For more help, try the official FlexBar forums ( http://www.flexbarforums.com/ ).
Getting Started with FlexBar
Introduction: Flexbar provides 120 buttons that can be moved, scaled, shaded, hidden, shown and alpha blended completely independently of one another. This allows you to put just as many buttons as you need, just where you need.
In additon to basic extra bar functionality, FlexBar employs an event (think trigger) / action (command) architecture. It is constantly keeping track of the status of a wide number of things from your buffs to your health to whether you have a target or not. When it detects a change in these it raise an event that you can have a command respond to - such as showing your overpower button when your opponent dodges.
And much more - please see the FlexBar Docs/_Table of Contents_.htm in the FlexBar folder
Also of note, FlexBar has been taken over by a team of developers that you can find here:
http://flexdev.mmorpgaming.com/
Installation Guide
- Exit "World of Warcraft" completely
- Download the mod you want to install
- Make a folder on your desktop called "My Mods"
- Save the .zip/.rar files to this folder.
- If, when you try to download the file, it automatically "opens" it... you need to RIGHT click on the link and "save as..." or "Save Target As".
- Extract the file - commonly known as 'unzipping'
Do this ONE FILE AT A TIME!
- Windows
- Windows XP a built in ZIP extractor. Double click on the file to open it, inside should be the file or folders needed. Copy these outside to the "My Mods" folder.
- WinRAR: Right click the file, select "Extract Here"
- WinZip: You MUST make sure the option to "Use Folder Names" is CHECKED or it will just extract the files and not make the proper folders how the Authors designed
- Mac Users
- StuffitExpander: Double click the archive to extract it to a folder in the current directory.
- Verify your WoW Installation Path
That is where you are running WoW from and THAT is where you need to install your mods.
- Move to the Addon folder
- Open your World of Warcraft folder. (default is C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\)
- Go into the "Interface" folder.
- Go into the "AddOns" folder.
- In a new window, open the "My Mods" folder.
- The "My Mods" folder should have the "Addonname" folder in it.
- Move the "Addonname" folder into the "AddOns" folder
- Start World of Warcraft
- Make sure AddOns are installed
- Log in
- At the Character Select screen, look in lower left corner for the "addons" button.
- If button is there: make sure all the mods you installed are listed and make sure "load out of date addons" is checked.
- If the button is NOT there: means you did not install the addons properly. Look at the above screenshots. Try repeating the steps or getting someone who knows more about computers than you do to help.
Translations
When you download a mod, please be sure that the mod is compatible with your translation of wow. Some mods only work on the US versions, while some only work on some of the various European versions. These variations are called "Localizations".
TOC Numbers (Out of Date Mods)
When Blizzard patches WoW, they change the Interface number. This means that all mods will be "out of date" unless or until the author releases a new version for that interface. Some people go into the .toc files and update the numbers themselves, but this is STRONGLY advised against as it will cause problems locating possible incompatibilities addons. When you log into WoW after a patch, you DO NOT have to delete your interface directory. All you have to do is simply tell WoW to ignore the interface numbers and load all the mods anyway. All you have to do is, while at the "character select" screen, look in the lower left corner and click on the "addons" button. A window will pop up listing all your installed mods.
If you look in the upper left corner of that window there should be a box that says "Load Out of Date AddOns". You want to CHECK this box. Now simply go into WoW normally and all your mods should load. As of the 1.9 patch, you will have to do this after EVERY patch/update that Blizzard posts! If you encounter any problems with a mod after a patch, please be sure to let the author of the mod know so they can fix it.
See also: About "Out Of Date AddOns"
Mac Support
WoW addons are not platformed based. As such, they can be used on either Mac or PC. You can extract both .zip and .rar files on a Mac using StuffitExpander.
Directory Structure
World of Warcraft
|_ Interface
|_AddOns
|_*AddonName*
|_ *AddonName*.toc
|_ *AddonName*.xml
|_ *AddonName*.lua
|_ (possibly others as well)...
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drkfaling saidi have been looking for a action bar like this but it is inconpatible does anyone know why?
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NightFire saidfor those that don't know, flexbar2 is up and running at http://www.wowace.com
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Rhaeven said"If you learned how to use flexbar commands: Flexbar owned all.
if you have not spent the time learning the flexbar commands: flexbar owned you. :) "
Ease of use is a big part of how good a program is. Flexbar had amazing functionality but was so rediculous with no GUI that I dropped it almost as soon as I picked it up (and I am far from computer illiterate).
Bartender3 suffices. -shrug- And is so easy to setup.
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Antarios saidThank u Blizzard by destroying the best AddOn ever made! Removing all event abilitys suxx hard!!!
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kenjamen saidplz get this up and running. It's exactly what i've been wanting but still incompatible.
You're truly.
-best mage everrrrr
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Seppokala saidEh, 1.6.1, why is it Incompatible? What a .. any tips? eh, tried like 5 places to download this but ho ho incompatible.. not cool.
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mangueJOE saidIs this addon able to when a druid shift, shift not only the main bar but also a second bar and that one would also mantain the key bidings, just like the main bar does?
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teddyboy420 saidBongos sucks....
Well, maybe it doesn't suck, but it's certainly no Flexbar.
Besides, I don't want to have to learn a new set of commands and all that junk just to have to dump it when Flexbar2 is finally done (hopefully it will be finished).
