WTF addOn BBQ

arena controller

2008-05-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

Playing arenas is a new challenge. It's similar to doing a pull in an instance except it's different because you don't know what mobs are coming in that pull, and they're not so... repetitive.
As with most instances the key to "winning" is proper communication and people doing their jobs well.

Today's setup is designed to give you a big open screen space to see around you while still giving you all the information you need to keep on top of every mob.

We start by using ElkBuffBars to move our buff / debuffs to the top corners of our screen. Pitbull party, player, focus, and target frames line the left of your screen. With debuff highlighting built in to Pitbull you can quickly see when a friendly player is in need of help. Along the top is Control Arena, a newer arena target frame AddOn that let's you see all of your opponents and what they're casting. It also shows when they're crowd controlled so you know who to avoid easily.

RicoMiniMap, EePanels2 and Bongos 2 round out the layout.

When I'm doing arenas one of the most frustrating things is actually the part before the arena begins. Buffing. Enter ZOMG buffs.
ZOMG buffs puts a single "action bar" button that's movable on your screen. Simply assign buffs to every class and at the start of each arena start smacking that button until it's all clear. Done.
If you hover over the button it shows a display of everyone in your group / raid and what buffs they currently have.

The final pieces for our setup are AZCast only showing my target's cast bar right in the middle of the screen (which you could add focus right below it to watch a healer or other) and ControlFreak which simply watches your focus target for crowd control. I recommend using a macro any time you have a crowd control that's used a lot in arenas.
Something like :

/stopcasting
/clearfocus [mod:alt] [target=focus,dead] [target=focus,noexists]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]
/stopmacro [target=focus,noharm]
/cast [target=focus] Polymorph
/p CCing %f !

This macro allows you to set a target (healer, etc.) and for the rest of the match cast your crowd control on your focus without changing your current target. You can of course change Polymorph to whatever cc you'd like and can change your focus by simple holding alt while you click this. If you set ChatMod's highlighting function to watch for "CCing" it'll give you a nice warning before the cc lands so you don't break it right away. =)

ControlFreak watches your focus frame and gives you an audible warning whenever your cc breaks and can even be clicked to recast as well.

A last minute idea I had after putting this together was to add in MobHealth to get an educated guess to your opponents total health on their frames.

Powered-Up Pally

2008-05-03T02:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, for most healing isn't exactly... fun. Yes, raiding may be fun for you, your guild may be fun, but healing is not very fun. As a healer you get blamed for a lot of things.

Bad healing: blame the healer.
Bad tanking: blame the healer.
Bad DPS: blame the healer.

I don't know why people put up with it really but, in the name of sanity, we go to some extremes to do the best possible job we can.
AddOns have ranged from functional to rediculous for healers. Ideal AddOns for a healer should make the job of healing 25 people easier without adding confusion. Surprisingly some AddOns create more work for a healer by adding so many more visual queues that you don't know which area of your screen to stare at during a boss fight.
In my opinion most healers could be very functional if only they had a simple easy to read layout. In the spirit of simplicity I give you "healer in-a-box".

Raid RX likes to call raid healing "X-Treme Whack-a-Mole". This layout gives you a nice tight box to jam those moles in to. Whack away!

We started out with Pitbull. I really like Pitbull for healers because it has a few features that make your life easier.
1) Visual Heal. This module shows incoming heals on each players bar so you know which low health player has something incoming and which doesn't.
2) Range Check. This module shows when a player is in range so you can either move closer to a certain player/group or focus your heals on people in your range.
3) Threat Bar. If you install the threat library (same library that Omen uses) each player's frame can show their threat on their current target. This gives you a good idea when certain DPS'ers are about to get aggro and need healing.

Next we used *Bongos 3 for action bar duty, NQuestLog and, Combuctor for a clear sortable bag. Then we threw a simple EePanel 2 frame around the raid/party area to make it stand out. Elkano's Buff Frames, Mappy and, Chatter round out the clean look.

