Every week on Addon Display we will showcase unique or useful addons for improving your personal UI. Here at PlanetRaid we search all over the internet for the addon that’s just right. This week we take a different look at things and will share with you our method to building the perfect personal UI. From choosing the rights addons to deciding what kind of functions you would like to have, we cover it all.

There are many aspects of creating the perfect UI and depending on whether your a hard-core raider or a casual player there are different addons to meet all your needs. Before you begin planning your UI there are a few things you must take into consideration,

• Your PC
• Your Play-style
• Functions your want

Now depending on the PC you have, it might put a limit on the amount of addons you could load or the type of addon, some addons require a high amount of memory, such as Auctioneer and QuestHelper and using these may cause lag. Depending on how you play, the type of addons we will look at will be different, same with the functions that you are interested in having.

Next you need to learn the wheres and hows of downloading and installing addons. There are two popular sites that we like to use and they are Curse and WoWInterface. They are both very large and frequently updated sites where addon authors upload their projects. Both of these sites have auto-update and download software which allows you to install and update addons with one-click.

Now ask yourself these questions, do you like to have a clean minimalistic UI or would you rather have a graphic-intense UI with borders and backgrounds?

A Minimalistic UI vs a Graphical UI

As you can see, the two UIs are very different, the minimalistic approach attempts to remove as many things as possible and cut down to just the basic things needed to play the game. The results provide you with a very clean and pleasing look. The graphical UI takes a more designed approach equipped with borders, decals, and much more which results in a very aesthetically pleasing and creative look.

First we’ll take a look at some basic addons that we feel are almost required for any custom UI.

• Some sort of Action-Bar Addon (this allows you to customize the action bars, move them, and scale them. The default Blizzard action bars are very clunky and old taking up a large area of your screen).
• A Unit-Frame Addon (The default blizzard unit-frames can’t be moved and are clunky as well, taking up too much screen space and providing too little information.

Next, we took at some addons that we don’t feel are required but are good to have.

• Map Addons (Provide features to the in-game map such as the ability to view unexplored areas)
• Dungeon Addons (Such as Deadly Boss Mods, assist you in instances, raids, battlegrounds, etc)
• Economy Addons (Auctioneer and Mail Addons all help your life in WoW a tad bit easier)

Action Bar Addons

Bartender4 – A full action bar replacement. Allows full control over your addons including scaling, size, position, fading, etc. Bartender is very easy to use and setup, allowing you to setup your bars and move other parts of your UI in just a few clicks.

Dominos - Another action bar replacment, not as customizable and easy to use as Bartender4 but has similar features.

Unit Frame Addons

X-Perl – An updated version of the original Perl. A full replacement for blizzard unit frames including raid and party frames. One of the most popular Unit Frame addons out there it comes with a full gui options panel and many other features.

Pitbull - Pitbull is also a very popular addon. The unit frames are very clean and they provide a complete replacement of the default Blizzard unit frames.

ag UnitFrames - A very well designed addon providing many features. Is not updated often but still works with the latest build of WoW, this is my personal favorite.

Map Addons

Mapster – A new addon that is very light that includes features such as resize, fog removal, coordinates, and the ability to view the instance maps.

Carbonite – Carbonite provides map enhancements such as points of interest, scaling, fog removal, coordinates and much more. Is also a very advanced questing assistance addon.

QuestHelper – QuestHelper is not exactly a map addon. QuestHelper provides waypoints and guidelines to help you quest but modifies your default map. A large memory hog but a great tool for leveling if you need assistance.

Dungeon Addons

Deadly Boss Mods – The most popular boss addon, this addon will assist you in all your raid, dungeon, and battleground environments. Includes many features such as colored raid warnings and timers. Basically a great addon to help you on boss fights knowing when what happens and what to do.

Economy Addons

Auctioneer – A full replacement for the blizzard auction UI. Allows you to have more control when placing and viewing auctions, scan all existing addons, and even keep a database of prices.

Market Watch – A very cool addon that takes all your scanned auctions and saves the data allowing you to create a pretty graph with lots of data.

Postal – Your personal mailman, allows one-click retrieval of all your mail/auction items. Very useful for people who use the auction house a lot.

Now that you have a good list of addons that have been tested and proven to work, go out there and experiment on creating the perfect personal UI. Next week we will cover a  more detailed look on the actual construction of your UI so check back!