Yeah I know, they've had 4 months since WoW 2.0 to finish it, but they've had a few people that were working on it come and go and what-have-you. Like I said above, hopefully it'll be done soon
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-erinys- saidtry Bongo's its by far the best and easiest barmod ever made :)
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thebacklash said"try Bongo's its by far the best and easiest barmod ever made :)"
I'm using Bongos now. While it's not bad... It's no Flexbar. Period.
waiting for flexbar 2 to be done, then bongo's gets the boot. Tried Trinity bars also, while they were ok... I had problems with it.
If you learned how to use flexbar commands: Flexbar owned all.
if you have not spent the time learning the flexbar commands: flexbar owned you. :)
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Kest saidI've found TrinityBars has a host of problems with the latest patch, and I am looking for an alternative.
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Massacre1189 saidNOTE!!!: Flexbar is noted that it IS ready for release, the author is now working on the GUI and itll be released.
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MacroMage saidI actually have several single button bars for utility purposes. It serves its purpose well--for now anyway. Just checked http://files.wowace.com/ and FlexBar2 is complete for the most part; all it's missing is working commands and stuff.
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xaoalo saidI've been a big fan of Flexbar for a long time, until it died a while ago, and I'd like to get a somewhat working copy.. possibly what I use it for works in some versions, let me explain briefly.. because playing w/o flexbar just feels kinda dirty :p
I use mostly the graphical configuration parts; making buttons & bars in different spots, resizing, shading, colouring etc, those buttons/bars, making some slideout or popout bars for professions & whatnot. I don't really use any of the macro or event function to speak of.. what litlte I used, I can live without. I mainly just want to have the 120 buttons broken apart, to make my own buttons & bars wherever I see fit, and to change their appearance, then just set key bindings tho the individual keys; nothing really fancy. If I knew lua, I'm sure I could just cut up flex and make something for my personal use, but I have an extreme dislike of coding & scripting. SO..
Is there a workable version of Flex anywhere floating around that at least just has those features? I just want a bunch of independant movable/resizeable/etc buttons that I can group if I want, but don't really need any of the event, scripting, and macro functions.
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MacroMage saidTry TrinityBars. It's what I'm using at the moment and it gets the job done fairly nicely. Still on the lookout for Flexbar2 though... it'll be nice when it's done.
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xaoalo saidI'm currently using Bartender3. I tried TrinityBars for a while, but it wasn't all that hot. I had a problem with having to click the very center of the buttons when they were rezised to a fairly small size & places close together; you'd go to click one button & it would click it's neighbor instead, so you had to be very careful & click the very center of the buttons, which was a little annoying. Bartender is ok, but not super, either. I like having some single buttons here & there, or very small bars, but as close as I can come with Bartender3 is to make a bar & just reduce the number of buttons to 1, 2, etc (and then you have a small bar of just a couple buttons, but the rest of the buttons are not usable; you can't break single buttons off & use them elseware, you just have whole bars that you can cut the end off of, basically).
TrinityBars was similar in this aspect, IIRC. The last time I remember using it, aside from the issue I was having, I don't think you could break apart bars; just change their appearance & move them around. I'd really like something that lets you break apart bars into individual buttons & such, as well as have various sized bars.
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DiminishingEndpoint said@ teddyboy420
Very true, the errors are still happening. I phrased it wrong. More accurately, I SEE one error which I click on and then no more. Swatter stops the spamming. The error that swatter is trapping is happening at every button press. There are other bugs as well. Errors aside, I am still using this setup successfully and happily for now.
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conspirator23 saidJust want to take a moment to remind everyone that event-driven button reassignments during combat are GONE FOREVER due to the anti-botting measures Bliz introduced in 2.0. This also applies to the movement of buttons as well. Any event that also depended on target selection are also gone during combat, range checks being the target example. The bottom line is that the most automation-oriented stuff that we are craving will not be there even when the new Flexbar is eventually released. When it comes out, it probably still be vastly configurable in terms of buttons and button groups. It will probably still have sizing, hiding, opacity, and response to user-driven events like mouseovers, SHIFT/CTRL/ALT, etc, and it will probably still be able to dynamically respond to events OUTSIDE of combat.
These new restrictions seem to be impacting ALL the barmods pretty heavily. The Discord fans are all starving too, Bartender3 has some serious bugs... Bongos is the most stable, and if you notice, Bongos has the LEAST amount of dynamic behavior of any of the mods. Really, between these problems and all the new content that our authors are also wanting to have fun with, I think we'll be lucky to see any of these complex barmods offer a rock-solid stable release before school's out.
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teddyboy420 said@ DiminishingEndpoint
Swatter is great, but it doesn't fix the errors. All it does it stop you from being spammed w/ them. When it detects an error it gathers relevant information and pops open a window and that's the last time you'll see that error in that play session. The error still occurs, swatter just gathers the info and doesn't bother you with a popup.
I'd also like to note that I can not wait until Flexbar2 is completed, I am sooooo missing my configurable buttons and all the neat functions of Flexbar. Blizz's bars are alright to just put skills and spells in, but that's about it.
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Dazzle499 saidI did what daik7 did and installed 19245- and man did I get excited when all the buttons appeared on my screen! However my joy ended very quickly when an error appeared any time I used a skill held inside the buttons or tried any of the slash commands. One step closer indeed, and definately encouraging, but man it just makes me want it all the more! I am appreciative of the time the author volunteers to upkeep this new version of an old mod- but just like anyone else I can't help but hope it's polished soon :)
Anyone with news on how to get 19245 to work right with flexbar2_slash (without the constant error box) drop us all a line :)