Lightweight addons
 

Hello, I have been changing UIs the last few days like crazy, testing new mods and stuff like that, but now I'd like to get a real effective UI going (I have nothing better to do till I get WotLK :D)

Now I'm wondering what lightweight mods are out there. Or anything reccomended for that matter.

What I plan on using are the following:

Pitbull (either Pitbull or Grid for raid frames, not sure of that yet)
Dominos
SCT (I have seen quite some people with MSBT, is it better?)
Classtimer
Cooldownbuttons
Chatter
KgPanels
AzCastBar
CowTip
ElkBuffBars/Satrina's Buff Frames (which is the better one? Never really tried SBF)
Clique (couldn't live without this, literally, since I heal with it :p)
BindPad

Skinner
Cartographer

Ok these last 2 are my main worry, especially Skinner then. Not only is it a pain to set up, it also doesn't really have enough options IMO.
And I think Cartographer is rather resource-heavy, but not sure about this

And of course the basic must-have mods (Omen, BigWigs, etc) that can't be replaced by another addon.

So .. any suggestions? :)

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I'll be keeping tabs on this thread as I love finding low-memory alternatives to the mainstream addon list.

SCT vs. MSBT: MSBT simply has a more complex trigger system and allows for a much greater customization. Not sure it uses any less/more memory.

CowTip can be replaced by TipTac. CowTip was way to complex for my liking as tooltips are a fairly small part of the game for me.

I prefer SBF just as I've grown to love it more than Elkano's. It's more of an opinion thing I think.

Skinner is a bit intense, and really not necessary. And yes, Cartographer is a bit memory heavy. I'm in love with pMap currently as it resized my window nicely, but I do know that a lot of people like Cartographer due to the implementation of other addons like Gatherer, TomTom, etc.

Get rid of Pitbull and CowTip.

I got incredibely increasing memory figures within the last weeks, and was trying to find out what it could be caused by. Then I found a threat on the Ace forums speaking about a similar problem, and that it may be caused by CowTip.

I replaced Pitbull with agUF (again) and CowTip with TipTac now, and since then my memory doesn't go crazy anymore. I don't know the exact reasons, it may be 'Rock', or another problem with libraries, I don't know. I'm just happy that I could solve the problem for me personally.

Simple Buff Bars is another option for buff bars.

So ag_UnitFrames is a fantastic alternative to Pitbull. I just installed it and got it set up in about half the time it took me to do Pitbull. TipTac, as I've said is great for tooltips, very lightweight.

If you want to throw in a lightweight damage meter I would suggest Violation. I haven't had much time to test it in terms of accuracy but so far it's doing well :)

Well I used to have aguf a long time ago, and then I switched over to Pitbull.
So I downloaded it last week again I think, to see how it had been updated and stuff, and I found it to be not customizable enough. The only alternative I'm willing to take to Pitbull is oUF, which does the same but is lighter ... but does require you to code the settings yourself (there's no in-game options).
I may convert my Pitbull profiles to it someday, I don't think it can be that hard to figure out.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I installed TipTac isntead of Cowtip now, and I'm liking it. :)
So far it's actually even better than Cowtip for my needs. :)

Get ag_Pimpster as a means to further customize ag_UnitFrames

Looter is a lightweight mod for selectively looting items, you can choose which types of items to loot as well as loot by a certain value, stack value, and so on.

Well, as long as we're talking small miscellaneous addons, here's a few suggestions of small lesser known gems from my bag:

CCBreaker - Shows who broke CC
Ellipsis - Multi-target DOTS timer
GhostPulse - Buff / Debuff / Cooldown monitor (a la Jim's CDP)
HatTrick - Checkboxes in char frame for show hat / cape. Surprisingly addictive.
Incubator - Raid mob respawn timers.
MainAssist - Makes assisting your tank easy
NDragIt - Move frames that aren't movable, doesn't bother storing new positions.
oGlow - See item borders colored with the item's quality
PassLoot - Custom loot rolling rules. Mine's set to green on greens unless it's a recipe
ReadyCheckAnnouncer - Announce /readycheck results to party, also adds /rc alias
ReagentRestocker - Automatically buys and sells items that you specify. Also sells grays, and overstocks to bank. No more "CD is up, but I'm out of ankhs!"
Mapster - Scalable lightweight world map replacement. Not as easy to modify as cart, but it works.
Cromulent - Adds zone / instance text to the world map, like cartographer had.