As always I hope this has given you some ideas and ways to get started converting your eyesore layout in to something that actually helps you be a better player!
Good luck and BBQ!

*If using Bongos 3 please be aware that it's best to start with a clean slate. In most cases your spells will be all over the place since it creates virtual bars. If you don't want to have to clear your action bars and create all new keybindings try Bongos 2 or Bartender 3.

~ cellular black ~

2008-04-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the bbq folks!

Ok, our first custom UI will be a simple one. This idea was based on an old setup I remember from a while back. It's primarily designed for dps classes that don't need a ton of info visible. Let's take a look.

So as you can see there's not much to... see. This is a great setup for a hunter, rogue, dps warrior, that just want the basics of their info and that of their target.

We started out with a simple rectangle using EePanels2. Greyish-black background and class matching border colors. Next we took the Player + Target unit frames (using Ag_Unit Frames here) and placed them on top and bottom of Action bars 1 + 6 (using Bartender3 here). Next, using ChatMod, we shrunk and placed our chat frame at the bottom.

Now for the non-visible parts of this. Instead of using the default cast bars included with Ag_UF, I decided to use Quartz, giving me a cast bar / swing timer for myself on top of the block and one for my target at the bottom below the chat frame. Using Quartz also gave me some nice tidy dot timers as you can see above my cast bar. TipTac was used to move the tooltip to the bottom center of the screen making it more visible.

VMiniMap is shown both open and closed and is nice to free up some space when you don't need to see a minimap, such as instancing.

Lastly I positioned all the buffs in the upper right corner with Satrina Buff Frames and then matched the buff color to my class as well. The buffs / debuffs from Pitbull are still being used and are positioned to the right of their respective frames.

The only thing I didn't get to do was install FastQuest_Classic so I could reposition the quest text that's kinda blocking the chat in the images.

All-in-all a very sleek simple layout that works great on it's own or as a great start for a more complex layout!

PS. Sorry for the delayed post, they will be earlier in the day from now on, promise =)

Back in Vengeful.

2008-04-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so 2.4 has been out a couple weeks. Maybe you've found a AddOns that work. Now it's time to move beyond random AddOns and get you a UI that's worthy of some screenshots.

The 2.4 patch has been a doozy for sure. With the changes to the combat log and a few other minor changes a LOT of AddOns broke. I've been testing release versions and beta versions alike to find what's keeping up with all the new changes. A few favorites are still just not working well enough for my taste, but there's plenty that have rolled with the punches and even some new choices!

I think I've given you the foundation pieces for any layout in previous posts. In every player's UI I strongly believe in testing multiple choices whenever available to see which AddOns you prefer and that fit your playstyle. I'll continue to do comparisons here but, we're going to delve into the deeper waters of UI compilation for a bit.

If you're tired of every compilation looking the same, join me every saturday afternoon for a look at a new creative UI that I'll be designing from scratch! As always I welcome ideas so keep them coming!

Mini is the new big

2008-03-02T01:48:00.000-08:00

A lot of people get tired of the normal; not because it doesn't work, but because it's stale. Looking for simple ways to spice up your interface can sometimes lead you on a wild goose chase. The easy fix: the MiniMap.

There are a few fan favorites such as *Squeenix and Simple MiniMap, but those are long out of date. I chose to try everything I could find, as usual, but some are so old I have no clue how long they'll last.

Yet Another Square MiniMap (YASMM) is very current and pretty simple. It offers the basic features of mouse scroll, square texture, and hiding of the normal objects, day/night, zoom, and world map. You can also choose which corner it's anchored too, but cannot just move freely (may be coming soon). You can also minimize the map to just see the zone text, which is handy for the super-minimalists. At a tiny 5k this is probably the map for most people.

IDMiniMap did pretty much the same things, but you couldn't move it, couldn't minimize it, and it was still a circle... and it was twice the memory.

