Chatter changes your chat for the cheddar! Er, better
by Alex Ziebart 
Apr 13th 2008 at 1:00PM
Now, from the author of Omen comes Chatter. Built with the intent of making a chat mod with less bloat and is lighter on overall system resources, it manages to do that quite well. All I ever used in Prat was the module to allow links in custom channels, so I decided to give Chatter a try. The switch over wouldn't be too hard, right? Just turn off all of the modules I don't want, leave item links on.
I was pleasantly surprised with how easily Chatter was configured. I had decent looking, functional chat windows ready to go in about ten minutes. I'll fully admit that most other chat mods probably shouldn't take me much longer than that, but things that drastically alter my UI are my kryptonite. I think that says something about how simple this mod is to configure.
The obvious /chatter command brings up the configuration screen. It brings up a long list of options which is a little intimidating at first, but most of those options consist of checkboxes and sliders. Simple! Again, I'm really a default UI sort of guy, so I turned most things off. One thing I did do was make my chat windows kind of blue. Why? Because blue is awesome. A lot of my UI mod obsessed guild mates have switched over to Chatter as well, and they're loving it. From customization to framerate improvement, it's been fantastic.
You can see a shot of the config screen below. This particular option, should you choose to turn it on, allows you to make a list of keywords that will play a sound when someone says them in a channel you're in. For example, I put my character names in here so I don't miss anything in the heat of combat.
You might recognize the list of sounds there. They're identical to the ones used in Omen. I would recommend making sure you're not using the same sound for Omen aggro alerts and these keyword alerts. I believe Fel Nova there is the default in Omen, so don't choose that one if you haven't changed those alerts!
All in all, Chatter seems like a good deal. Simple to configure, simple to acquire, adds a few neat features to the chat system to make your life easier. I highly recommend it, and you can get it via WoW Ace. Before you ask, no, you don't need to update it as often as Omen.
All in all, Chatter seems like a good deal. Simple to configure, simple to acquire, adds a few neat features to the chat system to make your life easier. I highly recommend it, and you can get it via WoW Ace. Before you ask, no, you don't need to update it as often as Omen.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Add-Ons
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Vincent Avatar Apr 13th 2008 1:11PM
Hey! That's Criceto! I know that server! It's MY server!
My server! Internet fame! Oh, happy day!
Baluki Apr 13th 2008 1:29PM
Looks cool. I might try it.
I wonder if it works with or has the same functionality as CleanChat. I've been using that a long time, and I really like it. It automatically colorizes everyone's names in the chat window, and it shortens the names of your chat channels - it shortens "1-General" to "G", for example.
Alex Ziebart Apr 13th 2008 1:30PM
Yep, it's 100% capable of doing those things.
Ted Apr 13th 2008 2:05PM
Will it help remember my chat channels and renumber them in the order I want?
Prat does the renumbering but it's bad at remembering them and for whatever reason blizzard nukes my channels every month or so.
Ted Apr 13th 2008 2:06PM
Sorry... I need to specify. It's actually two different things I'm looking for:
1. Channel Renumbering.
2. Channel Remembering (rejoin channels EVERY time)
Summer Apr 13th 2008 2:21PM
I'll have to check this out. I've tried Prat a couple of times, but the amount of memory it uses is insane compared to the other addons I use so I always end up disabling it again.
Evangelin Apr 13th 2008 4:57PM
Do you play on a Tandy TRS-80 or something? The highest amount of memory I've seen Prat take up is around 1 mb of memory. 0.0005 of my total memory is not really a big deal.
Summer Apr 13th 2008 8:05PM
LOL my old system felt like it sometimes!
I just didn't see that Prat did anything spectacular that other mods couldn't do just as well for less memory use. And why use something that does the same features but with higher resources used just because it's the 'most popular'?
Blackhorn Apr 14th 2008 11:57AM
Summer, you're absolutely right.
See: Omen vs KTM :)
Omen won. KTM was a beastly resource hog, and apparently the author was pretty cocky about it. Along comes Omen, and with each passing day KTM turns more into KT..wha?
Tenchan Apr 13th 2008 3:44PM
Can I put my text input field on top of the chat frame instead of the bottom with this?
Slayblaze Apr 13th 2008 5:28PM
Yes you can. Top, bottom, freefloating, locked.
Slayblaze Apr 13th 2008 5:30PM
This is a great addon, I just uninstallled Prat after trying this out. It's that good.
Chronnick Apr 13th 2008 6:18PM
How do we import the alts list from prat_altnames?
Kaething Apr 13th 2008 8:15PM
So that's what I logged into the middle of.
whackopanther Apr 13th 2008 9:27PM
I switched to this as well.
What I don't get is, why both Prat and Chatter allows u to change the fonts of the various windows, but it doesn't change the Edit Box's font to the same font that you picked. Now you type in Arial Narrow, and the actual chat gets displayed in something else.
I gotta edit the lua every time I update. argh.
gavjohnstone Apr 14th 2008 4:20AM
There's an option in there to change the font used for the edit box- "Edit Box Polish".
gavjohnstone Apr 14th 2008 4:28AM
well, he's added it now anyway (just few hours ago).
whackopanther Apr 14th 2008 5:28AM
I wonder... :P :P
Cedric Apr 14th 2008 1:20AM
Looks nice but there are a few shortcomings:
- Report spam is gone
- The color for the name of the person speaking (grey) doesn't seem to be configurable
- Once I have added a word to be "highlighted" (with a sound), I can't edit the list of words
- Would be nice to have the class next to the name of the person
Kaeb Apr 14th 2008 10:44AM
do a /who on someone who is speaking and you'll likely see that person's name colored according to their class. That fixes two of your wishes in one go.