[Request] "Demo Mode" for HUD editing; fills Job Gauge, status effects. / and more!

[freakingmayhem]

There are a few features that would greatly improve HUD customizations that I've been hoping for since 4.0. I imagine that some players would have wanted these from the beginning.

The option for a "demo mode" when in the HUD editor. This would be toggled per-element, hopefully with a button. While editing your HUD with demo mode enabled:

• Your job gauge would be temporarily activated and filled.
  Currently, when I'm on black mage and I want to fine-tune the positioning of my Job Gauge, I need to enter combat, cast Fire, and then activate Enochian. I then have <15 seconds to attempt to move the element to the perfect location.
• You would gain a set (or customized) number of buffs and debuffs.
  Figuring out where to precisely position your Status Effects bar has always been a little more difficult than necessary -- especially so with the new 3-bar system in 4.1.
• Other elements, like target and party list, would be fleshed out as well. Ideally, this should be able to be applied to every element.
  Currently, to set your HUD perfectly you need to be in an 8-player party who all have status effects, you need a target with status effects, and so on. A demo mode could fix this and help everyone achieve a perfect HUD with far less trial and error.

Additionally:

• While moving elements, the HUD editor's screen dimming and element outlines should be temporarily disabled or lessened.
  It's currently very difficult to fine-tune your HUD for various reasons, but one of the biggest ones is how the entire layout is dark grey and there are outline boxes everywhere. It makes it so that when I'm moving specific elements around, I can't tell if I've moved them correctly until I exit all the way out of the HUD Layout screen. The outlines cover the edges of the elements, and the grey filter muddies it all further. This process could easily just take one attempt per element, but because of the visual clutter it often takes a great number of attempts.

[Zfz]

We can right-click on HUD elements to toggle on/off, it would be intuitive if a third mode is added to the right-click: demo mode.

And let the target and focus target demo modes be repeatedly casting a 6 second cast.

And don't forget the content action HUD.

Lastly, a snap-to toggle would be nice. Let HUD elements get a "snap-to-grid" mode and "snap-to-element" mode, so I don't have to squint my eyes to know if my hotbars are lined up properly.

[Niwashi]

• Your job gauge would be temporarily activated and filled.
• You would gain a set (or customized) number of buffs and debuffs.
• Other elements, like target and party list, would be fleshed out as well.

In addition to your list, I'd add that if, in Character Config, you have "Enable cross hotbar" checked, then display the crossbar in HUD Layout as though it were in use, ignoring both the "Always display cross hotbar" checkbox and the "XHB transparency when not in use" slider.

We can right-click on HUD elements to toggle on/off, it would be intuitive if a third mode is added to the right-click: demo mode.

Demo mode would apply only while in the HUD Layout screen, so it shouldn't be combined as a third along with show/hide, because we need to specify which of those two settings we want activated when we close Layout mode to actually play the game.

I don't really see why we'd need it to be optional, at least not on an item-by-item basis. (Perhaps a single overall setting for the whole HUD Layout screen would be ok, though.) Any HUD element that's set to be visible, but which currently isn't filled, gets filled with default content when viewed through the HUD Layout screen, so that we can see where it's actually at when placing it.

[freakingmayhem]

I don't really see why we'd need it to be optional, at least not on an item-by-item basis. (Perhaps a single overall setting for the whole HUD Layout screen would be ok, though.)

I was just thinking that it would be a massive eyesore (and possibly counterproductive) to suddenly have every element onscreen become fully populated. It would not affect everyone, but some people have intentional overlap of elements that are not used concurrently. (e.g. my alliance list is over the bottom half of my duty list; "action help" and "item help" would probably be pretty disastrous for everyone.) In the end, if this idea interests the developers, I assume they will come up with a decently-workable method.