The Lords of Nordrassil

Managing addons, finding new ones, installing them and keeping them up to date can be both daunting and time consuming. This post should hopefully include some pointers to make it all less scary for anyone new to addons, along with some tools that I use to make addon management easier.

Finding

There are 4 main addon sites:

• Curse
• Wow Ace
• WowUI
• WowWI

Use the search tools in the sites, or alternately this all in one addon search to search all four sites in one go. The main way I find addons is by reading blogs to find recommendations – I’ll be spotlighting a few addons on this site over the next few weeks. The wtfaddonbbq site makes good reading, introducing lots of interesting new addons

Installing

The Addons page of our site has instructions with screenshots for installing GEM. Steps 1 – 3 can be followed for other addons too. There are also addon installation instructions at wtfaddonbbq. Once installed, the main question is how to access the addon in-game. Most addons automatically add an icon to the minimap, others you may need to watch the automated text in your chat log as you login – this should show the addon names e.g. sct. Typing /addonname (e.g. /sct), normally then reveals the command that can be used to display the addon’s menu.

Updating

WUU Screenshot

Perhaps the hardest thing with addons is keeping them up to date, especially once many are installed. I’ve started using the WOW UI Updater tool to keep them updated. This is a tool that you install on your PC. The first time you use it is probably the trickiest, as most of your addons will get updated which can be a bit traumatic (I had a couple of really old non-standard addons including clearfont that didn’t update very well). After that it’s one or two addons at a time being updated which is a bit easier. Once you’ve got it installed, the basic pattern of usage is as follows:

• Open WWU from desktop icon
• Addon -> Scan Directory (or press Cntrl D), to scan your current addons directory and work out what you have installed
• Addon -> Update from Master DB (or press Cntrl M), this updates which addon site WUU will choose to download from for each of your addons
• Addon -> Check online version (or press Cntrl V) to find the latest versions of your installed addons. The first time you do this all addons will be marked as needing update, as WUU doesn’t know what the current version is
• Addon -> Update to latest (or press Cntrl U). This is where the action is – WUU will go away and update all your addons

For the faint of heart, there are instructions on how to do this safely without overwriting your addons, which are worth a read. Please note, all applicable disclaimers apply. At the very least, please take a backup of your interface\addons folder before using the tool!

Once you have updated, there will be some addons highlighted in pink, which WUU can’t determine the source of. You can right click on these and manually set the site ID (after checking it at the source site). For example, Curse addons all have a URL of the form “number/addonname” and this bit is used for the site id, and WoW-ace addons use the addon name as used in the wowace URL – case sensitive.

Setting the site ID for a Curse addon

Check the source from the URL at the source site and then right-click in WUU and update in the Site ID section so that it can now update correctly. There are further details on this in the WUU manual addon setup section

If these instructions make no sense, or for an alternate view, check out the WOW Insider WOW UI Updater article. Also any questions or problems, give me a shout in-game, or post in the comments and I’ll try and help.