And yes, I also vote for MSBT for your combat text. It's by far the most extensible one.

Never heard of HatTrick before, that sounds very useful :)

As for NDragit, I found it to be rather annoying, and it came up with quite some bugs too, so I got FluidFrames instead. :)

And I have pMap now, but I'm not very happy with it. I really miss the feature from Cartographer where I could show undiscovered locations, but with a colored transparent overlay. Any suggestions for a light map mod that can do that? I tried MetaMap, but that keeps resetting my settings on logout.

Use Mapster

<Nevermind>

That's EXACTLY what I needed! It has just the features I need, don't need more, and don't need to disable any thing.

Thanks for the suggestion! :)

If you need any other features from Cartographer, see below:

notes and POI type things: HandyNotes (+ modules as needed)
gathering: GatherMate (+ modules as needed) (check out Routes, too)
waypoint: TomTom

AlphaMap is another map addon - Haven't tried it yet though.

Some from my folder - I don't keep track of if they are "lightweight" or not

DoubleWide - Shows the quest log in a wide screen view
DoubleWideTradeSkills - shows the trade window in a wide screen view
Afterlife Crowd Control - Maybe not the most lightweight, but for ME, I've found it to be one of the better CC Timers (I use it for Polymorph)
Auctionator - Best Auction House helper IMO - I've never liked Auctioneer. Very user friendly, and does what it's supposed to do well.
AzCastBar - My favorite casting bar replacement, hoping the author will add just a couple things, but for me, I like it best.
Better Inbox - For my mailbox.
ChatIcons - Add a small icon next to a linked item in chat.
Coconuts - Mount Selecting addon. I know this can be done w/ macros, but I like the way this addon handles it. Besides, it's name comes from Monty Python - how could I resist! :p
Combuctor - Tuller's Bag replacement mod - I like it, although I wish it had a couple extra options too.
Doom_CooldownPulse - Like "GhostPulse - Buff / Debuff / Cooldown monitor (a la Jim's CDP)" I just prefer this one...
Comix - Probably my favorite mod, and it's purely cosmetic! Adds different sound effects and comic (think from the old batman TV show) overlays - Awesome mod!
DynamicCamera - Moves the camera dynamically during certain situations. No longer in development, and the author denied anyone to take over development (I think it's a bit selfish, but that's neither here nor there), think there is a similar addon but it works differently. Still works in the newest patch.
InFlight - Flight Timer
Going Price (Curse Link)- "gives a player the ability to see the median auction house price,over all realms, of any item he or she mouses over." Note: it uses Stubby and EnhTooltip from Auctioneer (don't need auctioneer though)
GoingPrice Allakhazam Data Source Addon - Updates everyday as far as I can tell to keep prices up to date.
KarniCrap - When looting corpses it keeps you from looting the stuff you don't really want, saving bag space for good stuff. Another one of my favorite mods.
Learning Aid - Learning Aid pops up a window with the new ability (after training/talenting) icon in it, ready to be dragged to your Action Bar. So you don't have to search through your spell book for the new item.
MageAlert - Only for mages: a simple proc monitor for Hot Streak, Brain Freeze & MissleBarrage proc Displays a flashing fullscreen-effect and plays a sound when you gain Hot Streak, Fireball! or Missle Barrage
MetaHud - HUD
Mendeleev - Adds info to the tooltips
Mr. Plow - Auto sort your bags
oGlow - Show a glow around items based on their status
OmniCC - Show's cooldown in the bar over the icon
Paranoia Enemy Player Alert - Tells you if an enemy is near you - useful on a PVP server. Not against the TOC as it just looks at the combat log, it can't tell you if an enemy is around if they don't do anything to cause a trigger based on the combat log.
QSAlert - Alerts you if you pick up a quest item :p
RareFinder
RedRange - Changes color of actionbar to red if out of range, blue if out of mana
SimpleBuffBars - Buff bar mod.
TipTac - Tooltips - currently my favorite.
ZOMGBuffs - Like SmartBuff, but ... different?
X-Perl - Unit Frames
Swindler Preventer - Shows how much something is and where you can buy it in the tooltip so you don't get ripped off. Useful when searching for recipes in the AH.
Shieldmonitor - Will estimate how much shield you have left, or how much time.
Quick Repair - Auto repair your items, either from your own cash or guild bank.
Rating Buster - Shows what those stats actually mean in your tooltip.
Hear Kitty - Plays noises for when you get points - for rogues or druids.
AutoRes -Automatically accepts resurection requests when you are not in combat and thanks the resser.

