Addon Spotlight: Mailbag 4

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.

Addon Spotlight is here on Thanksgiving to wish all celebrating a happy time with your families or food or both. I am going to eat myself stupid and worry about the consequences later. Until then, you all have sent in many questions about addons or looking for specific addons, so maybe it's time to clear out my old Addon Mailbag. If you'd like to send me a question about an addon, it's a very easy thing to do. Send all emails to mat@wowinsider.com, and have a little something about addons in the subject line -- it helps tremendously with the sorting.

Minimap hell

Our first email comes from Drasu, and he is sick and tired of all those damn minimap buttons getting in the way. Those minimap buttons can get out of hand very quickly, especially when you go on an addon-installing bender late at night, not thinking straight, and you wake up with a mess of a minimap. Let's see if we can help the poor guy out.

Thanks for the email, Drasu. You have the same concern out there as so many people, man. Those minimap buttons pile up, stack on top of each other, and force you to drag and move everything in order to get to the one little circle you need. It's a pain in the butt, truly. I've got two options for you to help you with your minimap button troubles.

The first option is to use an addon like Sexymap, which will allow you to turn on or off pretty much every button on the map. Letting Sexymap take control of your minimap buttons is a great way to get rid of the things you just don't need or can't find a way to get rid of. I use Sexymap primarily to get rid of all the extra minimap buttons from addons that have easy-to-remember slash commands or that obnoxiously place themselves over my important buttons. As for the Blizzard default buttons, I've always left them toward the top of the minimap and relegate addon-provided minimap buttons to the bottom. If that's not a compelling enough solution, move on to option #2.

The second option is to grab an addon called Minimap Button Frame, which is absolutely awesome. Minimap Button Frame grabs all of your minimap buttons and moves them to their own happy frame where they can live in peace and harmony -- and, most importantly, away from your minimap. You can set the addon to only show the buttons you want, as well as sort with multiple presets or make your own. There is even LDB support if you like using a Broker bar for other addons. I am a huge fan of Minimap Button Frame and hope it helps everyone out there with out of control minimap buttons.

Download Minimap Button Frame at [Curse].

A better vendor experience

Our next question comes from Josh, who did not leave a character name in his email, so I'm going to assume he is Josh the tauren hunter. Josh Thunderhoof. Josh Thunderhoof of the Mulgore Thunderhoofs wants to know if there are any vendor addons out there that can sort vendor gear.

Thanks for the email, proud, brave Josh Thunderhoof of the Mulgore Thunderhoofs. I was hesitant to recommend this addon for a while, but it appears that most of the bugs were taken out, so here goes. GnomishVendorShrinker is a wonderful addon that turns your vendor listings into scrolling text rather than icons for items that are spread across lots of pages. Tekkub, one of my favorite addon authors, is the mastermind in charge of GnomishVendorShrinker, and while it doesn't do exactly what you want (sort for plate, etc.), it might help put you on the right path.

It just so happens that the right path is right here: GoblinVendorFilter. This addon works so wonderfully in tandem with GnomishVendorShrinker that they are practically made for each other. GoblinVendorFilter adds a filter button to your vendor windows, allowing you to sort the items in a vendor's stock by item type, item stats, where it equips, and more. You'll have to reset the filter each time you visit the vendor, but it isn't too much of a big deal.

These two addons make the vendor experience in WoW much, much better and allow you to easily sort and list the items each vendor has for sale. Obviously it is most useful on the justice and valor point vendors, as they have a multitude of different types of armors on them for purchase. In any case, I hope these two addons help you out in these troubling, sorting times.

Download GnomishVendorShrinker at [WoWInterface].

Download GoblinVendorFilter at [WoWInterface].

A brief guide on getting ready for patch 4.3

Finally, there is the potential for patch 4.3 to drop on Tuesday, Nov. 29, so I wanted everyone to be ready for that potential drop date. Is your interface folder ready to survive the patch? Here's a quick list of things you should do before Tuesday, just in case:

• Back up your interface folders. Copy your interface and WTF folder in the WoW directory somewhere safe outside of the WoW directory itself. Just make a folder somewhere on your hard drive called WoW Interface Backups and copy and paste in your interface and WTF folders. Don't move anything -- just copy. Backups are always good to have.

• Update all of your addons to alpha or beta versions. Many addons allow you to download alphe or beta versions that aren't release versions but have been tinkered with and made ready on the PTR for the next patch. Sometimes you won't have to update after the patch drops.

• On patch day, remember to hit "Load out-of-date addons." Loading out-of-date addons is a big deal. Some might still work; others might fall apart. Hitting this button in the addons menu on the character select screen might solve more problems than you think.

See you guys 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.