My favorite ended up being the easy vMiniMap. A little heftier than YASMM, but in my opinion (that's why you're reading right?) it looks better. vMiniMap also comes with built in map coordinates, which is nice to not have to constantly swap to your world map once you get close. You can also place the MiniMap anywhere you'd like.

If you're the "big taco" kinda interface RicoMiniMap or Simple MiniMap (funny name, I know) may be more up your alley. A lot of cool features, multiple skins, and lots of flexibility. Pretty much anythign you'd like from your MiniMap... well, no they won't make you tacos. mmm tacos.

Go big

or go small

you're MiniMap can do it all!

AddOns tested:

IDMiniMap (10k)
RicoMiniMap (443k)
SimpleMiniMap (621k)
Squeenix (489k)
vMiniMap (14k)
YASMM (5k)

*squeenix author Tekkub says he is not the one updating the mod anymore, so use at your own discretion!

Are you a swinger? Oh behave!

2008-02-06T14:09:00.001-08:00

As BRK says: MQOSDPS (massive quantities of sustained dps)
If that's your role you owe it to your party to be as good as you possibly can be. What happens though if you lag ? Get interrupted ? Dual-wield ?
It can be tough to really keep up with all the small details that can be thrown your way as melee DPS. Swing Timers are popular because they take a lot of the guesswork out of DPS'ing. A Swing Timer can be the difference between being #5 and being #1 DPS for a raid.

Let's take a look at what to look for in a good Swing Timer. A good Swing Timer should be easy to read, be accurate, be able to account for lag (high latency), and be easy to use.

LD50_aBar was the first Swinger I tried. It supports dual-wielding or 2hander. When something resets the swing timer it shows with text what reset it. You can also adjust the refresh rate to help if you have low FPS (frame rate). LD50 can fade out when OOC (out of combat). And lastly LD50 shows each weapon's speed on the left and time remaining til next swing on the right. All in all a good Swing Timer.

The next Swinger I tried out was Attack Bar Timer . Attack Bar Timer does the basics and takes a lot less memory. My only issues with this addOn is it can be a bit buggy and spams LUA errors when fighting multiple mobs with similar names (trash, etc.). I disabled LUA errors (in Interface options) and didn't really notice any actually problems with the bars, but just be warned. The cool thing about Attack Bar Timer is it will also track your target. You can disable this for pvp if you like in the options.

Last but not least, and also the first time an addOn makes a reappearance, is Quartz. Now I know we reviewed Quartz for cast bars, so if you're using Quartz already or want to replace both, your cast bar and get a swing timer, Quartz may be for you! For this test I removed all modules for Quartz except what's required for the swing timer to work but, there was not much change in the addOn memory usage, so feel free to use as many of the modules as you can to maximize bang for buck.

I hope you have to chance to swing this week, yea baby!

AddOns tested:

AttackBar Timer (51k)
LD50_aBar (1.17m)
Quartz (1.2m with only Quartz,Quartz_Player,Quartz_Swing,Quartz_GCD)

Garbage ? We don't need no stinking garbage !

2008-01-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

After a long day farming solid stone to get a few points in engineering, I was oh so excited to look in my bags and see them full of what looked like good mats. Half of the lot was not only not what I needed, but was nothing more than vendor trash.

/begin rummage

The annoying part, the bad bits look way too much like the good bits.

/commence clicking
Whoops... thank God for buy-back.

Ever wish you didn't have to do this ?

Now you don't. Vendor addOns make the end of the day a breeze by simply selling everything you don't need with a single button click. Some even offer customization by letting you add / remove items from a list so you never have to dig around in your bags again (except for quest items /sigh).

For me the hands down winner was Junk! Go to a vendor, hover over the mote of mana icon in the top right and Junk! will tell you how much your junk is worth. Click and everything is sold. Type /junk and link an item to add it or remove it from the sell list. Don't want fish oil, ever ?
/Junk [Fish Oil]
done.
Want your favorite über mace to not be sold
/Junk [The Stoppable Force]
done.

