Addon Spotlight: Glance, a multi-use top bar

Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which 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.

Keeping your interface neat and tidy while still retaining a lot of your precious information can be a tough feat. Some poor souls never get away from a disaster UI, started and finished in sadness, shame, and wreckage. Do not fret, young ones. There are addons that can help you be neat and tidy without too much work on your part. I promise.

Glance was an addon that I first discovered while trolling through the comments on my various columns, as am I known to do. My readers are a steadfast bunch, always willing to show support for their man and recommend some great tools to players in need. Well, as it turns out, I am one of those players in need. A few weeks back, I got an email that asked me what was an easy way to get into LDB bars and addons, and I didn't really have a great answer. The first thing that popped into my head was the concept -- the bar addon works as a dock for other LDB plugins. It didn't feel right explaining the whole thing in that way, so instead I went looking for an addon that resembled LDB but didn't take the setup some LDBs require. That addon is Glance.

At a Glance

Glance works as an LDB bar-type, FuBar-esque information display that hangs out at the top of your screen. Everything is included without having to go out and find the separate modules and plugins. The downside to having everything included is that it's not going to get added on to -- the thing comes as is. That downside turns out to be an upside for many people who just want this specific set of features -- and it's a pretty robust feature set.

Modular addons are still my favorite type of addon because you can turn on and off pieces of the addon to save on CPU and memory usage, if you care about that sort of thing. One of the menus allows you to check or uncheck the modules you want to have active. The customization options allow you to scale the top bar, create mount and pet lists so you can summon a specific set of pets and mounts, auto-repair without a separate addon, and even view some party member stats as well.

Modules

Glance features a multitude of modules and plugins that can show you a variety of information and options to quickly summon a pet or mount, check your daily experience or gold gains, look through a better friends list, and more. The Glance bar also features a repair percentage indicator, lag in milliseconds display, framerate number, and addon memory usage monitor, especially helpful for players looking to track their addon usage stats to find troublemakers. You can also check out the clock that shows you server time, which helps you make those raid times.

For those of you who are still engaged in world PvP, Glance also features a Wintergrasp and Tol Barad timer, making sure you never miss a Battleground. You can also check out your professions from a drop-down as well, freeing up some of your action bars. If you're using the default user interface with the player and target frames at the top left-hand corner of the screen, Glance can move your frames down just a bit in order to make room for itself. I love the fact that little ol' Glance makes a little bit of wiggle room for itself.

Macros and commands

There are some macros associated with Glance that let you control some of the features that the addon works with. You can make a macro for /glance random, which summons a random mount for whatever specific area you are in. Flyable areas will get a flying mount, etc. /glance randomair, randomland, and randomwater also all work for summoning those specific types of mounts.

You can hide or show Glance with a simple /glance hide or /glance show, respectively. Options are located through the interface menu or by typing /glance options. I really appreciate addons that are light on customization needs but still find a way to make the customization options they offer well thought-out and easy to use.

If you're looking for a lighter solution to LibDataBroker or FuBar and can deal with less customization and fewer modules, Glance is a great addon for what it does. I like how easy the addon is to use out of the box, and it looks nice and has good scaling options. Suffice to say, I like it.

Download Glance at [Curse].

Addon mailbag tiiiiiime ...

Thanks for the email. Yes, there are lighter-weight alternatives to most raiding addons out there. Skada is less resource-intensive than Recount because of the modular nature of the data collection. Just turn off the bits that you don't want to run or care about and you'll save plenty of CPU power. In fact, what you're going to want to do is get an addon that monitors the CPU/memory performance of your addons and find out which ones are your troublemakers in raids. Today's addon on Addon Spotlight can do just that, by coincidence!

As for some alternatives, Skada is a good damage meter, and BigWigs runs a little lighter for many people than the ubiquitous DeadlyBossMods. You may have some success with BigWigs, and maybe the commenters can help us out and suggest some more alternatives for addons for older video cards. There will be a longer Addon Spotlight devoted to the subject in the future, closer to Mists of Pandaria.

See you all next week.

Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. If you're new to mods, Addons 101 will walk you through the basics; see what other players are doing at Reader UI of the Week. If there's a mod you think Addon Spotlight should take a look at, email mat@wowinsider.com.