Addon Corner - Addon Basics
This time I thought I’d take a step back and actually start from the beginning and cover what an addon is, where you can get them and how they can help you!
So, first things first, what exactly IS an addon?
Well, World of Warcraft was designed so that players can create extensions that add or enhance World of Warcraft’s interface (the stuff you see onscreen). An addon is just that, an extension to the interface, generally to make something more accessible or easier to use.
Great, so what kind of things can addons do?
Addons have been created for a multitude of tasks, if you can see something onscreen then there have been addons to replace it with “better” versions. By better I really mean different, one person’s “better” is another person’s “worse”…
Addons cannot “play” the game for you however, they can assist and aid you, but you must hit the buttons to move and cast. Pretty much anything else however is in an addons jurisdiction.
Okay great, so addons let you customise your interface, where do I get them from?
Well, this is the easy part, there are few websites that specialise in WoW addons. Both WoWInterface and Curse.com house the majority of addons available. Generally, if you’ve heard of an addon it will be available at one or both of those sites.
Cool, I’ve found an addon I want to use, what do I do with it now I’ve downloaded it?
Once you have the addon downloaded, it is just a case of “unzipping” it into your “World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons” folder.
Wait, what’s “unzipping”?
Addon’s generally come compressed, generally known as zipped (due to one of the most popular compression utilities called PKZip). This saves space and makes transferring files easier. You have to uncompress, or unzip these files to get them in a usable state. If this sounds complicated, don’t panic, the process is exceptionally easy.
You may or may not have some form of utility installed to aid with this process, but either way the process is similar. Simply navigate to where you downloaded the addon and double-click the addon to open it.
Then click Extract all files and click Next, then click Browse… and make your way to your WoW addons folder, typically “My Computer\Local Disk (C:)\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\Addons” then click OK then Next then Finish.
Okay, I’ve done that, now what?
That’s it, the addon should now be functioning ingame. Start up WoW and have a look!
Wow, it worked! Now what?
Well, the answer to this depends on what the addon you installed does. Some addons require a little bit of configuring, some work straight away without you doing anything.
Generally there are two things an addon might do that lets you set it up how you want. The first is it might create a button around the mini-map area that you can click to get to it’s options or perform some task (the tooltip will generally explain). Secondly, more recently it might add a configuration area to the games options panel, to get access to this simply press Esc (or click the Game Menu icon) and select Interface. Select the Addons tab on the top-left of this pane and you’ll see various options sections for any addons you have installed that utilise this area.
Unfortunately, not every addon is consistent in HOW you access it, but generally one of those two methods will suffice. If you cannot figure out how to use an addon or how to access it’s options, I recommend visiting the addon’s page on the site you downloaded it from as there should be some kind of instruction there.
Hopefully this post is helpful, if you think I have missed something or glossed over something, please mention it in the comments and I’ll add or alter the post accordingly.
