I've tried them all and while they can be tailored to be useful to my needs it takes a ton of work and I usually end up just with spam going all over the place. I really only want a couple features and am interested in the community's suggestions on easiest way to get there.
1) Color the default damage display (not the wow scrolling display, but the default) by damage type
2) Be able to watch for certain spells and play a tone or enhance the font/output.
Has cooldown alert as well. Wat i like is you're able to set trigger eg i like to set an alert at 70% mana to tell me to pot. It has sound alert as well.
I'm lovin' MSBT (MikScrollingBattleText) as well. Been using it for a couple months and haven't seen anything that can match it. It's got a bunch of very nice features, a super easy yet detailed setup system, and it's pretty light on the CPU. You couldn't pay me to change from it!
How does this addon handle "Wow damage"? I'm a big fan of SCT but I don't realy like the way it places the "damage" text in the middle of the screen and not above the mod?
There is really not much you can do with the default Floating Combat Text (the Blizzard version of SCT/Parrot/MBST). With the damage text all you can do is either turn it off or on and (using either a mod or some trickery) change the font. The incoming text (damage to you, heals, etc) can be resized with a mod and the font changed however beyond that you are limited. You cannot color the text based on the damage type etc. What I and many people do, is use the standard damage text (usually change the font) and then use a mod like SCT/Parrot to display the incoming text. If you enable Nameplates (hotkeyed by default to V), then SCTD and Parrot can display the damage text above the mob similar to the FCT damage text. However they MUST ANCHOR TO THE NAMEPLATE and sometimes this can be buggy. You can get mods that auto enable/disable Nameplates when you enter/leave combat. Automaton has this as one of its features, also the mod AutoNameplates (WoWI) will do this.
1) Color the default damage display (not the wow scrolling display, but the default) by damage type
See my previous post ^
2) Be able to watch for certain spells and play a tone or enhance the font/output.
The standard WoW FCT does not support this. It can trigger a message for some events however it does not play any tones or enhance the font/output. I know both SCT and Parrot can do both requests, not sure if MBST supports sounds as I have not used it recently however it can trigger a different font and its "Pow" animation (used for displaying Crits) for events that you choose.
MSBT can be customized to search for specific spells and patterns, and give a customized message notification. I'm not too sure on the sound part as that's one thing I don't really bother with (but now that I think about it, it would be useful!), but I know it plays sounds on a couple events (like low health) so I'd imagine it handles custom sounds just fine--and I do vaguely recall something about sounds within it now...
Edit: @ Bloodieros: You can theoretically add support for all types of shit to the default outgoing text. It's handled through C-side scripts but still uses valid Lua-accessible frames and font-strings, so just like Aloft does with nameplates, you can grab these with an active scan and customize them on-demand (and even compare them against the combat log to color based on damage type, throttle, etc). Though this type of active catching and coloring would probably be pretty CPU-hungry, and can't always be guaranteed to grant the accuracy of fully customized systems.
Anyways, at first I hated the idea of having all outgoing damaged bunched together. I preferred the over-the-head style of Blizzard. But when I began to mess around with MSBT I began to favor the bunched-together style. It can be nice at times for seeing overall output damage, and the things like exact spell display and throttling help out (especially for my warlock with all her DoTs when I mass-grind mobs). I suggest at least trying the system out (MSBT's version that is) and see if you don't come to like it soon.
In the demonstration video it says "memory increase <1 kbit/s" (or similar).
I guess it's supposed to be good. Isn't it possible to create mods that have absolutely no increase in memory usage over time? Or why the increase? I mean.. is there always a steady increase among the typical usage patterns (allocate & free)?
Well for simplicity I far prefer SCT.
Both MSBT and Parrot need years and months to set up, and only (IMO) provide a benefit over SCT if you want your own outgoing damage in a scrollarea, too (because SCTD never quite did it for me). The fusing of AEs is nice.
But then again, I have yet to find any scroll-type for outgoing damage which remotely matches or beats the default way of showing damage/healing above recipents heads.
So I just use SCT for 2 scrollareas, one negative stuff, one beneficial stuff, and the alert-area ofc.
And have damage/healing above enemy heads, because nothing confers information about AE damage/healing as "visible" as that default function.
But in case one would really want it in a scrollarea, I'd agree MSBT/Parrot > SCT, then. In other cases, SCT can be set up in 60 seconds flat where the other two need minutes and hours and days. At least for me, I spent 15 minutes just setting the sorting up in MSBT, then came the actual areas.