Tekkub mods:
TekErr
TekAbility
TekJunkSeller
TekKompare
Teknicolor
VendorBait
StealYourCarbon


I don't use all of these together ALL the time... Many of them are to relieve some of the more mundane parts of the games.

Again, I don't compare the memory usage, but I think many of them are useful. Hope somebody gets something out of some of them.

vpr I see you use many different addons to to various tasks.
I suggest you take a look at Automaton.

I prefer GoGoMount for the auto-mounting thing.

Have you had a look at CombatCam yet? That one is updated for WotLK.

I also prefer BankStack over MrPlow because it sorts a lot faster IMO.

And AlphaMap is a decent addon, I personally don't like it because it gives me too much options I don't use. :)

EDIT: right, so I finished setting up Pitbull, and then when I want to copy the profile to make little adjustments for my Rogue, the thing decides to throw huge bug reports, wow crashes, I restart and apparently the entire settings file is corrupted >.<

Time to try out ag_pimpster! :P

EDIT2: Well that was rather a disappointment :P
I am now using DaHud, despite it's name, I used some ghetto way of using it as userframes, and it's BETTER than PitBull. It can do the exact same thing with DogTags, it has the exact same modules, but there's 1 difference, there is no limit as to where you move the bars/text/portraits, and you can make certain parts of frames clickthrough.

For example I have set it up so it shows my hp/power in the middle of the screen, but I can't click that so I'll never accidentally select anything. Then I have made 2 portrait frames, way off the center of my screen for me and my target, so I can easily select do stuff still :]

I'm loving this baby. :)

What about xperl for unit frames? Or is that supposed to be heavy? I use it and don't notice anything.

I hate XPerl with a passion.
PitBull is so much better. It does the same thing as XPerl, with the added bonus of not looking like crap. :)

I used to use XPerl and didn't think it looked like crap. ;) There are plenty of people who love the look, and it is very easy to set up. I switched because I was trying new things and liked to try different layouts every so often (wanted more configuration). XPerl is lighter than PitBull, so if you like it then stick with it. If you want uber customization, then go with PitBull.

Or Discord Unit Frames. Sorry Seerah, I had to throw that out there as DUF was the King of customizable UFs before Loz disappeared and 2.0 broke most of his mods. However DUF is still hanging on and has an active development team.

Yes, or Discord. :) But, sorry, Lykofos, but PitBull is easier to wrap your head around than Discord. ;) But Discord is *more* customizable than Pitbull.

Those are all great suggestions and although this thread started as Lightweight it seems to have moved to Customization, ag_UF and oUF are still the kings of light weight addons that I've tried. Pitbull and XPerl were always fairly high on the list.

Well here's a screenshot of my UI so far:



TODO:
- make the bottom left bar auto-hide
- show you screenshots of combat, party and raid stuff :P

I'm only using Pitbull for Party, Party Pets, Main Tanks & Main Tank Targets now.
Raid frames are Grid, and all other Unitframes are DaHud. It's not intended to be a unitframe replacement, but I felt creative and it works wonders ^_^

Reminds me a bunch of SadUI. Off to a good start, I used a layout like that for a loooong time. I'm switched to Deslim's UI recently and it's pretty awesome.

Look forward to seeing it progress!

Oooh that one seems to have a much better incorporation of the raidframes than I currently have (they sit on top of the box)

The only downside seems to be the 25 units, I play AV occasionally, and as a healer on my Paladin it's rather useful to see everyone in the raid >.<

I'll need to figure something out for that.

To fix that I just extended the Grid frame to the left to accommodate the extra units, and you could add an extended panel for that if needed.

For a good look at a lightweight list you can take a look at my compilation WulfPack.
Mostly lightweight addons yet providing all the functionality i consider a must have. A few heavy addons in there that i usualy run only in specific situations are: LightHeaded, QuestHelper, and Recount. IceHud and Autobar are medium weight but i rely on them to much to do without. Have been debating on adding Incubator back in but i just dont find much need for respawn timers anymore, and Combuctor may soon be added replacing movable bags. Not real happy with ItemRack anymore either but dont like most of the other equip addons ive found....