Junk! also has the option to auto-repair you when you open a vendor that can do so. You can also set Junk! to auto-sell as well.

Junk Manager, AutoProfit and, GarbageFu* all do the same and also have the bonus ability to drop the lowest value grey item with a single click. Need a bag slot free for that BOE epic ? done.

The conclusion:
If you want dirt low memory usage; Junk! Want drop lowest item; AutoProfit.

If you want sound sleep, knowing your bags are clear of garbage, give Junk! a try and you too can say, "garbage ? We don't need no stinking garbage".

AddOns tested:

AutoProfit (39k)
GarbageFu (771k)
Get Vendored (97k)
Junk! (16k)
Junk Manager (1.79m)
Sell Junk (394k)

*GarbageFu requires an additional addOn, GarbageFu prices , in order to use the drop lowest item feature.

open casting today !

2008-01-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

Jim: So I hear Tommy's back in town (grinning)
Joey: Yea, and he ain't happy neither
Jim: Meh
Joey: Meh ?
Jim: Look if that stooge wants to duel he won't know what hit him.
Jim: Besides, I heard he ain't half the gnome he used to be.

(from behind a very small garbage can appears Tommy and he looks angry)

Tommy: JIM!!!
Joey: Oh heya Tommy, long time no see (Joey takes off running)
Tommy: So i hear you've been talking smack in /trade again ?
Jim: naw Tommy, I'd never (cowering)

(Tommy begins walking towards Jim and pulls out a verry large stick)

Jim: (begging) Tommy this is just a misunderstanding.
Tommy: Jim, I like you, really, that's why I'm gonna leave you a few teeth.

(huge stick flies)

Fade to Black

What's that ? Wrong kind of casting ? Oh. Oh, you meant the casting bar ? My bad.

Well the best is AZCast Bar. What you want proof ? Since when ? Oh alright.
AZCast Bar will let you show player, target, pet, focus, and mirror. You can even move, resize, change texture, AND you can add in new timer bars with plugins ! So far there's plugins for BG timers and Flight timers. AZCast Bar also gives you visual feedback on your latency to your server helping you to know how long you actually have to wait before casting your next spell. And all this while still only taking 73k ?

Ok, so you need some comparisons.

eCasting Bar is pretty lightweight, but only handles player, target, and mirror bars. It does have a lot of textures and you can add in new ones (which you can do with any of these addOns in my opinion).

Casting Bar++ handles player, target, and mirror too, but also does focus. It allows different skins and textures, and alpha blending (transparency level).

Huh? These aren't doing enough ? Ok ok.

Try Natur Enemy Cast Bar (NECB). Here's how it describes itself.
"Shows Debuffs (e.g. Sheep timers), Casts, Gains, Stuns, DoTs, BossTimers, Cooldowns, Diminishing Returns by lovely colored CastBars - Supports 'target' and 'focus'. Recognizes unknown spell casts, stops and delays!"
Sounds like a DOT / HOT timer to me, but I won't be picky. Just beware, if you're a warlock, or a healer, you're going to have a LOT of bars (unless you disable a lot of function). Don't say I didn't warn you.
Also, an early warning. I actually like NECB and have used it for a while in the past... but... the author has stated that this addOn will break with 2.4 and he doesn't have time to fix it. So don't get too dependant. (2.4 is going to change a LOT of the combat system. A lot of addOns may break)

A little simpler (but somehow more memory intensive) is Quartz. I've used Quartz quite extensively and do like it. With a lot of cool features like global cooldown, swing timer for melee weapons, tradeskill casts are merged (create 28 bandages becomes 1 cast bar showing total time), and interrupt recognition. Quartz also watches your buffs and displays buffs on your target, so you can hide the default ones if you like the more compact display. Everything is adjustable to your liking but takes a little bit to get the hang of finding what does what.

