PhanxChat is a chat addon focused on making your chat frames less cluttered and more user-friendly.
Announcements
- As of patch 3.2, class coloring in most types of chat messages is handled by the default UI, not by PhanxChat. If you're seeing uncolored names, right-click on any of your chat tabs, select Settings, and check the box under "Show class colors" for each message type. PhanxChat's class color option applies only to types of messages not supported by the default UI.
- Translations wanted! If you play in a German, French, Spanish, Russian, or Chinese client and are willing to spend a few minutes translating the options interface for PhanxChat, please send me a PM on this site or on WoWInterface.
Features
- Enable arrow keys in the chat input box
- Enable mouse wheel scrolling in chat frames
- Enable class coloring in more message types
- Enable sticky behavior in more message types
- Enable clickable links for URLs in chat
- Hide the chat frame scroll buttons
- Hide channel notification messages
- Hide repeated messages in public channels
- Shorten channel names and chat type strings
- Stop chat tabs from flashing when new messages arrive
- Stop docked chat tabs from being dragged by accident
For answers to common questions about PhanxChat and its features, please refer to the PhanxChat FAQ page.
For information about advanced configuration options, addons which complement PhanxChat, and features that will never be added to PhanxChat, please refer to the PhanxChat extended description page.
Usage
Type /pchat to open the Interface Options window directly to PhanxChat's entry. I highly recommend BetterBlizzOptions and InterfaceOptionsFrame_OpenToCategory_Fix to improve the Interface Options window and fix the bug by which slash commands to jump to specific entries don't always work properly!
Type /pchat clear to clear the contents of all chat frames.
Type /tt or /wt followed by a message to send that message to your current target.
Localization
PhanxChat is translated into English, German (deDE), French (frFR), Russian (ruRU), Korean (koKR), Simplified Chinese (zhCN), and Traditional Chinese (zhTW).
If translations for your locale are missing, PhanxChat will default to English, but some features are locale-dependent and may not work at all (such as channel name shortening) or work in undesirable ways (such as chat strings using English abbreviations that may not make sense for your language).
If you can help translate PhanxChat for Spanish (esES) or Latin American Spanish (esMX) locales, or notice a mistake in your locale's translations, please send me a PM!
Reporting Bugs
If you are experiencing a problem that you think is caused by PhanxChat, please start by following some basic troubleshooting steps. Doing so may enable you to solve the problem right away yourself, but if not, it will at least give you more detailed information to include in your bug report ticket. The more information you're able to provide, the more likely it is that I'll be able to figure out what the problem is, and the less time you'll have to wait for a solution. Post a bug report ticket, and remember to check back after a few days in case I need feedback!
Requesting Features
If there's something you'd like to see added to PhanxChat, post a feature request ticket describing the feature and why you think it would be a good addition to the addon. Please bear in mind that I have neither the desire nor the time to add every feature everyone asks for, and that if I decline your feature request, it's not personal. Also, the following features have already been requested and declined, so please don't post requests for them:
- Timestamps
- Center- or right-aligned chat text
- Free movement of the chat input box
- Reskinning of the edit box, chat font, or anything else
- Alerts when certain words are seen in chat messages
- Keybindings to open input to specific chat channels
- Extra entries in the player name right-click menu
- Player levels, raid group numbers, main/alt aliases, or any other extra text
- Special actions on modified clicks on player names or keywords (such as alt-click to invite)
- Item links in non-standard channels (FYI: addons that do this spam obnoxious gibberish into chat for people not using a compatible addon)
License
PhanxChat is free as in "free beer", but not free as in "free software", and you may not include it in your compilation, or redistribute it in any other way, without first getting permission. See the README file inside the addon's folder for the full license terms under which PhanxChat is distributed. Compilation creators, show your appreciation for addon authors by taking a few minutes to learn about the basic details of copyright law and software licensing before you upload a bundle of other people's copyrighted work. Thanks!
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)...