Looks like a decent list. :)

They're not all really lightweight though.

Examples & suggestions between (): Cartographer (Mapster), ATSW (doublewidetradeskills maybe?), Recount (definitely Violation!), DBM (BigWigs)

And I think there are lighter alternatives to IceHUD as well, but can't comment too much on that one. :)

The most important ones seem to be Cartographer and Recount though, I compared them when replacing my addons with Mapster and Violation, and the memory/CPU usage difference was rather big. Heck I even had Mapster + TomTom + Gathermate instead of Cartographer running. :P

I suggest Skillet instead of ATSW.

I'm still playing with several map mods. I'm a big fan of cartographer but with its lack of updates and memory usage I am looking for alternatives. Needs to have scalability, instance maps, POI, player/guild location. I'm trying Mapster + GatherMate atm, but going to try Atlas again (been a year or two :) )

Can anyone please explain me, why just about EVERYONE cluttering the most important bottom-center area? You'll seriously hate all your UI at the times you'll need to track something that quickly going back under your... well, nose. And that happens more often than you may be thinking about.

Nah, I put the main things I need there for the exact reason that I won't lose track of it there.

I usually play fully zoomed out too, so nothing's gonna be "hidden" beneath that bar. I've never had a problem with that, and I've been playing for a long long time.

As the poster above me does, I normally play fully zoomed out (I use a mod to pull my camera out beyond the default). Anything that I will need to keep track of (HP/Power, critical cooldowns and procs, etc.) is near the center of my screen.

Those of lessor importance (buttons, coords, MiniMap is down in the lower part of my screen while anything of non essential importance is kept in the upper part of my screen. Some people might consider the MiniMap to be part of the latter group, however since I can track humanoids, in a PvP situation that ability is quite nice to see at a glance thus middle importance.

Eveyone has their own playstyles and what may be optimal for your may totally hinder someone else.

Same as the above 2 posters, I keep it all at the bottom. I use a viewport also to keep visibility optimized.

Most people put things at the bottom center as it's out of the way yet easily accessible. As a raiding tank, I learn most of my keybindings like the back of my hand and rarely have to look at my buttons. My cooldown/triggers flash to the right of my character via MSBT and the incoming damage/heals are to the left.

I've tried putting my unit frames to the left/right of my actual toon but I found they got in the way of multi-target tanking.

Skimmed the topic, so apologies if you used this for a specific reason, but have you tried eXPeritia? It's no micro-addon, but it's certainly not large. Just thought I'd mention as I personally find your EXP bar an eyesore.

Are you still after anything specific? Perhaps I could offer a few suggestions, as most of the addons I use are very tiny.

P.S. You can do anything you want with your raid frames if you use oUF. Many downloadable layouts include an excellent base for grid-styled raid frames.

It's been a little while since I used Skinner, but from what I remember, you shouldn't need it at all if you are using KgPanels. They both do the same thing. I use KgPanels these days, and love it.

They don't though, Skinner is an addon that literally skins all your frames in WoW, while kgpanels only serves as background panels.

And yes, I agree that I need a new xpbar :P
I used eXperitia before, but somehow lost it and forgot about it. :)

Oops, my mistake. I was thinking of an older mod named "Skins" that was a very basic sort of panel mod.

I create my panels with Skinner, use it for viewport, and to skin various things I dislike having as default. Skinner is a lot more versatile than a lot of people realize.

You can make panels with Skinner? :eek:

I'm gonna have to go try that one then. :)

It's a little different than a 'panels' mod, but yes, you can make panels with Skinner. :cool:

Aye. It has the top frame, the bottom frame, and you can create "middle" frames with it, which are movable/resizable.

For a very lightweight tooltip you can use LonnyTooltip from this site :) Not sure if it's been mentioned as i skipped page 2 :/

Also, if you're good with lua you can use oUF with an own layout or use someone elses layout. To reach ultimate lightweightness ofcourse ;)

reccomend ouf_d3orbs, from rothui, has its own page now. diablo 3 health and mana orbs, for u, and nice target, party, pet, targettarget etc frames, in d3 style, (diablo 3)