VeilHUD

A minimal, intelligent UI for a more cinematic WotLK.

VeilHUD is a lightweight addon for WotLK 3.3.5a that fades your action bars, micro menu, bags, unit frames, and a handful of other UI pieces out of view during normal exploration, and brings them back the moment they're actually useful — combat, a living target, mousing over the bars, low health, or being grouped.

The goal is a cleaner screen while you're running around doing nothing combat-related, without ever getting in the way once something happens.

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Contents

• Features
• How it works
• Installation
• What it controls
• Configuration
• Troubleshooting
• File overview

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Features

• Automatic, state-driven fading — no keybinds or manual toggling needed.
• Grace windows on every trigger so the UI doesn't flicker in and out on brief gaps (e.g. a half-second between targets).
• A dedicated anti-flicker path for buffs, so buff icons don't visually pop or blink when the rest of the UI fades in and out around them.
• A startup delay so nothing fades out while your UI is still loading in.
• Fully in-game configurable enable/disable and debug logging via SavedVariables — no need to edit files just to turn it off.

How it works

VeilHUD keeps the UI visible whenever any of the following is true, and fades it out only when none of them are:

Condition	Notes
In combat	PLAYER_REGEN_DISABLED / PLAYER_REGEN_ENABLED
Have a living target	Only if VeilHUDDB.showOnTarget is true (default)
Mouse is over the action bars	Polled continuously, not event-driven
Not at full health	Compares UnitHealth("player") to UnitHealthMax("player")
In a raid group	GetNumRaidMembers() > 0
Resting (inn/city)	IsResting()
Still within a grace window	See table below

Grace windows — once a trigger condition ends, the UI stays visible a little longer before fading, so nothing flickers on brief gaps:

Trigger ends	Grace period
Lose a living target	5 seconds (TARGET_GRACE)
Mouse leaves the action bars	12 seconds (MOUSEOVER_GRACE)
Combat ends	10 seconds (grace in the PLAYER_REGEN_ENABLED handler)

Two more timing details worth knowing:

• Startup delay — VeilHUD waits 5 seconds after PLAYER_ENTERING_WORLD before it starts fading anything, so you're never staring at a half-loaded UI mid-fade.
• Zone debounce — zone-change events are debounced by 0.6 seconds (ZONE_DEBOUNCE) before VeilHUD re-checks your resting state, so rapid zone-boundary crossing doesn't cause repeated re-evaluation.

Installation

1. Unzip the package.
2. Drop the VeilHUD folder into Interface/AddOns/, so you end up with Interface/AddOns/VeilHUD/VeilHUD.toc.
3. Relaunch the game (or /reload).

No configuration is required — it works immediately with sensible defaults.

What it controls

Category	Frames
Action bars	MainMenuBar, MultiBarBottomLeft, MultiBarBottomRight, MultiBarLeft, MultiBarRight, PetActionBarFrame
Micro menu	Character, Spellbook, Talent, Achievement, Quest Log, Socials, PVP, LFD (Dungeon Finder), World Map, Main Menu, Help
Bags	Backpack + all 4 bag slots + key ring
Unit frames	PlayerFrame, PetFrame, TargetFrameToT (target-of-target)
Chat	The chat menu button and the up/down/bottom scroll buttons
Quest tracker	QuestWatchFrame
Casting/buffs	PetCastingBarFrame, BuffFrame, TemporaryEnchantFrame

Deliberately left alone: your own CastingBarFrame is never touched — your cast bar stays under the game's normal rules regardless of fade state.

Two frames get special handling:

• TargetFrameToT and PetFrame are never force-shown — VeilHUD will fade them if they're already visible, but won't summon them onto screen on its own (that's still up to the game: you need an actual target-of- target or pet).
• BuffFrame and TemporaryEnchantFrame use a dedicated anti-flicker path: instead of a plain alpha fade, they're explicitly hidden once a fade-out finishes and shown-at-alpha-0-then-animated on the way back in, so a buff icon doesn't visually "pop" into the space where your target frame used to be.

Configuration

Everything is a plain Lua constant near the top of VeilHUD.lua, or a SavedVariables field you can set from in-game chat.

In VeilHUD.lua:

local TARGET_GRACE          = 5.0   -- seconds to stay visible after losing a target
local MOUSEOVER_GRACE       = 12.0  -- seconds to stay visible after leaving the bars
local CLOSE_WINDOWS_ON_FADE = false -- if true, calls CloseAllWindows() on fade-out
local ZONE_DEBOUNCE         = 0.6   -- seconds between zone-change re-checks

Post-combat grace lives inline inside the PLAYER_REGEN_ENABLED handler — search the file for grace = 10.0 to find and change it.

From in-game chat (saved automatically, survives /reload and logout):

/run VeilHUDDB.enabled = false        -- turn VeilHUD off entirely
/run VeilHUDDB.debug = true           -- verbose chat log of every fade decision
/run VeilHUDDB.showOnTarget = false   -- targeting something no longer keeps the UI up
/run VeilHUDDB.fadeTime = 1.5         -- faster fade animation (default 3.0 seconds)

Disabling VeilHUD with VeilHUDDB.enabled = false stops it from making any further visibility decisions — whatever state your UI happens to be in at that moment is where it stays. If you disable it mid-fade and want everything back to normal immediately, /reload afterward.

Adding or removing frames: edit the FRAME_NAMES, DO_NOT_FORCE_SHOW, and FADE_ONLY tables directly in VeilHUD.lua. Any frame that supports :Show(), :Hide(), and :SetAlpha() can be added to FRAME_NAMES.

Troubleshooting

The addon doesn't show up in my AddOns list. Make sure the folder is named exactly VeilHUD and sits directly inside Interface/AddOns/ (not nested in an extra subfolder), and that VeilHUD.toc is directly inside that folder.

Nothing ever fades. Check VeilHUDDB.enabled — run /run print(VeilHUDDB.enabled) in chat. Also confirm you're past the 5-second startup delay and not resting, in combat, targeting something, or hovering the action bars.

The UI fades but flickers rapidly. This usually means a grace window is too short for your play style — try raising MOUSEOVER_GRACE or TARGET_GRACE.

A specific frame never fades. It may not be in FRAME_NAMES, or it may not support :SetAlpha(). Turn on VeilHUDDB.debug = true and check the chat log for that frame's name.

File overview

File	Purpose
VeilHUD.toc	Addon manifest (interface version, saved variables, file list)
VeilHUD.lua	The entire addon — fade engine, event handling, configuration
README.md	This document