rolling... and... ACTION!

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!!!

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 ?

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

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

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

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

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

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 ?

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

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 !