyboard shortcuts), while stuff such as seldom used buffs (say, the 30 min. ones), proffession related stuff (ie. "Alchemy", "Cooking" etc.) and any other buttons you don't use during combat and/or infrequently can be placed on the PopBar (ie. in the rows not normally visible on the other bars during combat).

Thus I have access to a large(ish) number of "non-action" buttons (such as "Summon Imp" or "Fishing") by mousing-over (clicking if in a hurry) the "P" button, without these cluttering my window during combat. While I'm satisified with accessing these with my mouse, I'm rather sure shortcuts can be assigned to all PopBar buttons?

Finally, make sure you make good use of the available button "alternatives", such as Warlocks using the "ShardTracker" for making and using soul/health/... stones (thus removing the need for buttons in the bars for these things). I've also mapped "attack" to the key left of "1" key, thus "extending" the std. bar by eliminating the need to assign one of these to "attack". I'm sure more "creative" solutions can be found...

Hope this is useful to you (or someone?)

Regards,

A-)

[andypnb]

Yes, I use all 36 buttons with my level 33 Hunter. In the main bar i have mainly my arrows, and ohter important abilities. On the bar above that I have some abilities i use less often, such as Traps. On the bar thats by the Bags I put things like my hearthstone, pets, proffesion buttons (first aid, alchemy, cooking, fishing) and potions/bandages. And then the on the bar on the right side of the screen I have my 3 aspects, various forms of Tracking, and then some misc. abilities like Eyes of the Beast, the super sight one, etc. And of course im just 33, and i have more abilities to come, and im plum outta space. I would encourage for someone to make the UberBar Addon to make these bars customizable, and possible even make more bars.

I am a hunter also and i also use 3 full bars or more, but this is what i did to save on headaches and screen clutter.

First i got a mod called bc_tracking menu to take care of my tracking abilities (removes 7-8 buttons that would be needed).

Then i made a few macros as follows:

One for walking, that casts the correct aspect (cheetah or pack) and switches me to mainbar 1, where i have stuff like pet resurenct, lore and so forth...

THen one for ranged combat (casts aspect of hawk) and switches to mainbar 2 which carries all my ranged shots and 12 buttons is suficient.

Then a third for Melee (casts aspect of monkey) and switches to a bar full of various short range/melee options, including disengage, feign and so forth.

Fourth i have one with my tradeskills bar...

THat way you save buttons for all your aspects, all your tracking and you only have on screen the buttons you actually use. I put my macros as my sidebar and everything works out great. Plus you can use the same button shortcuts (numbers 1 to =) for everything rather than mess with alt, ctrl and so forth.

Just my advice. Im now lvl 58 and its a fantastic way to manage things.