A small introduction into essential World of Warcraft addons

nuR421Mar 30,2008

Whenever it comes to options, they are often confusing things at first but a lot of them turn out to be very handy in times. Addons allow you to customize your interface and the way you interact with the game as well as the game interacts with you. Ever wondered where those 15 slimy bones drop that you need to finish your quest or what a sharp claw is useful for? Addons can tell you this and much more, it's easy as pie!

There are a ton of useful addon sites out there and this introduction is not meant as a bible to follow. It should demonstrate what can be done, the rest is up to you.
All addons listed here are compatible with patch 2.4!

I. What is an addon and how does it work

II. Where to get started

III: How do I install an addon?

IV. Popular and useful addons
a) Beginner addons

RedRange - Will turn skill buttons red when out of range
Bagnon - Onebag inventory and bank
Bookworm - Book Archive
DoubleWide - Bigger questlog
QuestHelper - Quest information, locations and pathing
Lightheaded - Quest information, location, shows arrow that leads you to quests
TomTom - Navigation assistant
Cartographer - Worldmap manipulation
Minimap Button Frame - tries to put all your minimap buttons into one frame
Advanced Trade Skill Window - Improve your profession screen
ATSW - Levels (plugin) - Show craft levels (works without Advanced T.S.W.!)
Examiner - Better inspecting with caching function
Fizzwidget AdSpace - Shows vendor recipes in the Auction House (with price)
Cirk's Notebook - Let's you create, save and send notes in WoW
Atlas - Detailed instance maps

b) advanced addons that require some setup and/or knowledge

Auctioneer Suite - Advanced tools and database for auctioning and professions
Recount - Displays and compares your groups, own and pets damage
Bindpad - Let's you bind skills and macros to keys directly
Chinchilla - Very flexible minimap addon
CraftyGnome - Autoresponder for tradeskills/recipes
MikScrollingCombatText - Combat text scroller
On Use Cooldown Notifier - New approach to displaying cooldowns
Sell-O-Matic - Sell junk items automatically
Outfitter - Occasion based outfit switching
Nudist - Save repair costs by getting nekkid before you die! :D
FuBar - Popular module bar
AtlasQuest - Shows instance-related quests
AtlasLoot - Tells you desired loot from instance bosses
TalentPlanner - Helps with talent planning

c) Addons that require massive setup or deep knowledge

Bartender - Action Bar mod
Clique - Click casting for unit frames
Grid - A unit frame
Pitbull3 - Another popular unit frame
Macro Sequence - allows chaining of macros
PartyAbilityBars - Tracks party members ability-cooldowns

d) mentionable class or profession specific addons

Hunter - Beast Training
Warlock - Or_Soulshards

V. The End?

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I: What is an addon and how does it work?
Addons are customizations that integrate directly with the game. It is not 3rd party software and will run within World of Warcraft and only there. Addons are modular, they can have dependencies and they can save data on your machine; they can't save or read data outside of your WoW folder though. (to be precise they are only allowed to read and save within the "SavedVariables" folder which is specifically designed for this).
While 3rd party Software can damage your system, an addon cannot. It will be executed and also limited by the game. To be on the safe side though, you should obtain addons only from safe sources.

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II. Where to get started
First of all you'd pick a good site or source to start with. My personal favorite is www.wowinterface.com.
Recently many sites offer auto-updaters. Those programs can be a serious security risk or may contain spy-, mal- or adware!
If you use any updater tool I recommend you the one from wow.interface.com
You should NEVER get such a tool from a source that isn't to be trusted. Running executable software is a major risk on any system or platform and it is very likely that the author could be interested in stealing your WoW account information!

My choice:
wowinterface updater windows

Alternatives that I do not monitor:
WAU - WoW Ace Updater
Curse updater
Wowmatrix updater
wowui.worldofwar.net updater

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III: How do I install an addon?
It's really simple - all you have to do is download and extract the files to a specific folder (/interface/addons/) in your World of Warcraft directory.
There is a good explanation on wowinterface.com, please visit this link: http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/faq.php?faq=install or as an alternative watch this Video tutorial on youtube.

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IV. Popular and useful addons

