Addon Spotlight: Hermes, Extra Button, and the mature language filter addon
by Mathew McCurley 
Dec 8th 2011 at 4:00PM
One of the most often asked-about topics around these parts concerns the issue of raid cooldowns. A raid leader armed with sufficient knowledge and a knack for planning can orchestrate a cooldown rotation like no other. His excellence could only be improved by a cooldown monitor, allowing that intrepid leader to see what was at his disposal. Many players ask me where to find such a display. This week's Addon Spotlight pick is just the ticket. Allow me to introduce you to Hermes, a wonderful little addon that knows who has what raid cooldowns available.
But first, we need to talk about a pressing issue, a dire matter that has threatened the very virtual world we inhabit. I am of course talking about the worst bug in the history of bugs: an eternal mature language filter.
Let's fix that too, shall we?
Mature language filter fix
We got this out of the way yesterday, but I wanted to make sure my loyal readers had the information as well. You've experienced this bug a million times already. You log in. You converse in guild chat. You notice a lot of odd symbols. Who turned on the mature language filter? Well, it turns out that 4.3 brought with it a little bug where upon login, the game sets your mature language filter to on.
Well, the wonderful and talented addon community answered the call. There are many versions of this addon available, so I decided to go with the one that I downloaded and use, Mature Language Filter Fix. This tiny addon pops into your interface folder, waits patiently until you log in, and then turns your mature language filter off. That's it. No muss, no fuss. You can also download ForceMatureLanguageFilter. It does the same thing.
There. Problem solved. Again.
Download Mature Language Filter Fix at [Curse].
Download ForceMatureLanguageFilter at [WowAce].
Hermes
Now that we've taken care of the dire necessities, let's get down to brass tacks. People want raid cooldown monitors. It's one of the toughest aspects of being a raid leader -- understanding the cooldowns, their natures, and best moments to use a variety of different class abilities and durations. It is definitely not as simple as it seems.
Customization is key with Hermes, where users can place whichever cooldowns they want into boxes and place them on their screen in key locations. If you like options, Hermes has plenty of them. I'm always a fan of addons that let you have as much control over them as possible when it comes to aesthetics.
Need a priest to use Guardian Spirit on the tank and don't know if it's off cooldown? Hermes will display whose spells are available and whose are on cooldown, with an estimated timer. Each type of cooldown and ability can be sorted, mixed, and matched with others to customize the layout and put your most important cooldowns up front and center.
Hermes is definitely not for the faint of heart, as there is a bit of customization that might prove somewhat unwieldy to the lay addon user. Don't let the complexity frighten you off from learning, however. You'll be adding windows of cooldowns to track in no time, if you just tinker with the addon for a while.
There are a lot of other addons out there that do what Hermes does. The reason I chose to spotlight Hermes is because of its presentation. Movable windows and a test mode are welcome features. Hermes is your go-to raid cooldowm tracker.
Check out the Hermes overview and walk-through video on YouTube.
Download Hermes at [WoWInterface].
The Extra Button
Many of you have been engaged in raid content (potentially for the first time) through the brand new Raid Finder feature that came into our lives only a week ago. Two of the fights in the Dragon Soul raid make use of an action bar included in the default WoW interface called Extra Action Button. Extra Action Button is a brand new bar that becomes available when a fight that uses the bar begins.
On the Ultraxion encounter, players are granted the Heroic Will ability, which pulls the players out of the twilight realm and avoids Ultraxion's big attacks. On the Madness of Deathwing encounter, players are granted an ability by Ysera called Dream, which reduces damage taken by 50% on a 30-second cooldown. Both of these abilities appear on the Extra Action Button.
There are a few ways to deal with the Extra Action Button. If you're using the default action bars, you have nothing to worry about -- the new action button should appear in the middle of your screen, above the middle bars. If you're using an action bar mod like Bartender or Dominos, open up the bar configuration utility and look around the center of your screen for the Extra Action Bar mover. It's pretty big by default. Move and resize to your liking.
If you're not using an action bar addon or you just don't like having to click a new button, you can bind a simple command to a macro or key and press this extra action button that way.
- /click ExtraActionButton1
Making this macro is a great idea even if you use a bar mod. You all have had something similar to this happen to you: Your raid leader has already discussed and explained the fight you are about to engage. You begin the encounter and you cannot find the new button that the game has created for you. You panic. Fear sets in. The shame and ridicule from your fellow raiders begins to mount. They will know. They always know. Those infernal addons tell the whole group! Anger! Fear! Loathing! Has my DPS always been this low? Fading Light in 4 seconds. Fading Light in 3 seconds.
"Anyone else lagging?"
Keep the macro handy and, even if the bar doesn't appear, you can still hit the button and be good to go.
See you guys next week.
Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. If you're new to mods, Addons 101 will walk you through the basics; see what other players are doing at Reader UI of the Week. If there's a mod you think Addon Spotlight should take a look at, email mat@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Charron Dec 8th 2011 4:16PM
There is a new entry in keybindings for the ExtraActionButton as well. It's located in the Action Bars section. I was using that macro with BindPad just fine as well.
Charron Dec 8th 2011 4:30PM
And I ended up playing Mad Libs with the filter stuck to on. Was very etertaining with my very "vocal" guild! :)
JCinDE Dec 8th 2011 4:43PM
Mature language filter is exactly the sort of thing that led me to keep a "__sandbox" addon. It's my own home-made addon that's really just a collection of LUA snippets that I wrote to fine tune my UI. Other things my "__sandbox" addon does are:
- Turn off screen blur when I'm drunk. Turn it back on when I'm sober. I did this because some of my characters use Sulfuron Slammer on the Ozruk fight in Stonecore. The screen blur was annoying.
- Build a smart-assist macro that lets me have a key bound to /assist whoever happens to be the tank in a group.
- Move my bag bar to the equipment frame. I use Bartender for my action bars and there's really no reason to have my bag bar always visible. So I attach it to the equipment frame so I can access it if I need to equip/unequip bags but so it doesn't clutter my screen.
- Register some custom textures with LibSharedMedia to be used by kgPanels.
- Change the TOP_OFFSET attribute of UIParent so UI panels it opens don't overlap the UI elements in the top corners of my screen.
Nivella Dec 8th 2011 8:11PM
Well, I even have a mole machine to keep stocked on that slammer, would have been a lot less painful for when I was arcane and struggling with mana enough as a priest healer besides having to dot as well.
Shame I didn't think of/ hear about this trick when I was actually in there often.
Fount Dec 20th 2011 1:42AM
Would love the snippet of LUA that moves the bag bar there. I have the same problem, I only need it once it a blue moon to switch bags yet have it taking up screen space permanently.
Would probably be just as good or better to move it to the bank interface (the only real time I change bags)
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Dec 8th 2011 5:10PM
Hermes sounds tasty as hell.
DBM has a Cooldowns monitor that kind of works in reverse but since it only shows SOME spells that are on cooldown but not what's available, it makes it hard to call for a cooldown on the fly without spending time thinking, "Okay, I have a Shaman, I wonder if Mana Tide is off cooldown. I'll ask about it. Okay, it's off cooldown, but he thought my asking was an indication that I wanted it NOW so it's kind of wasted since I was going to need it after the next massive healing phase that happens in 30 seconds."
mateodefuego Dec 8th 2011 5:10PM
I've been looking around but I haven't found anything yet, Does anyone know if there is an addon to improve the guild news feed? Specifically there are a lot of epics being looted these days and I'd like to set filters to ignore say anything below a specific item level, instead of just ignoring all epics.
VelousaTheChilled Dec 8th 2011 5:26PM
I highly recommed Guild News Filter Pro to help sort the rediculous number of epics the guild feed shows, it's been a bit off since 4.3, but I'm sure it'll be updated and working like a dream again soon.
http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/guild-news-filter-pro
ladygamertn Dec 8th 2011 5:12PM
I'm wondering if someone can help with this: I like to move the Target Frame (?) down to just above my action bars. I Target someone, unlock it and move it and then lock it. But I have to do this every time I log in. Is there a way to keep it where I put it? My own Player Frame (?) I do the same way and it stays there. It's easy enough but annoying to have to do this EVERY time...
Not sure what those thingys are... The thingy with my picture and health that start off way up in the left corner and the targeted person is just opposite up in the left corner, I have a 22 in monitor and I have everything moved to the lower third of my monitor because they are just too far away for me to see them clearly. So I have me and the target positioned on opposite side of my toon so I don't have to look way up there.
Anyway... thanks for any suggestions! And I don't really like the UI HUDs that are out there so this worts for me.
Pyromelter Dec 8th 2011 6:31PM
I would seriously consider using something like Stuf or Shadowed (or if you're feeling really experimental, Pitbull).
Khirsah Dec 8th 2011 9:01PM
I second using Shadowed or Stuf, but if those are not your style, you might want to try Move Anything. No surprises what it does; it let's you reposition almost any UI element that you want, and it should lock it into place until you decide to move it again.
ladygamertn Dec 8th 2011 9:52PM
Thanks for the suggestions!
ladygamertn Dec 9th 2011 4:29AM
I actually went with http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info18739-LeatrixPlus.html on WowInterface.
Pyromelter Dec 9th 2011 5:26AM
A very good option ladygamer.
The moral of the story is: Never trust the default UI.
Piper Dec 8th 2011 5:22PM
One question for the addon crew. Since Raeli of "RSA - Raeli's Spell Announcer" no longer plays and won't be updating the addon in any serious way, what would you suggest as a replacement for RSA?
Yes, I know I could load out of date addons, but I prefer not to. I've had too many problems with addons that are broken because of patches to want to run with out of date stuff. That's mainly because I'm a raid tank for my guild and I really kind of like things to be known to work right over the long haul. :)
Culhag Dec 8th 2011 6:40PM
Don't worry too much about loading out of date addons.
I do it for a lot of addons that i can't find replacements for and it's rarely caused problems.
And many times when an abandoned addon stopped working after a patch, someone posted a fix on the addon's page.
So if RSA really isn't working, go have a look at it's Curse or WoWAce or WoW Interface page (whichever the author used primarily) and someone may have a solution.
shealle Dec 8th 2011 7:04PM
Nooo! RSA is not being updated? I was looking forward to running dungeons & raids when school finishes in another 2 weeks... Without RSA, how can I annoy those in my groups with important annoucements like Barkskin activated!
I kid over the annoying part, if I'm healing & using barkskin, it usually means something is on me & I'm trying to get it to my tank or at least off of me.
In all seriousness though, I may have only had RSA for a few months, but it feels like an indispensable part of my addon's. Please for the love of Elune tell me too another good option or even better, that Raeli's continuing to play & update this wonderful fantastic addon.
Brett Porter Dec 8th 2011 7:07PM
RSA is working fine. I've had no issues with running it since 4.3 dropped. Just because something doesn't load if "run out of date addons" isn't checked doesn't necessarily mean it won't work or will mess stuff up. I've seen addons that haven't made it to the "up-to-date addon list" in years and still work perfectly.
Firelash Dec 9th 2011 6:53AM
I use Flump which works fine. I am raid lead so I like the fact it announces for everybodys cooldowns not just my own, it has customisation too so you can choose, what is and what is not announced.
Taliaeron Dec 18th 2011 6:05AM
You might be interested in our upcoming Harbinger add-on. We're trying to solve some of the problems we have with RSA while adding lots of new functionality that we think will make life easier in groups. All in all, we want Harbinger to be comprehensive, extendable, and flexible.
Harbinger is currently in alpha development, but we're very close to releasing a working beta--it's capable of announcing spells and item uses already using advanced message formatting already, we just need to add support for filters (so you can decide under which conditions to announce an event) and sinks (output channels, if you will), as all it does right now is output to the local chat frame.
I posted some of my thoughts over at the RSA page, you might also be interested in those:
http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/rsa?comment=837
And you can find out more about the project at our site:
http://wow.curseforge.com/addons/harbinger/
On behalf of the Harbinger Development Team,
Taliaeron of Grim Batol (EU-A)