All in all there's a few good addOns here so play and find what does everything you need. While some do take more memory, they may fill the place of more than 1 addOn so the memory could be justified. If you however find yourself just disabling a lot of features you may want to try something new !

AddOns tested:
AZCast Bar (73k)
Casting Bar++ (215k)
eCasting Bar (186k)
Natur Enemy Casting Bar (422k)
Quartz (1.56m)

Aimed Shot the Unbound

2008-01-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

/vacation off
/sigh

well, I hope you've all had a great holiday, but I really hope you're ready to start trying some new addOns !

If you are THE point & click king you will not want to continue reading.

I try to bind absolutely everything. But, just because you want something bound doesn't mean you actually need to see it. And there's the problem.

Even some of the popular action bar addOns won't let you use a hotkey for a button that's not visible. So someone did something about it... ok a few people. That's a good thing.

Spellbinder is pretty simple. Open the menu pick an ability / spell, pick a key / mouse binding and, go. Want to bind polymorph to mouse button 5 ? Want to bind frostbolt ... rank 1, you can. You can even bind macros, items from your inventory, trinkets, anything you like.

BindPad chooses a more drag & drop approach but gets all the same things done, and takes less memory. Also having a choice to assign a binding to the current character or to everyone is really nice. /inspect macro, everyone. /cast Misdirection ..... maybe just this guy.

Either way, there's no reason to waste good action bar space on your first aid or Goblin Hand Grenades anymore. Give them both a try and let us know what you think !

addOns tested:

BindPad (84k)
SpellBinder (377k)

rolling... and... ACTION!

2007-12-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

ahh, the action bar. It amazes me how many different ways I've seen action bars setup. Some people install an addOn just to replicate the default bars. Some people separate EVERY SINGLE BUTTON and put it in it's own spot.

Depending on how crazy you want to get there's a few ways you can go.

Bongos is an easy starting point. The menu is very simple, but still offers a lot of control. Right-click self-cast is my favorite feature. If you just want to get close to the default setup you'll be ready to go in about 2 minutes. Copy paste feature lets you use the same layout for any character on your account or create unique layouts for everyone.

If you need all out button mayhem try Trinity Bars. It has all the popular button masks (hex, gloss, square, etc.) and is not too hard to get the hang of. As with Bongos it handles the cast bar with a module that can be removed, but it also includes the target cast bar as well. Trinity also separates the XP and rep bars so you can show/hide as you like. With a simple and advanced edit mode most users will be able to get it going fairly easy, and with the new clone feature that will be implemented soon, you won't have to hand craft multiple bars with the same layout.

Bartender3 and FlexBar2 are both good addOns as well, with Bartender3 falling between Bongos and Trinity, and FlexBar2 being the most... flexible. FlexBar2 basically asks you to create each button and do whatever you like with it. You can create action bars with state recognition (shadow form, defensive stance, etc.) but it doesn't follow the blizzard paging, so it can be a LOT of crafting. If you need really complex layouts though this is for you.

If you're just looking for some unique action bar "upgrades" there's some good choices. Action Pad seems to be something a lot of people look for. It simply recreates action bar 1 in to the shape of the left side of your keyboard, allowing you to easily keybind spells/macros to action bar 1 and see it visually. It hides the menu and bags also. It does hide the Pet frame as well, so if you need it just get the Action Pet Bar also.

CogsBar takes that up a notch letting you add custom layout buttons to your default action bars. Want a 4x3 box? done. 6x2? done. 'nuf said. It doesn't however hide anything from the default setup.

XBar works a bit more like a pop-out menu for buttons. Most people will find these useful for things like buffs, potions, warlock curses, hunter traps, hunter tracking, but there's really a lot you can do with this if you get creative.

