Saturday, January 23, 2010

HealBot 3.3.0 (setup 2)

Welcome to part 2 of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup guide. Here I will show you how you can adjust the look and feel of your new addon by using the Skins tab from the options menu.

The first order of business is to select which skin you want to start with. There are several options to choose from so check them all out using the test bars to see which skin appeals to you most. (You may also create your own using the "New skin" option.)

Once you have the skin selected, you can begin customizing the skin by using the 8 buttons at the top of the screen. Let's take a look at the General screen first.



Background/Border: You can mouse click on the word background and/or border to adjust the color scheme of your addon.
Lock Position: This options will lock your health bars in place preventing you from accidentally moving them during an encounter.
Anchor: Setting the anchor point from the drop down menu will cause HealBot to grow out from that point.
Close automatically: This option will cause the addon to close on its own when you are out of combat.
Play sound on open: Plays a sound when HealBot opens.
Hide party frames: This option will remove all character portraits and party frames from your UI while HealBot is enabled.
Disable bar when range over 100 yards: HealBot will remove a group member's health bar from the UI if he/she is more than 100 yards away from your character. (This can be useful in fights similar to Thorim)
Monitor aggro: This option allows HealBot to track your group members aggro. It will notify you if a dps'er pulls aggro or is targeted by an add. It's extremely useful in a raid setting.
Highlight active bar: This option will highlight a health bar on your UI when your mouse if hovering over it. It's useful in helping to avoid mis-clicks.
Use fluid bars: HealBot will update the health bars on your UI in a fluid motion. Only consider enabling this setting if you have no performance issues with your PC.
Skin default for: You can set HealBot to use a different skin when you're soloing, in a party, raid group, BG, etc.

Next up is the Healing screen. This is where you will choose how your raid member's health bars will be grouped on your UI. Check it out.



Healing bars: Checking off these boxes will add groups to your UI for things like main tanks, pets, your targets, and even vehicles. Play around with it when deciding what your preferences are.
Target bar: HealBot will add a health bar to your UI for whomever you have targeted. Useful for things like keeping track of Arthas in CoS or paying extra close attention to a marked raid member in the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter.
Alert level: This setting tells HealBot at what percentage hp you would like to be notified that a group member needs heals. The lower the percentage, the more damage a character must take before you are alerted.
Show raid bars for: This option will show raid bars for any character class of your choosing. 'All classes' should be selected when entering any kind of encounter.
Include raid groups: You can choose which raid groups will appear on your HealBot UI. Helpful if you're assigned to heal a certain group, though ultimately it's best to have all raid members appear on your screen.
Sort raid bars by: This option allows you to adjust the order in which the raid bars appear on your UI.
Also sub sort: You can also sort the order in which the raid bars appear in each subcategory.

This next screen controls when you will be alerted to incoming heals from other healers in your raid group. You can adjust the sliders to change the minimum duration of direct, HoT and channelled spells of which you wish to be notified. (See below.)



The Chat screen is next and it affects what information you're broadcasting and to whom. You can choose to notify the entire raid of every spell you are casting (I recommend you don't) or you can choose not to notify anyone at all. The only option I would consider here is notifying the raid of who I am resurrecting (to avoid any waisted battle rez). The choice, as always, is yours.



Once you have your notifications set, its back to customizing the look of your UI. The Headers screen allows you to change the appearance of the group headers on your HealBot screen. You can change header bar and text color, font size, header height and width, or turn off the headers completely. (See below.)



Now we get to the meat and potatoes of the skins menu. The Bars screen is where you affect how your raid bars appear on your UI. Take your time here, as this is where you will set the visual queues you will be reacting from in your raids. Check them out...



Texture: The general appearance of your raid bars. The can be squared, rounded, textured, etc... all based according to your taste.
No. groups per column: This controls how many groups will appear in each column on your UI. Use this to control the layout of your UI.
Height/Width: Adjust the size of each raid bar on your UI. The larger they are, the easier it will be to see things like names, health, current HoTs, etc. However, larger bars will also cover more of the game screen. Use your best judgement.
Row/Column spacer: This affects how much space is between each row and column of your UI.
Enabled/Disabled Opacity: This setting will adjust the opacity of raid bars that are enabled (pulling aggro, needing heals, etc...) or disabled (having enough hp to be above the alert setting). Having a stark contrast between enabled and disabled bars will help you easily see who is in need of heals and who is not.
Incoming heals opacity: Adjust the opacity of the incoming heal notification.
Out of range opacity: Adjust the opacity of all raid members who are out of healing range.
Aggro/Mana bar size: You can choose to have aggro bars and mana bars appear above each raid frame on your UI. This setting will adjust how large or small those bars will appear.
Color bar by: You can choose to have different color raid bars for each class or for each role (ranged, melee, etc...)

After setting up the raid bars to look the way you like, you can change how the text appears on each one of those bars in this next screen.



Color text by class: Each class will have their own colored font on their raid bars.
Show class on bar: You can choose to have each raid bar labeled with each players class via text or an icon.
Show name on bar: Have each player's name appear on their corresponding raid bar.
Double text lines: Have two lines of text appear on each raid bar.
Show health on bar as: These settings allow you to adjust if and how a players health appears on their corresponding raid bar.
Text alignment: Adjust where the text appears on each raid bar.
Font/Size/Color: Change the font on each raid bar.

And last, but certainly not least, is the Icon screen. Resto druids love this screen because it allows us to display our pre-existing HoTs on each raid bar and how much time they have left on their duration. Take a look...



Show HoT icons: Toggle between showing and hiding your HoT icons on each raid bar.
Show debuff icon: Toggle between showing and hiding a debuff icon on the raid bars for any raid members who are afflicted. (Useful when 'count' is enabled under the 'show icon text' option as you will be able to see all stackable poisons and how many ticks of abolish poison you will need to cure it.)
Show Raid icon: Will dispaly a skull, circle, star, etc... on the raid bar of any toon who is tagged with a raid icon. Very helpful when used with deadly boss mods.
Icon position: Controls where your icons will appear on the raid bars.
Show icon text: Allows HealBot to display how much time is remaining on a spell (or debuff) as well as the number of stacks each spell (or debuff) has.
Icon/Icon text scale: Adjust the size of each icon and their text.
Druid options: This option allows you to control which helpful spells will appear as an icon on your raid bars.

Okay, time to take a break. If you've made it this far then your addon is fully customized and ready to go. Congratulations! However, I promise you that you'll want to come back for Part 3 of the HealBot 3.3.0 setup, because that is where we'll discover HealBot's version of decursive. :-D

See you soon.

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