When you login, Guild Delta displays changes ("deltas", in math terms) to the guild roster since the last time you logged in. Specifically, names of players who have joined the guild or are no longer in the guild. See below for tracking other kinds of changes.
I didn't like being unaware that people had left my (large) guild merely because I happened to not be online at the time they left. And I kept being surprised to find that people I knew had joined the guild when I was offline. So I wrote this simple tool to discover changes in the roster.
Guild Delta only updates its list when you login. After that, it becomes totally inactive. This means that even players who join/leave the guild while you are online will be listed the next time you login. This is by design.
There are a couple of versions available. The basic "name/rank" version only stores players who have joined or left the guild, and changes in the rank of existing members. The "extras" version additionally tracks changes to the public/officer notes of existing members. You only need to load one or the other, not both.
If a player joins/leaves and you are running the "extras" version, then their notes will be printed along with their name. This helps with the problem of "who was that guy who just left?" in very large guilds.
By default, text is printed to the combat log window so that it won't get lost in the flood of crap that shows up in the main chat window during login. You can use the /guilddelta command to change this.
NOTE 1: If you switch between basic and "extras", you may get a flood of data the first time you login. Likewise, if you are promoted to officer rank, any existing officer notes will all be printed out the next time you login.
NOTE 2: There is no way IN THE GAME to change which fields are tracked. (Sorry, no time or interest in writing a UI to control that.) However, the list of tracked fields is set at the top of the .lua file, with comments. It should be easy to customize if you wish.
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)...
