Archive for October 25th, 2008:
Addon corner: Data Broker
Since the patch rolled around, I’ve been spending a lot of time tuning my UI, which I find almost as enjoyable as slamming my shield into the faces of big bosses. For 3.0, I deleted all addons that I had and rebuilt my UI from the ground, similar to what Anna from ToomanyAnnas has done.
My UI is not the prettiest out there, but I find it very functional, very informational, and clean. I use a lot of addons, but for now I will only talk about the ones that are immediately visible, the core UI.
This will be a series of posts dissecting my UI. If you have any questions about elements, ask away. If you know something cool you think I would like, let me know!
Let’s start the show with a snapshot of my UI when I am idly standing around, and the introduction of one of the elements of my UI: Data Broker
Data Broker: At the top I have Data Broker blocks, just as I have them on the bottom of the screen. I used to be a die-hard Fubar fan, but if you follow the trends of Ace developers, they are all moving away from Fubar, towards the flexibility of Data Broker. What exactly is Data Broker? It’s an Ace library, short LDB, that allows endusers the choice of what LDB display they wish to use. There are a bunch of different displays that all have a different look and feel. I myself use Fortress to create a Fubar lookalike, but it is a lot more flexible. Every Data Broker addon gives me a block I can freely move anywhere I want to on my screen. If you look next to my chat frame, that’s where I have all my raid modules, e.g. The first time you set up all Data Broker plugins and your display of choice, you might be overwhelmed, because the blocks will be all over the place, but you can simply drag and drop them to where you want to have them, and they dock when you connect them.
LDB displays:
Yes, Titan, the old resource hog and first information bar is now Ace’d and LDB-ready. Unlike Fubar. Go figure. However, there are two addons that their developers call hacks to make Fubar and LDB compatible. The first is Fubar2Broker which turns Fubar plugins into LDB objects. I use that myself, as I haven’t found native Broker plugins that are as good as a couple Fubar plugins I still use (MoneyFu, QuestsFu, ToFu and TopscoreFu). If you’re a dedicated Fubar user, you might have run into the problem that recent addons no longer provide a Fubar plugin to access it (e.g. Omen, Bugsack, etc.). Those of you can use Broker2Fubar to turn LDBs into Fubar plugins.
As I said, I chose Fortress as display, after testing most of the others. This was the one I could make look the cleanest. I then later added another display. Yes, you can run several displays without any problems. I have set all my informational plugins to be displayed by Fortress and all launchers are displayed in MakeRocketGoNow. Launchers are the plugins that serve like minimap buttons. You click on them to get access to the configuration menu of an addon. Many addons came with native launchers for Fubar, and a lot of Ace addons have switched to LDB launchers.
That's what MakeRocketGoNow looks like in action
You get a Rocket block you can place anywhere, and when you click on it, you get several large buttons of all launchers of your various addons. Clickie, end up in Omen configuration, as on the screenshot. Saves up a lot of info real estate.
If you want to look at what addons you get for LDB, check out the Data Broker category over at WowInterface.
