There are literally thousands of add-ons available to enhance and extend the WoW user interface (UI). A project I am going to start is to highlight at least one a week (usually, one that I use–and trust me, I have lots of material!).
I admit it: I’m an add-on geek. As I’ve posted before, I believe Blizzard designed the WoW user interface (UI) to be extensible. If you constrain yourself to the stock UI, you’re really not taking advantage of many of the game’s capabilities. However, all of us have some limits on what we consider “mandatory,” “necessary,” “nice-to-have,” and “fluff.” And remember: I’ll be using my definitions of what these mean in terms of UI enhancements. YMMV.
In the days and weeks to come, I’m going to try to distinguish among those four classifications. Right off the bat, I’ll say that the difference between “mandatory” and “necessary” is purely and simply a distinction between raiding UI enhancements (mandatory) and general questing/grinding/non-heroic 5-man instancing (necessary). Do you need a threat-meter in Hellfire Ramparts or Mana-Tombs? Nope. What about Heroic Mechanar or Gruul’s Lair? Well, if you’re a DPSer and you pull the skull away from the tank and cause a group wipe, you’ll wish you had one.
I know a lot of people stick with the default UI because it’s pretty much “set it and forget it.” Sure, there are a couple of Interface panels that let you configure how many button bars to show, whether to show your helm (almost never) and cloak (sometimes), and other fairly basic settings.
So in addition to fitting each selection into one of the four categories listed above, I will rate how useful the add-on is; how configurable it is; and how complicated that configuration is. Some of the add-ons I’ll look at are specialty mods–class-specific, for instance. (Most hunters don’t really have a need for shammy totem managers, I think–but then, I don’t have a shammy, either!)
I may even take requests to evaluate some add-ons; but if I end up doing that, it will probably entail a second, vanilla installation of WoW so I don’t screw up my own configuration (which happens too often anyway–just ask my questmates!). So if there’s something you’re curious about, let me know and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.
I definitely look forward to these entries– although I have a lot of addons I still stick with the default UI for the most part (other than XPerl making it a tad bit prettier!) because I haven’t found any that really satisfy me yet… so it will be good to hear your reviews on them!
Just for you, I’ll write about something hunter-friendly first. Or at least I’ll try!
Any recomendations for a mod to allow me to move buttons around? I’d like to be able to move all the action buttons, the map, the chat windows, etc. There’s so much real estate on my screen now the standard stuff isn’t working for me now. I use XPerl so the player and party frames are fine, I’d just like to move all the action buttons and other stuff.
There are two button-bar mods that get a lot of press (and deservedly so): Bongos2 and Bartender3. I use Bongos, and I’m used to it. That said, I spent a little bit of time with Bartender3 this weekend–enough to determine that it pretty much does everything I want in a bar mod. (Not certain about the minimap, though, although Bongos DOES allow you to manipulate the minimap.)
Bartender is an Ace mod (see article above), if that’s important to you. I do know that Bongos has some changes coming with the 2.3 patch, but I’m not certain how much that will impact my current setup (minimally, I hope!).
Without going into a complete review here, both give you 10 configurable bars: Place them anywhere, resize them (button size), add or remove buttons (not restricted to 10 or 12 buttons/bar), set up key-bindings, include macro names, etc.
You can also manipulate and move the pet bar, stance bar, bag bar, and micro-menu.
I WILL do a complete review of Bongos after the 2.2 patch (and it may be even later than that since I’ll be gone for a couple weekends in early October).
TYVM!!