a) Beginner addons

RedRange This addon will turn skill buttons in your actionbar completely red if you're out of range to use the skill on a target. The standard display only colors the key number red.
Screenshot - Download
Bagnon Bagnon is a group of addons that improves your inventory, which includes the bank. It will display all bags at once and it will also allow you to search and sort items in a much better way.
Screenshot - Download
Bookworm It remembers the location and the contents of books in World of Wacraft. Fun!
Screenshot - Download
DoubleWide makes your QuestLog stretchable and bigger then the original. Works exceptionally well with the following addons, Lightheaded and Questhelper.
Screenshot - Download
QuestHelper This Addons shows your quest objective on the map! It calculates a path between multiple quests and displays it on the worldmap and minimap.
Screenshot - Download
Lightheaded Lightheaded is an addon that displays quest information and comments from http://www.wowhead.com in game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on quest. It will also show an arrow that leads you to the quest area.
Screenshot - Download
Carthographer An addon that allows manipulation of the world map. Not only it will completely show you the map, it also shows you your location, maps of battlgrounds, instances and more. Also it adds additional information to the worldmap.
Screenshot - Download
TomTom You can set waypoints on the worldmap using this addon. It works extremely well with LightHeaded, QuestHelper and Cartograper. You should definately use this bundle and you'll never get lost!
Screenshot - Download
Minimap Button Frame is very useful if you run alot of Addons with Minimap Buttons. It will try to put them all (or selected ones) into a movable and hidable frame.
Screenshot - Download
Advanced Trade Skill Window will completely modify your profession window into a much craftier version. You can also queue items and buy needed materials from vendors. You can create own categories and browse and search your recipes.
Screenshot - Download
Advanced Trade Skill Window - Levels (plugin) Shows level needed to use/wear an item created by your profession aswell as the item level itself.
Screenshot - Download
Examiner helps you with inspecting players. It will not cancel the inspection when players are out of range and it will even cache them!
Screenshot - Download
Fizzwidget AdSpace prevents you from buying rare vendor recipes for horrible prices on the Auction House. It will the vendor and price he sells the recipe for if a recipe is buyable from a vendor.
Screenshot - Download
Cirk's Notebook star date 5431.4; as captain of your WoW toon you eventually need to take notes, this is what Cirk's Notebook will let you do. Create, save and send note's to others or even whole channels. For people that don't like to tab out of or play the game windowed.
Screenshot - Download
Atlas The Atlas addon will display detailed instance maps, including location of bosses.
Screenshot - Download

b) advanced addons that require some setup and/or knowledge

Auctioneer Suite The classic addon for analyzation of prices in World Of Wacraft. It tells you what an item sells for and what category it belongs to. Further it can give you detailed information about auctions if you scan the Auction House regulary. Also it features improved modules for gathering and enchanting that can tell you where you found a specific raw material or what an item most likely disenchants into.
Screenshot - Download
BindPad set keybindings to skills, macros or items using this GUI.
Screenshot - Download
Chinchilla will help you modifying your minimap. It provides you with alternate shapes and lot's of settings.
Screenshot - Download
Crafty Gnome will tell guildmates or other players what recipes you know. They can also search for recipes by specifying their request. To do this, the player must send you a tell or write a message with a crafting gnome query.
E.g. "!cg leather chest" will tell them, if you're a leatherworker, all the chest recipes you know.
Screenshot - Download
MikScrollingCombatText is an advanced combat text scroller with a lot of options.
Screenshot - Download
On Use Cooldown Notifier Cooldown notify based on triggering a skill that is not ready yet.
Screenshot - Download
Sell-O-Matic Helps you automatically selling grey items to the vendor and allows adding items to the sell list. USE WITH CARE!
Screenshot - Download
Outfitter will let you use custom outfits to various occasions. E.g. while fishing, in special stances or forms etc.
Screenshot - Download
Nudist Unequips everything that has duration into your inventory (as many items as you have room for) with only one click. This prevents repair costs when you know that you will definately die in a certain situation.
Screenshot - Download
FuBar Panel for Modules on top and/or bottom of your screen. Many optional modules are available.
Screenshot - Download
AtlasQuest will allow you to see quests that are related to an instance and also see the quest reward.
Screenshot - Download
AtlasLoot is an addon that displays the drop/loot of boss monsters in instances.
Screenshot - Download
TalentPlanner Allows you to pre-plan complete talent builds and helps to avoid mistakingly spending talent points.
Screenshot - Download

c) addons that require massive setup or deep knowledge

Bartender offers flexibility for your action bars and action bar skill buttons including style control and behavior control.
Screenshot - Download
Clique is a GUI that lets you assign click-casting for any number of unit frames.
Screenshot - Download
Grid , as the name says, is a Grid of party/raid unit frames that is very lightweight and configurable. It can indicate aggro, heals, auras, health/mana and more. Also it can show units depending on range.
Screenshot - Download
Pitbull3 is another highly configurable unit frame addon. It is very performant so if you have performance issues with any other unit frame then this thing might be worth reading into.
Screenshot - Download
MacroSequence is an addon that will allow you the sequencing of multiple macros.
Screenshot - Download
PartyAbilityBars Will track the cooldowns of party member abilities.
Screenshot - Download

d) mentionable class or profession specific addons

BeastTraining allows you to train your pet in a way that is similar to the talent window.
Screenshot - Download
Or_SoulShards will allow you to specify a maximum amount of SoulShards. If you drain a SS while already having as many as you specified it will automatically destroy it to prevent your bags from overload. USE THE DROP FEATURE WITH CAUTION!
Screenshot - Download

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V: The End?
Even if this Article may seem confusing to the beginner, it was merely an introduction into WoW addons. There are a lot more addons, you can modify them and you can even design your own. This knowledge will not be a waste though. Many recent games feature modular interfaces and it will most likely be a part of all complex games in the future.

You can find more addons on these sites:

You should now know: