Setup GUI Size

First thing you may want to do is make the GUI a size that more suits your screen/preference. DBM now features resize options for the entire GUI panel. There are two ways to set the size. One way is to simply drag the bottom right corner. The more and more pixel perfectionist way is to actually do it from options where you can specify pixel size of height and width. There is also a reset button on this panel to restore panel size to it's default 800x600 size.

Setup positions

Second thing you want to do is put stuff where you want it. When you get into your first boss fight you don't want to be trying to move stuff then. DBM has a command /dbm unlock that will immediately show both timer anchors the info frame and range checker frames. Everything should be dragable in this mode.

Setup Warning Options

https://github.com/DeadlyBossMods/DeadlyBossMods/wiki/%5BGuide%5D-Special-Announce-Sound-Config pretty much covers most special warning options already. What's not mentioned there is that both raid warnings and special warnings have a "move me" button. That's where you can move warnings a bit. By default they are quite centered but you may want to move it up or down some based on your preference.

Setup Timer options

If you want to read more about the color bar options you see at top of timer setup panel, you can do that at article here: https://github.com/DeadlyBossMods/DeadlyBossMods/wiki/%5BGuide%5D-Color-bars-by-type

Here I just want to cover more basic setup tips. Below you can see the extra timer options that control the basic timer appearance options and timer behavior options. This is primary spot for setting texture, style, where icons are, how text appears, etc. As well as when bars transition from the small to the huge bar anchor.

Speaking of anchors, below are the timer anchor options. You can configure them to be diff sizes and behaviors (one can be filling while another draining for example). Or if you want, just disable the huge timer anchor entirely and have only regular timers in a single anchor.

Privacy

Privacy controls is very important to DBM. In fact, in a recent update these controls have been moved to their own tab to be even easier to find. While DBM supports cool features like status whispers, these features are absolutely elective. This means you can opt out of them and turn them off in options. Moreover, DBM even features some master override settings that allows the raid leader override rest of raid. For example, if a raid leader running DBM has disabled status whispers, then any DBM user in their raid will recieve a command on boss engage that says so and every DBM users addon will automatically adhere to the raid leaders whim. That said, it never hurts for each indivdiual raid member to review their own privacy options in case raid leader forgot to or raid leader is sitting out.

If privacy is important, why are the status whispers on by default

Majority of peope using DBM aren't playing at the level that privacy matters and the status whisper is a bit of a feature favorite for majority of players. Disabling any feature by default basically kills it off because average users don't know to enable things. Since those who wish to turn it off remain in a minority, the feature remains on by default.