Well for simplicity I far prefer SCT.
Both MSBT and Parrot need years and months to set up, and only (IMO) provide a benefit over SCT if you want your own outgoing damage in a scrollarea, too (because SCTD never quite did it for me). The fusing of AEs is nice.
But then again, I have yet to find any scroll-type for outgoing damage which remotely matches or beats the default way of showing damage/healing above recipents heads.
So I just use SCT for 2 scrollareas, one negative stuff, one beneficial stuff, and the alert-area ofc.
And have damage/healing above enemy heads, because nothing confers information about AE damage/healing as "visible" as that default function.
But in case one would really want it in a scrollarea, I'd agree MSBT/Parrot > SCT, then. In other cases, SCT can be set up in 60 seconds flat where the other two need minutes and hours and days. At least for me, I spent 15 minutes just setting the sorting up in MSBT, then came the actual areas.
Agreed on all counts. This is why I still use SCT.
SCT = simple and fast , not many options
Parrot = most posibilitys and options for configuration , long time to setup but u can change everything like you desire
MSBT = something in between
1) Color the default damage display (not the wow scrolling display, but the default) by damage type
I didn't see anyone answering this specific question so I'm suggesting a tiny addon I've been using for ages.
Don't know if it's on any interface site anymore so I'm attaching here.
I'm guessing you're talking about the damage numbers that appear on the target unitframe, not the combattext.
A kinda interesting though: is there a way to change (recolor, specifically) the combat-effect text for damage/healing the default Blizzard interface shows above enemies/allies when you harm/hurt them?
Because coloring that by damage-type would be very interesting. Would make it a lot easier to see which damage is from which DoT, for example.
In the demonstration video it says "memory increase <1 kbit/s" (or similar).
I guess it's supposed to be good. Isn't it possible to create mods that have absolutely no increase in memory usage over time? Or why the increase? I mean.. is there always a steady increase among the typical usage patterns (allocate & free)?
A program with 0 increase over time would be a program that's literally doing nothing, basically. That increase is from data allocation due to the addon's internal processing. Every addon you see will have some incremental increase if it's doing anything. And for what MSBT does that's not high at all.
But don't worry about it as a user. Once data's done being used, it's marked as "garbage", and as new memory is allocated, an equal amount of garbage is picked up. So if you were constantly creating 1 byte of garbage every 1 second, but picking up exactly 1 byte of garbage every 1 second, your usage would never increase. (Note: 1 byte is unrealistically small; don't compare it to MSBT.)
Edit: I reread your quote and you basically answered it a little. Allocation itself is that increase. Whenever you allocate data (even local data) in any way that increase happens, and it's balanced out by the data being used up (references nilled out or 'freed'), garbage-marked (read: becomes garbage; I'm not sure if it actually needs to be 'marked') and collected by the incremental collector.
SCT = simple and fast , not many options
Parrot = most posibilitys and options for configuration , long time to setup but u can change everything like you desire
MSBT = something in between
I use parrot and i love it .
Something in between is misleading. I think MSBT offers just as much as Parrot in the way of its base feature configuration and offers many of the same features. It isn't by any stretch a lesser implementation configuration- or feature-wise. And IMO it's MUCH easier to setup with its superior, and somewhat more intuitive configuration GUI.
It takes me all of five minutes to setup MSBT or SCT, though that's what I get for only adjusting throttling and fonts.
Hehehehe.
Well for me the thing I'd like MSBT for (dunno if that's possible) is basically a "copy" of my SCT (2 areas for incoming, one for anything positive, one for anything negative, 1 area for warnings), and in addition have an area which only displays combined AE damage when I AE, nothing else.
If you enable Nameplates (hotkeyed by default to V), then SCTD and Parrot can display the damage text above the mob similar to the FCT damage text. However they MUST ANCHOR TO THE NAMEPLATE and sometimes this can be buggy.[/size]
cant find those option in parrot.. the anchor nameplate thing. where is it?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1) Color the default damage display (not the wow scrolling display, but the default) by damage type
2) Be able to watch for certain spells and play a tone or enhance the font/output.
Bone
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info5153-MikScrollingBattleText.html
Has cooldown alert as well. Wat i like is you're able to set trigger eg i like to set an alert at 70% mana to tell me to pot. It has sound alert as well.
