(Originally posted on my personal blog here.)

One of the most eagerly anticipated features of The Old Republic Patch 1.2 was the customisable user interface. Having played around with it for a while now I have to say I am really very impressed with the job Bioware have done.

On first starting up the UI editor I found myself faced with a very imposing and cluttered screen that made no sense whatsoever! After a few minutes playing around however things became much clearer. I discovered that clicking on one element of the UI brings up a whole host of options for it, such as scale, ability to flip it, disable it, set the transparency and so on.

Screenshots and details of my new UI layout are below, along with a link to download it.

So after a lot of playing I finally landed on a set up I felt happy with. I moved chat to the bottom of the screen and the mini-map and social center to the top-right, as is usual in most other MMOs I've played. However, I kept the player frame and target near the hotkeys, as I had got used to them there and liked the fact that all the combat info was close together.

All my hotkeys are now grouped at the bottom of the screen, just above a small version of the menu bar and experience bars. I turned target-of-target on, and moved the quest log to the bottom-right of the screen and then resized and tidied up the rest of the elements.

After playing with the new set up for a couple of hours I was really happy with how it turned out.

I've made my new UI layout available for download. You can get it here.

To get it to work you need to copy the Merec 1.xml file to the following folder, replacing Username with your Windows username:
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings\GUIProfiles

The UI will then be available for you to select from the Interface Editor options.

The original UI - click to enlarge

My new UI - click to enlarge

My new UI layout in the editor - click to enlarge