AddOn Spotlight: Community Choice 1
AddOn Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your AddOns folder will never be the same! This week, the community's voice has been heard and three awesome addons await your approval.
Last week, I propositioned you, the fine readers of AddOn Spotlight, to send in your favorite addons that you wanted to see on the Spotlight. You responded with a ton of suggestions, ranging from the absolutely awesome (the three we will be seeing today) and the absolutely AWESOME (stop suggesting IconHell). Without further adieu, I present you with AddOn Spotlight's first Community Choice! Here are three of your suggestions. Enjoy!
The best part of asking the community for insight into addons is that addons are inherently a community driven force. There is a great community of addon developers out there, and the marketplace of players who use those addons weed out their favorites and bests from pure usability standpoints. These three addons run the gamut of addon categories, which I personally thought was awesome. Community Choice #1's addons are Panda, RatingBuster and Align.
Panda
Panda, coincidentally, is my addon of choice for jewelcrafting and prospecting on my paladin. It was a relief to get a few e-mails about Panda, because I definitely wanted to share this one with you all. What is Panda? An adorable creature native to China. The addon, however, is a simple tool that organizes the recipes you know for Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Inscription, Alchemy and Cooking, and allows one click prospecting based on the ore in your inventory, as well as one click enchanting for all of the disenchantable items in your packs. I love Panda because it saves me from rooting around my bags to prospect, simplifying everything to one click, as well as having all my craftables ready on a visible menu grouped by color and gem quality. Also, Panda was developed by Tekkub, so you know it's going to be a nifty little tool designed to make things easier.
Here's a shot of the gem prospecting menu. Each prospect-able ore can be clicked on to break it down into gems, including a list of what potential gems are found during prospecting.
What does a reader have to say about Panda?
My add-on of choice is Panda made by our loved Tekkub. It's the ultimate crafting add-on, with one-click disenchanting, milling, prospecting, gem cutting, potion making and cooking!
Cheers, Crash
Crash has hit the nail on the head. Panda is a one stop shop for lots of one-click processes that make crafting a lot less painful. Check it out! Thank you for the e-mail, Crash.
Download Panda at [WoWInterface]
RatingBuster
Cataclysm promises to change a lot of the onerous statistics and magical hidden percentages that plague many players in WoW, from phantom defense thresholds to hit and miss changes. Until Cataclysm, however, we still have to deal with the system that is in place. Many of you wanted me to remind the player base at large of this fact and a wonderful little solution to help with the fun percentages we all know and love. RatingBuster is a great tool for easily seeing the comparison of items and calculations of percentages of item statistics. You can set the statistics that are important to your character via the interface menu and see how the changes between new pieces of gear will affect your overall percentages. In addition, RatingBuster converts ratings like hit and haste into percentages, making "hit capping" a more manageable and tangible affair.
What does the community have to say about RatingBuster?
I would like to nominate RatingBuster, It's a simple yet effective tool to see if something is an upgrade at a glance, and can be customized to show only the stats you care about.
Chris M.
When I get e-mails from community members, high on their list of praises for good addons are their simplicity. RatingBuster is as simple as it gets, incorporating itself onto item information panes alongside information you already have. RatingBuster is a must have. Thank you for the e-mail, Chris!
Download RatingBuster at [Curse] or [WoWInterface]
Align
Many people sent me e-mails that read something like this -- "you're so big on UI customization, why haven't you talked about Align yet?" Well, Align is one of those addons that is hard to write a good deal about because of how simple it is, and wow.com has done a write up on Align in the past. It might be time to drag old Align out again, since the community requested! In Align's simplicity lies an unparalleled ability to make your life so much easier while designing and piecing together your user interface. Align is a simple addon that, upon activation with the /align command, produces an overlay on your screen of a perfect line grid.
Align can be set up to produce a grid through the command /align N where N is the number of squares as multiples of 32, ending with 256. The larger the number means the smaller the squares. 64x64 is usually good for me when I am designing user interfaces, and help greatly when deciding how big addons should be in the planing stage.
I think that Align is a popular community pick because of two reasons. First, Align is as simple as it gets. One command to show the grid and the same command to close it. There is enough variation and ability to be customized with the size of the grid to be useful on any size screen, and the addon itself could barely be called small -- it's definitely not a venti, or, Uther help us, a trenta. Second, Align gives you something you didn't really think you needed, but proved to be invaluable. It's a wonderful little tool that take a lot of the guess work out of the lining up addons process and, in the end, can help you line things up in a profoundly better way.
Download Align at [WoWInterface]
That's it for Community Choice Number One! I hope you guys enjoyed seeing what your peers thought were excellent addons to share with you all. I know I enjoyed all of the varied e-mails and suggestions I got. Keep sending in Community Choice suggestions! Getting e-mail makes me feel popular and important.
Next week on AddOn Spotlight, we are traveling deep into the heart of chat mods, with two of my favorites, as well as some invaluable tools dealing with fonts. See you all next week!
Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. Last week we brought sexy back with Sexycooldown. And remember, Addon Spotlight is fueled by viewers like you, so if you have a mod you think we should take a look at, e-mail Mat at mat@wow.com.
