#0 - April 12, 2007, 11:50 p.m.
Here I will try to simply answer questions that are (too) frequently asked in this forum, or maybe just information I find useful. Feel free to suggest additions and I'll add them when I can and if I think they are suitable.
15/11/08 - Merged the two sections. Updated some outdated info, some clarifications. Removed not-so-frequently-asked-anymore question.
10/3 - Replaced 1.3, changed 1.6, minor fixes
15/6 - Added 1.8, 1.9, 2.4
25/5 - Added 1.7
- 1. Where can I find addons?
2. How do I know if an addon is legal or not?
3. How do I run a macro from a macro?
4. How do I cast several spells with one macro?
5. How do I cast one spell depending on if it's usable or in range and another if not?
6. Will all my addons stop working in patch [upcoming patch]?
7. My addon button wont appear at the character selection screen!
8. All my system messages are gone! (yellow messages in your chat box)
9. My in game icons are all messed up!
10. I can't whisper to my target in a macro!
1. Where can I find addons?
- There are plenty of sites to get addons from, these sites should cover pretty much all addons there is for public use:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/default.aspx
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/index.php
http://wowui.worldofwar.net/
http://www.wowace.com/projects/
- The rule of thumb is that an addon is always legal if it uses the API (all the methods/functions/whatnot basically) provided. That means, if you have an addon which consists only of a .toc file, a .lua file and an .xml file it's legal. However there is one exception; cross faction communication. Cross faction communication is possible within the WoW API but is strictly forbidden. Note that normal terms of use still applies.
Now, this doesn't automatically mean that any addons that consists of any other files than the above mentioned are illegal, mind you. Many addons uses image files (.tga and .blp being the most common) and audio files (.wav).
You should always be wary of executable files (.exe) in addons. Don't use such addons unless you really know what the program does. Third party programs that interfere with the game or collects information from the game somehow are strictly forbidden. (not to be confused with applications that simply reads your saved variables or cache files, like the WowHead client)
One of the most common question regarding this is model changing, that is, changing the appearance of, for example, your character (including model changing, texture/colour changing). It is not allowed. You might argue that it's only you who can see it, but the reasoning is that you could for example make the enemy flag in Warsong Gulch big and bright, easier to spot. It used to be possible by simply putting the desired model file in a specific subfolder in your WoW folder, thus overriding the default model. It now requires you to modify the game files which is forbidden as of the Terms of Use:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/legal/termsofuse.html
Q u o t e:
C. You agree that you will not
i. modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of a World of Warcraft installation;
- While you can't execute a macro per se (any longer), what you can do is clicking an action button. So place the macro you want to run from another macro, on your action bar, then run this script while hovering over your macro/run print(GetMouseFocus():GetName())to get the button name. You can then use '/click ButtonName' in your first macro.
- The first thing you've got to know is that you can never cast several spells in one click if anyone but the last spell has a casting time or causes a global cooldown. Warrior stances are an exception though, and work a little different. Stances have an own cooldown, which does not affect other spells, and other spells does not affect them. It is for example possible to execute Charge + Bloodrage + Stance switch within one keypress.
The global cooldown is when you cast a spell and you see all of your spells go on a very short (1 second for rogues and 1.5 seconds for others) cooldown at the same time. That means you wont be able to cast for example a Fire Blast and then a Fireball immediately with one click, since while the Fire Blast is instant, it causes a global cooldown. Most spells that does not cause a global cooldown are spells that affect succeeding spells in some way, like Presence of Mind, Nature's Swiftness and Cold Blood, but it also goes for "Next Melee" attacks like Heroic Strike and Raptor Strike.
An example of when you can cast several spells with one click is "Presence of Mind followed by Arcane Power followed by Pyroblast". This is possible since only the last spell is the one with a casting time and/or global cooldown. For more details see the BC macro guide here
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=83118355
- This was probably one of the most used conditions pre 2.0, but it is now considered too much by Blizzard. They want us, not the macro, to play the game. Some common conditions that can no longer be used to decide whether to cast a spell:
- Cooldown
- Range
- Health or power (be it on yourself or anyone else)
- Line of sight
- Whether your addons will stop working always depends on if the patch changes how your addons work (the API - application interface). Addons will never stop working just for the fact that a patch is being applied. In content patches you can count on some addons "breaking", since there usually is a bunch of API changes, additions or removals.
And remember; simply reinstalling an addon will never do you any good, unless you accidentally deleted some files or fiddled with the code. You have to find an updated version and install it. The addon sites mentioned above covers pretty much all addons there is, so look there.
Other than that you can just make sure to check "Load out of date addons" at the character selection screen and hope everything still works.
- Visit this guide to make sure you installed the addon correctly
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=49955145
There is also a bug where if you had reinstalled WoW at another directory than the first time it would cause the addon button not to appear.
- You can solve this easiest by deleting your chat settings for the character(s) concerned. Go to \World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\[YourAccount]\[YourRealm]\[YourCharacter]\ and delete chat-cache.txt. It will automatically recreate default settings next time you log in.
Alternatively, if you have configured your chat settings and don't want to lose your settings (could be custom channels, channel colours, what kind of combat log messages that should appear etc), open chat-cache.txt in any text editor (Notepad doesn't work for me in this case, lines are messed up, WordPad works) and scroll down to this part:
Q u o t e:
WINDOW 1
[...]
MESSAGES
SAY
YELL
WHISPER
PARTY
GUILD
CREATURE
CHANNEL
SKILL
LOOT
END
'SYSTEM' is probably missing there, so add it below 'MESSAGES', like this:
Q u o t e:
WINDOW 1
[...]
MESSAGES
SYSTEM
SAY
YELL
WHISPER
PARTY
GUILD
CREATURE
CHANNEL
SKILL
LOOT
END
- This is most likely an issue that patch 2.0 brought. Fortunately, in patch 2.0.5 a fix was made possible. In case you missed it, here it is:
Q u o t e:
* Created an option to disable UI Acceleration for users of select video cards experiencing graphical corruption of the User Interface. To utilize this option, enter the following line to the Config.wtf file, located in the WTF subfolder of the game:
Set UIFaster "x"
Where x equals:
* 0 – This turns off all UI acceleration
* 1 – For Internal Use Only - DO NOT USE!
* 2 – Enables partial UI acceleration only.
* 3 – Enables all UI acceleration.
Example:
Set UIFaster “2”
Note: For users experiencing graphical corruption of the User Interface, it is recommended to try option 2 in order to correct the problem. If this does not solve the issue, then use option 0 to disable all UI Accleration.
- As you probably have noticed by now, a slash command won't take %t as argument who to send to, so you'll have to use a short script. It could look like this:
/run SendChatMessage("You are innervated!", WHISPER, nil, UnitName("target"))
