Addons: Resources

UI WIP, based heavily on oUF_Asym

I often get asked: “drug, your UI looks splendid. How can you do that? Please, help me to be as amazing as you are”. And that’s what I’m going to do today. But to be honest, no one ever askes for my advice, but this never stopped me from dishing it out.

If you’re looking for an addon, there are three big sites providing right now:

• WoWInterface – My personal favorite, well organized, good favorite system, good rss feed, home of many great authors.
• Curse – Is still a mess in my eyes but heading into the right direction. If you don’t find an addon on WoWInterface, here’s the place to look.
• WoWAce – Still up and running, but not as popular as it used to be. Files.wowace.com had to surrender to the incredible amount of bandwith they were handling. Nearly all release ready versions of wowace will be pushed to curse for download.

Now addons get updated frequently. I’m a little bit torn when it comes to the updating-question: Should I update whenever an updates get out? Or do I don’t change a winning team, until something is seriously broken? When the WoW ACE Upater was up and running I was a serious update-junkie. Having your addons up date brings you new features and eliminates bugs, sometimes at the cost of new bugs. The possibilities for your update needs are:

• Curse Client – The last version I checked was pretty decent, but missing a lot of addons I use. Especially those who are exclusively hosted by WoWInterface.
• WoWMatrix – I used it for quite some time, because it runs smooth and has a huge addon database. Apparently WoWMatrix is not so community friendly though. Basically it just leeches bandwith from all other addon providing sites without giving anyone credit or paying bills for bandwith.  I’m a little bit sad that the updater that runs smoothest of all is not really supported by the addon community and the major addon providing sites.
• WUU and WADDU are your open source alternative at this point. I did test both for some days, both are in a too early state to convince me.

Now with the basics covered I hope you now where to find addons that will do function X and how to update them. But what if you need an inspiration for your new UI? What if you need sites to browse through, which might direct your attention to some addon or UI compilation you never thought about? Well that will be the last thing I last for today:

• EJ – Share your Interface Thread – This is the only link I’ll give to a “Show your interface” thread. Because there just isn’t a better one. Great source of inspiration.
• Vranx – Truely fantastic ressource for addons, sorted by their purpose. If a new addon shows up worth metioning, chances are good you’ll find it there. Same goes for UI compilations.
• WoWInsider Addon Spotlight – Great series of postings that shed some light on addons that deserve it. Posting frequency might vary.
• No Stock UI – New guy in town. But as the project is initiated by Matticus I’m very sure this will make it into your RSS reader, if you are interested into addons.
• omgphatloots – If someone takes his time to develop an addon or an UI, that is good. But the effort alone shouldn’t guarantee a life free of criticism. That’s what you’ll find here, honest reviews of UI compilations and addons.

Do tell my if I forget something important _not_ the official forums.