Last but not least, is IPoPBar. I really like this for a lightweight way to add a few extra bars with absolutely no setup. IPop doesn't remove/change the default action bars, it simply adds, in the location of the menu/bags, a new action bar. You can easily toggle between the action bar and menu/bags with 1 click. If you want to adjust it you can either have just the 1 bar or up to 3 (the 2nd and 3rd are pop-up therefore hidden unless you hover over the first). I really liked having the hidden pop-ups for things like tradeskill, buff food, trophy pets, and other items you don't need visible during combat.

Any way you cut it, there's no reason to not have everything you need at your fingertips. If you've exhausted your default bars give one of these great and easy upgrades a try!

AddOns tested:

Action Pad (105k) Pet Bar (10k)

Bartender3 (1.47m)

Bongos (486k)

Cogs Bar (37k)

FlexBar2 (768k)

Integrated PopBar (50k)

Trinity Bar (1.23m)
XBar (800k)

LFG!!!

2007-12-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

Chuck Norris once had to use the LFG channel... Once.

Thank you whoever made this picture !

Ok ok, so Chuck would never have to use LFG, something about roundhouse to the face. But for the rest of us who occasionally have to PUG it, this is for you.

I actually have to PUG a lot, and with a few 70's it can be a pain.

I started looking for tools to help making groups easier. In the past I've tried a lot of different addOns that did a lot of different things. One addOn let me just type in a message and it would spam that message to any channels I set at any interval I set. Another filtered the LFG channel to only show messages that contained key words of instances that were in my current character's level range. Both of those I liked but have not been maintained and are therefore buggy or just don't work.

The simple solution I decided on was to just stay in the LFG channel and watch for a group that I could use on any char and then swap.

Problem 1: every time you change zones, character, or almost anything else, LFG turns off

Problem 2: every time you group with someone, for a trade sale, buffing a friend, or a group that falls apart before it gets started, LFG turns off

Solution: get an AddOn that keeps it turned on

Both AutoLFG and LFG Channel Always get the job done, but in testing the latter seemed to have less instances of not enabling, and used less memory overall.

Either way, don't let Chuck roundhouse your LFG channel. Get one of these addOns and Happy Grouping!

AddOns tested:

AutoLFG (374k)

LFG Channel Always (31k)

Can We Talk ?

2007-12-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, so there's not much to talk about when it comes to your chat box. Some people's chat looks the same as it did the day they logged in. Others, well, let's just say, it looks like they're playing a text based game.

For me the chat box does it's job well, so I prefer to use an addOn that's more ball peen than sledge.

Enter Low Memory Chat . At a stunning 2k, it gets all the basics done, hide chat buttons, scroll with mouse wheel, abbreviated channel names, sticky chat, working arrows, edit box on top, timestamps, and a few more minor changes. Down side, no options. You can remove a few of the pieces from the addOn folder if you don't like them since they are in there as modules, but not much more than that. My only complaint is that it didn't play nice with a few other common chat mods, but if this is the only change you make it'll work great.

If you need something a bit more... robust: Prat . Prat is an ace based, module oriented chat mod, so you can pile it on or pare it down. It does just about anything I could think of for chat, but it really is nice to be able to whittle it down to just the parts you like and not pay the memory cost to have all the stuff you don't want. Chat sounds is my favorite in this addOn, never miss a whisper in the flood of trade spam again!

Trinity Chat moves into a more complex realm, but is still pretty simple to configure. It offers cool ideas like acronym filtering (want SV to show up as steam vaults ?), an english filter ( want no wai to show up as no way ?), and private channel creation. It will also save channels you've created, with their password, between sessions. It also allows for linking in private channels if the other person has the addOn running as well. It does all the other basics and more, so raid & guild leaders may want to check this out!

If you like chat management without the other stuff Cirk's Chat Manager will get the job done. Cirk's allows for creating and managing private chat channels. You can also rearrange the numbering for any channel. If you join/leave channels a lot you know what this means, no more trying to find the healer channel every time you join a raid. You can also easily see a list of every person currently joined to a particular channel. A healer avoiding the channel ? Someone in a channel they shouldn't be ? All easy to find. It still does the basics as well so no need to add in anything else usually.