Any thoughts or ideas for me folks?
EDIT: Typos for the lose
See my previous post ^
The standard WoW FCT does not support this. It can trigger a message for some events however it does not play any tones or enhance the font/output. I know both SCT and Parrot can do both requests, not sure if MBST supports sounds as I have not used it recently however it can trigger a different font and its "Pow" animation (used for displaying Crits) for events that you choose.
Edit: @ Bloodieros: You can theoretically add support for all types of shit to the default outgoing text. It's handled through C-side scripts but still uses valid Lua-accessible frames and font-strings, so just like Aloft does with nameplates, you can grab these with an active scan and customize them on-demand (and even compare them against the combat log to color based on damage type, throttle, etc). Though this type of active catching and coloring would probably be pretty CPU-hungry, and can't always be guaranteed to grant the accuracy of fully customized systems.
Anyways, at first I hated the idea of having all outgoing damaged bunched together. I preferred the over-the-head style of Blizzard. But when I began to mess around with MSBT I began to favor the bunched-together style. It can be nice at times for seeing overall output damage, and the things like exact spell display and throttling help out (especially for my warlock with all her DoTs when I mass-grind mobs). I suggest at least trying the system out (MSBT's version that is) and see if you don't come to like it soon.
I guess it's supposed to be good. Isn't it possible to create mods that have absolutely no increase in memory usage over time? Or why the increase? I mean.. is there always a steady increase among the typical usage patterns (allocate & free)?
Both MSBT and Parrot need years and months to set up, and only (IMO) provide a benefit over SCT if you want your own outgoing damage in a scrollarea, too (because SCTD never quite did it for me). The fusing of AEs is nice.
But then again, I have yet to find any scroll-type for outgoing damage which remotely matches or beats the default way of showing damage/healing above recipents heads.
So I just use SCT for 2 scrollareas, one negative stuff, one beneficial stuff, and the alert-area ofc.
And have damage/healing above enemy heads, because nothing confers information about AE damage/healing as "visible" as that default function.
But in case one would really want it in a scrollarea, I'd agree MSBT/Parrot > SCT, then. In other cases, SCT can be set up in 60 seconds flat where the other two need minutes and hours and days. At least for me, I spent 15 minutes just setting the sorting up in MSBT, then came the actual areas.
Agreed on all counts. This is why I still use SCT.
And the new version (v5.x) is even greater then the old version already was.
Parrot = most posibilitys and options for configuration , long time to setup but u can change everything like you desire
MSBT = something in between
I use parrot and i love it .
Don't know if it's on any interface site anymore so I'm attaching here.
I'm guessing you're talking about the damage numbers that appear on the target unitframe, not the combattext.
Because coloring that by damage-type would be very interesting. Would make it a lot easier to see which damage is from which DoT, for example.
A program with 0 increase over time would be a program that's literally doing nothing, basically. That increase is from data allocation due to the addon's internal processing. Every addon you see will have some incremental increase if it's doing anything. And for what MSBT does that's not high at all.
But don't worry about it as a user. Once data's done being used, it's marked as "garbage", and as new memory is allocated, an equal amount of garbage is picked up. So if you were constantly creating 1 byte of garbage every 1 second, but picking up exactly 1 byte of garbage every 1 second, your usage would never increase. (Note: 1 byte is unrealistically small; don't compare it to MSBT.)
Edit: I reread your quote and you basically answered it a little. Allocation itself is that increase. Whenever you allocate data (even local data) in any way that increase happens, and it's balanced out by the data being used up (references nilled out or 'freed'), garbage-marked (read: becomes garbage; I'm not sure if it actually needs to be 'marked') and collected by the incremental collector.
Something in between is misleading. I think MSBT offers just as much as Parrot in the way of its base feature configuration and offers many of the same features. It isn't by any stretch a lesser implementation configuration- or feature-wise. And IMO it's MUCH easier to setup with its superior, and somewhat more intuitive configuration GUI.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumHehehehe.
Well for me the thing I'd like MSBT for (dunno if that's possible) is basically a "copy" of my SCT (2 areas for incoming, one for anything positive, one for anything negative, 1 area for warnings), and in addition have an area which only displays combined AE damage when I AE, nothing else.
Dunno if one can do that, though :X
cant find those option in parrot.. the anchor nameplate thing. where is it?