I know for sure we've mentioned this
on the podcast (in the ever-more-popular Turpster's Tips feature), but I'm not sure we've ever
explicitly mentioned it on the site before, and
this post from WoW Ladies is a great reminder to do so: next time you're checking out your character screen, try holding Alt as you mouse over the various loots you're wearing. You'll get a little popup with all of the gear in your bags that corresponds to that slot -- a (mostly) undocumented feature that showed up in
patch 3.1 along with all of
the other UI improvements.
In fact, that's probably why this is just sneaking around now -- there were a lot of nice tweaks back then, and this one slipped through the cracks. Of course, now that
the official Equipment Manager is in the game (you have clicked that checkbox in the Interface options to enable it, right?), you might not need to worry about switching your gear manually anyway. But just in case you haven't seen the Alt function on your character screen yet, there you go.
Tags: alt, character-screen, equipment-manager, gear, gear-manager, improvements, odds-and-ends, patch-3.1, tips, turpsters-tips, ui, updates, user-interface, wow-ladies
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, How-tos, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Brownjohn May 26th 2009 4:09PM
I've never noticed this was built into the game because I've been using ItemRack for so long, which has this feature built in.
Urluve May 26th 2009 4:46PM
I had to reply this comment just so I'd be at the top.
But I have to say, I'm a huge wowinsider fan so opening up the page and seeing my screen shot and a link to my post definitely put a huge grin on my face :)
-Hunterkaahlan
lilrabbit129 May 26th 2009 4:15PM
This is the main reason I still have ItemRack installed. Guess it might be time to retire the addon.
matt May 26th 2009 4:15PM
Wow I never noticed that, very handy though.
Darias.Perenolde May 26th 2009 4:18PM
Outfitter does the same. The thing with Outfitter though is that it only showed what items you had in stored sets. This thing shows ever stinking piece of gear in that slot. I wonder if it can be turned off in a setting somewhere.
The full complexity of my issue: Not only am I a paladin, but I've developed a taste for PvP -AND- I'm a clothes whore like my little cousin's Barbie dolls. The potential items flies off the screen!
Magresda May 26th 2009 4:19PM
Heard this on the podcast a while ago, and have been using it to equip my fishing pole ever since.
tanek May 26th 2009 4:26PM
I just checked this out the other day. I was very happy to see that, when you are at the bank teller, it will include items you have shoved in your bank bags.
Now, if there is a way to edit the items in an Equipment Manager set without going through and saving the whole thing over again, that would be great. :)
Amaxe-1 May 26th 2009 4:28PM
Outfitter already does this, and lets you change out items in the bank etc. I could understand getting excited over this one if Outfitter didn't exist, but right now I will have to say Outfitter did it first and did it better.
tanek May 26th 2009 4:34PM
While there are addons that do it better (I think even the developers admit this), for those of us that are mostly addon-free for various reasons, having the option through the regular interface is wonderful.
BulletzBill May 26th 2009 4:40PM
Yes 3rd party addons may already do this and do it better in some respects, but some people may not want to go through the extra trouble to install/configure/update 3rd party addons, and/or don't want the larger memory footprint if they are using a low-end machine. So I'd say for a good number of people these are very welcome additions.
Amaxe-1 May 26th 2009 4:41PM
Well if you want to skip addons, that would do it then I guess. My thinking was along the lines of "what works best" so I can forget the program and focus on the playing.
Arcaria May 26th 2009 4:52PM
I didn't think your post was all that bad but I voted it down anyway. Damned mob mentality.
tanek May 26th 2009 5:01PM
I didn't vote you down, since I think it is a valid point that there are other (possibly better, depending on your needs) ways to do the same thing.
Also, another way to look at this addition to Blizzard's default interface is that it may allow the addon developers to improve how their addons work. So while you may never use the default yourself, it may end up helping you anyway.
Amaxe-1 May 26th 2009 8:14PM
Wow, tough crowd.
I didn't mean to slam people who have problems with or didn't want to use addons. Rather I assumed most people did, and was wondering why people wanted something that seemed more buggy.
I'll behave now
elfennau May 27th 2009 1:13AM
@Amaxe-1 Wow, you really didn't deserve all the downvotes. O.o
AlexW573 May 26th 2009 4:48PM
Handy, but I prefer how itemrack does it (the same way, but on mouseover so you don't have to waste a finger holding down alt).
Anonymous May 26th 2009 5:13PM
Pressing alt on your gear slots also gives you the option to ignore a slot in the set you're building with the built-in equipment manager.
Sorcefire May 26th 2009 5:13PM
I discovered this a few weeks ago and thought it was some feature of the EM that either was stealthed in or wasn't supposed to be there. This, plus the in-game EM, are good things to have if a bit late and not quite as user friendly as we'd like.
Personally I recommend people not to rely upon third-party EM addons since all they really do is use the macro functionality to switch your gear anyway. More people need to learn how to use what the game already offers before handing over the reigns of control to addon. Especially if all the addon does is offer you the same features macros and script commands already can.
elfennau May 27th 2009 1:14AM
Except without taking up macro slots.
verenov May 26th 2009 5:17PM
One that I really like to use is the Wardrobe addon. I uninstalled it after the patch, wanting to use the in-game Equipment Manager. However, there's one problem I have with the in-game version...it doesn't list whether the items in your inventory are part of an existing *gear-build* or not. Wardrobe adds a line in the tooltip letting me know whether is part of the gear-build . This makes vendoring soulbound items easy, without me *accidentally* selling a part of my healing set. If there *is* a feature implemented into future versions of the in-game, then I will definitely uninstall my current addon and use the WoW Equipment Manager.
Other than that, the WoW in-game Equipment Manager is awesome. It's fast on the switching, the editing of outfits, etc...I just wish it had a tooltip I.D. system, allowing the players to see which gear is associated with which set we're carrying.