Chat is one of the few addOns that I don't think there can be a winner since everyone needs something different. If you like the ability to click the word invite in a whisper to add someone to your group, to have key words highlighted in chat or shown on the middle of your screen, or even move you edit box totally away from chat itself, these are all doable. Give a few of these a try and see what fits best for you !

AddOns tested:
Chat Frame Extender 2 (80k)
ChatMod (140k)
Cirk's Chat Manager (263k)
Custom Chat (58k)
IDChat (75k)
Low Memory Chat (2k)
Phanx Chat (519k)
Prat (2.92m) (with default modules running)
Trinity Chat (344k)

Friends

2007-11-19T10:14:00.001-08:00

If you only had 6 friends this would be much easier...

But if you're like me, you may need an addOn.

Friends are a funny thing. At some point someone you group with says "Great group ! Put me on your friends list and let me know if you ever need help !" How many times does that person never group with you again ?

Then there's the ignore list . I'm pretty sure, if someone ninjas my loot, I want them on ALL my ignore lists .

There's a couple of ways to handle friends . HoloFriends handles them all . With control to copy friend/ignore lists across alts, add notes to both, AND to sort lists by any category you want, there's not much more I could even think of adding . It's a great option that I can't believe Blizz hasn't put in yet. First thing I did was sort my friends by Guildies, People for Rep, People for PVP, Crafters, and RL friends . You can then go to each character and add a personal note, such as "Pervy (paladin) Hates healing" . It saves me a lot of time knowing who can/will do what before I ask every single person on my list . My only complaint is you have to manually choose which friends to share with which lists .

If you're looking for a simpler way to just keep your lists matching on all your alts FriendsShare Resurrection is for you . Very lightweight and no setup . It auto adds and removes friends/ignores on all your alts, and is sorted per server .

addOns tested:

FriendShare (25k)

FriendsShare Resurrection (10k)

FriendSync (had an error)

FriendMinder (had an error)

Friends With Benefits (70k)

HoloFriends (139k)

BRKWWS

2007-11-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

BigRedKitty has done a lot of hard work to show how to get your WOW Web Stats in to your blog or guild web site! I encourage you to check it out and read a bit of his awesome blog if you have the time!

Hiding Gryphons

2007-11-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a simple change can make a big difference. For me that revelation came through gryphons... or should I say, lack of. Those 2 little gryphons attached to your action bar may not even bother you, but the moment you realize, "hey, I can put my chat down there", or a million other things that can slide down that extra half inch, you wonder why you didn't try it earlier.

There's only 2 choices for this and both aim to do nothing except banish those gryphons. I went with Gryphons Remover due to a significant lack of, well, anything. No gryphons, but also no memory usage. I'm sure it's doing something but it's still smaller than the other choice Hide Gryphons which used about 5k.

redRum

2007-11-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, maybe it's old age, or maybe it's how rediculously small the red number on each action button is, but I can't tell when I'm in or out of range for spells. What's worse, only the main action bar even shows it !

Simple problem = simple answer

Enter: GIANT RED BUTTONS. It the "large print" for gamers.

I found a couple of choices for this. They all did the same thing and there aren't really many options you'd need for something like this. Some let you pick a custom color for each situation, but an addOn like this I think should just be simple and lightwieght.

And the winner is.... ( sorry award show season is taking it's toll)

RedRange . At a super-light 5k, you can't go wrong. Red for "you can't use this because of range", Blue for "you can't use this, you've spent all your mana". What more could you ask for !

Now for the runners up:

Red Out (96k)

Range Color (147k)

Range ReColor (106k)

Unit Frames: so many choices

2007-11-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

If you're like me the default Unit frames leave a... bit... to be desired. Why have plain bars with too little info when you can have interact lines, threat, reputation, defecits, class colors, and 3D portraits!

