Intro
This is an idea i've had for a while and that i touched on in my Dream Interface thread. I wanted to go into a bit more detail about the idea and perhaps spark some interest from a dev! IMO, this would be a pretty huge addon, allowing me to get rid of sct/scd, and hide my normal combat log 99% of the time, clearing up a significant amount of screen real estate.
Concept
The concept is simple; to display player and targeted enemy damage(to player) in a slim window for easy reading and quick self gratification. Player dmg to target is displayed left aligned, while target dmg to Player is displayed right aligned. At a glance the idea might seem a little impractical given the current mode of text alignment and my understanding of the way to get it to happen. If there is a simpler, more efficient way, please feel free to stab me in the face with your sharp words of correction.
The Frame
The frame consists of 3 windows for combat text output, all lying on top of eachother.
window 1
text alignment is set to left.
parses the log and displays player damage and prints blank lines for enemy damage and exp gain.
window 2
text alignment is set to right.
parses the log and displays enemy damage and prints blank lines for player damage and exp gain.
window 3
text alignment is set to center.
parses the log and displays exp gain, printing blank lines for player and target damage.
Damage Types and Skills; lost in simplicity?
I think with a well thought out user defined labeling/coloring model we could display all the information pretty well, in the event colors and symbols werent enough, perhaps small icons could be displayed. I've even included the idea for icon display in the mockup...
I tried to look into coding this myself, but when I opened some combat log addons for reference my eyes went crossed and i started rolling around on the floor drooling on myself.