The goal of BobsToolbox is to combines all the really great and needed addons into one very efficient addon. The three main modules in BobsToolbox are the player frame, raid / party frame and pet / vehicle frame.
Player Frame:
The player frame is the unit frames. This will contain the players, target, target of target, and pet / vehicles information. The unit's health will be on the left and the mana, focus, rage, etc. will be on the right. The bars listed from the inside out are as follows: pet / vehicle, player, target. The player frame has an option that will allow the health / mana bars to hide when at 100%. This allows for a very clean interface and removes all unnecessary information from the screen. Just turn off this feature if you want the bars on screen at all times. The player frame will show a heal button at the top of the player frame if your current target has a target. This heal button works just like the buttons contained on the Raid and Pet frames. The player frame also will show how many people in your party / raid is targetting your target. This feature will only be inabled if you are in a party / raid. This is a great feature to have as a DPS to ensure you are targetting what the members of your party / raid is targetting. You don't want to be pulling aggro from you tank do you? You will also see the RAID icon assigned to your target. This give you really clear indication that you are targetting "skull" when you should be.
Raid / Party Frame:
The raid / party frame allow you to monitor your whole raid in a very small area. The width and height of each button is configurable so you can have the frame at just the right size. You can also arrange the raid members by group or you can simply state how many members per row. It also allows monitoring of the raid / party for your buffs. If someone is missing your buff then a exclamation [ ! ] mark will appear next to their name. Currently this feature is only useful for mages and priest. See what's next in the FAQ.
Pet / Vehicle Frame:
This pretty much does the same thing as the Raid / Party frame but for pets and vehicles. The pet frame does have it's own settings so you can for instance place the pet frame in the upper left hand corner of the screen and set a smaller button size. See Raid / Party frame for more information.
Dual Spec Settings:
BobsToolbox supports dual spec settings that allows different configuration for each spec. This would allow a Priest to hide the raid frame in shadow spec but have it enabled in holy spec. So just by changing specs, the addon would automatically hide or show the raid frame.
Upcoming Features
- Focus Frame
- More control over the player frame features.
FAQ
A. BobsToolbox is an addon created by Bobby Cannon just for fun. A lot of my time spent playing WoW is actually spent working on my addon.
Q. What's with the name?
A. My name is Bobby Cannon and I play a level 80 Undead Priest named BobTehBuildr on the server Firetree. I created my addon to help me BobTehBuildr so I thought what would be a name for my set of tools. Then I thought well a set of tools go in a box and BobTehBuildr should have a toolbox so lets name the addon BobsToolbox.
A. I'm a software developer by profession so the addon capability of WoW really intrigues me so I decided to created my own.
A. I know there are plenty of really great HUD, Raid Frame, and Healing mods out there but I wanted to create my own. I pulled plenty of inspiration from other mods like Ice Hud and Healbot but all the code in my addon is new. The only code copied from other addons or website is code functions like rounding numbers or hiding default UI objects.
Q. Are you just copying / combining other MODs?
A. See question "Why does BobsToolbox look a lot like other addons?".
Q. What's next?
A. I sure many bug fixes but I would like to add a buff monitor like Buffalo. I really like Buffalo but I would like to see BobsToolbox contain this feature. I also want to support buff notification on both the raid and pet frame for more classes. Currently the buff notification only works for Priest and Mages.
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 has 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)...