There's a lot of choices when it comes to Unit frames. Some are pretty easy to get going, others... not quite.

It may be a good choice to start with something simple like X-Perl . X-Perl has a lot of options for customization, raid support & frames, and works well right out of the box. My only issue with X-Perl (and a few others) is the lack of visual changes. If you like an almost default Unit frame with lots of usable info, X-Perl may be for you ! There is also Perl Classic which is a more basic version with a much simpler look and feel. My only complaint was that, in my tests, Perl Classic actually takes a bit more memory than X-Perl, so don't think that less information is necessarily lighter on the CPU.

Now if you want simplicity, you can't get much simpler than Sage . There's a few pieces of info you can enable / disable, but you probably won't do anything more than move them where you want.

If you happen to be the text based type of player who just likes the facts, Satrina is a text only Unit Frame. You can adjust size / position, but that's about it.

Now for the big guns ! PitBull has just about anything you could possibly want ! 3D portraits, built in threat bar, and more customization than you'd probably use. The topper to all this is the visual "interact lines". A simple idea, but can be crazy depending on your placement of the different frames. Any time a player attacks / heals another player a tiny red / green line connects between the 2 players. I had my party and raid bars on opposite sides of each other and the green lines from healing were going nuts from side to side. PitBull is an awesome Unit frame addOn, the only downside is memory usage.

Last but not least, and the WTFBBQ pick, Ag Unit Frames . To me AgUf is a happy medium between info, looks, and customization. You can adjust just about anything and with the addition of AgUf Layouts , there's a layout for just about anyone.

I hope this gives you an idea of all the possibilities for your Unit frames and all the great layouts that can be built around a good looking, usable Unit frame !

-------------------------
Here's the screen shots

For the number crunchers, here's my base memory usage for each addOn in this review:
Ag Unit Frames - 2.4m
Perl Classic - 2.1m
PitBull - 7.5m
Sage - 550k
Satrina - 350k
X-Perl - 1.8m

the BASICS: where do I put this ?

2007-11-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

When you first download an addOn, most times it is in a .zip format. So first we need to UnZip the file. You can UnZip the file anywhere you like, My Documents, Desktop, anywhere easy to find. Make sure you watch to see the extracted folder's name as sometimes the folder is named after the addOn, sometimes it is inside a folder named Interface or AddOns.

Now we need to navigate to your WOW folder. This is, in a standard installation, found under

C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft

If you've done a custom installation you should know where you put it =p

The main folders we'll be working with are, of course, the addOn folder, located in your WOW folder under

World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\

This is where you will put the folder you've extracted (make sure you see a file ending in .toc in the top folder of the addOn). An example would be

World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns\FuBar\Fubar.toc

Some addOns will also include some saved variables which will alter the starting state of the addOn. Saved variables let each addOn know where to place the visual aspects,and store data the addOn needs.

The Saved Variables are found under

World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\

We'll get in to saved variables more later.

WTFBBQ

2007-11-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

Hi, and thanks for checking out WTFBBQ for addOns !

Have you ever thought "man i sure could use and addOn to do ...." ? By the time you talk to friends, figure out what addOn actually does what you want, scour the internet, find the addOn, and download it, you still don't know how to get it in to WOW, OR make it work !

WTF addOn BBQ is going to help !

I've been playing WOW since day 1, have about 300 days played total, and have spent a LOT of those working with addOns. I've played just about every class to 70, raided a lot of end-game content, and am working on finishing out the rest. Be assured, I usually know the pains of each class when it comes to lack of information, and have probably already sought out the best answer to my questions !

Feel free to start sending in your addOn questions, tips, and rare finds, and I just may feature your addOn ! Also, new authors, please send me your addOns if you'd like me to test and feature your new addOn ! Please make sure you put the name of your addOn in the title of your email and a description of your addOn and how to use it !

Well, what are you waiting for ?! Get to sending !