Macaroon unofficial thread and docs: Feel the World of Macros!

[digmouse]

This thread is now closed and support for Macaroon has been moved to a new thread, here.

Since Maul still dont get an thread for Trinity and Macaroon and ppls need doc on the fantasic bar mod, I decided to open one for him, just for convienience

Progression:
Oct 8 22:40 GMT+8 - Finished installing and part of bar creating, likely I've got a clue and will do this fluently after I get some sleep.
Oct 9 7:15 GMT+8 - Updated to 30000.20 since some important options are changed and rest of bar creating is underway.
Oct 9 9:30 GMT+8 - Bar creating finished and looking into visual customization.
Oct 16 15:30 GMT+8 - I'm back in town to finish the bar customization, and the whole document can be expected to be finished tonight.

IF YOU ARE PLAYING ON PTR, READ THIS!!!
Due to the changes made to SecureHandlerStateTemplate (SecureHandlerShowHideTemplate is removed), the newest version of Macaroon will NOT work on PTR 3.0.8. However, dewin posted probably working fix on WOWInterface which is available here:
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...uild3.0.8.html

If you are playing on PTR and wanna use Macaroon, please remember to apply this patch!

Declarations:
1.This is not the official thread of Trinity mods and Macaroon, all instructions and docs here are as of my own experience and habit. All rights of official news and instructions are reserved by Maul himself.
2.Author of this thread is a Asian speaker and dont use English as his common language, so if any sentences and phrases are out of common habit and not understandable, feel free to correct me
3.This thread might be updated at a slow pace since covering most questions and aspects of Macaroon can be quite a lot of work and cost a bit time, so if everything goes well, it will be full, but not in one day.

Let's start by a content table:

Post #2 - Installing Macaroon: heading to start.
Post #3 - World of bars: making some foundation.
Post #4 - Beauty and clearity: feeling good now.
Post #5 - Pushing forward: Button works.
Post #6 - Reserved for FAQ and sth. else: wish I dont have to use it.

[digmouse]

What is Macaroon?

Directly copied from Maul's post:

Macaroon is a macro-based action bar addon. It can stand on its own or supplement any other action bar addon or even the default Blizzard UI.

Features -

* Macros the size of Texas! (if you think Texas is 1023 characters in size =) )
* An unlimited number of macros, create as many bars/buttons as you want/need per character!

For common users and common sense, you can call it Trinity 3.0, as if it's sequel of well-known action bar mod Trinity 2 which is available here: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...tyBars2.0.html

Macaroon is designed for patch 3.0 and upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion so it will only work on Public Test Realm and WotLK Beta Realms, It WONT work on patch 2.4.3 live realms. For the latest version, get it here: http://www.wowinterface.com/download...-Macaroon.html

Installing?
Same as many, many World of Warcraft mod, the installation is easy: Download the latest version and unrar/zip it to Interface\Addons directory of your WoW installation folder, like "M:\Wrath of the Lich King Beta\Interface\Addons". Make sure there is only one Macaroon and MacaroonProfiles in the Addons folder.
You are done, login onto your beta/PTR and we're good to go!

If you are doing everything right, you'll see them in the Addons Panel at the bottomright corner at your character selection frame.

[digmouse]

Setting up bars: Making some foundations

Now login onto your beta/PTR character, and mostly you'll see a blank default UI frame, just like this:


And also, you can find Macaroon's minimap button shiny attaching to your minimap.


Let's start by some tuning up: disable the default blizzard action UI first since we dont need them anymore. Ctrl+Click on the Macaroon minimap button and we'll see the main menu of minimap button. You can reach the main setting menu by going to Game Menu -> Interface -> Select Addons Tab -> Macaroon.


The options are quite similiar to Trinity, so you can be quite quick if you have used Trinity before.
Deselect Enable Blizzard Mainbar, and we'll get rid of the useless default bar UI. A recommendation is that selecting Text cooldown timers and Text Buff/Debuff Timers if you dont have Cooldown count timer mods like OmniCC installed.

Now we got nothing, a clear UI at hand, the true magic comes.
Like Trinity, and unlike Bartender, Macaroon doesn't have any action bar available at first. So what? Create it.
Currently Macaroon's GUI is not implemented yet, as for me the create bar entry minimap button right-click menu dont work, so let do it manually by slash commands.
/mac create bar

EDIT: The create bar menu works in 30000.20 now, you can create a blank bar through that too.

Now we have a shiny blank bar in the middle of the screen:


You can't click on blanks!
Buttons? OK we got no buttons, let's do it. In default the newly created bar is in "Bar edit" mode which means you can freely move it and change its looking and working style, but in this mode you can't drag or remove buttons, either clicking on them. The bar edit mode can also be easily activated by clicking on the Minimap button.
(Oops server restart, let's come back a little later.)

(OK the servers are back, let's continue with the buttons)

In bar edit mode the bars will show it self and becomes blue which means we can easily find and config them, select the bar you wanna deal with to make changes to it. Simply like other bar mods, right click on the bar will bring its config window. Of course you can define them with slash commands but if the GUI is here, why not?


The config screen is quite simple and easy to read, so I'll go to the straight one: Button count controls how many buttons the bar will display. Clicking on it will set the bar to button adding mode, just simply scrolls your mousewheel up and down and you'll see the buttons come and go! It's magic, right?


now we have buttons, just drag the bars to where you want, and simply do this to create as many bars as you want:
Click on the minimap button and drag skills/items onto the bars as usual, we feel better now right?

[digmouse]

Beauty and Clearity
Now we have buttons, but wtf it dont fix my playing style?
Patience, let's look deeper into the bar config panel.
The options on the left side of the panel besides button count are all bar visual elements:

Scale - set the scale of the bar, which means you can enlarge it or make it smaller
Shape - change the visual shape of the bar, like square, circle, or circle with one button in the middle. There is only the 3 choices existing now but surely will be more in the future.
Columns - set how many columns the bar will behave, 1X12 or 2X6 or 3X4 or 12X1, changing it from horizontal to vertical, make it more fit your UI design.
Alpha - which means "Transparency" also, make it more visible or more invisible.
Alpha Up - actually this is a bit confusing option to understand, basically I call it fade-in or fade-out, this value defines the alpha when the bar changes its transparency on certain conditions.
Arc-start - Arc is part of one circle, the start value defines if the bar is shaped in arc, which button is the begining of the arc.
Arc Length - as usual, the length of the arc make changes to the space the arc uses, the scale of the buttons and their gap between each other.
Arc Preset - seems it control the arcing style which is pre-defined, I'll need some more check to make sure of it.
Pad Horiz - short for "Padding Horizontal", means the padding between buttons in horizontal direction.
Pad Verti - short for "Padding Vertital", means the padding between buttons in vertital direction.
Pad Horiz+Verti - short for "Padding Horizontal + Vertital", means the padding between buttons bothe in horizontal and vertital directions.

Simple as Button Count, just select the value you wanna change, and use your mousewheel to change it while mouseover the bar.

OK after a bit tuing up, I got 4 bars exactly matching my playstyle


Further more, on the other half of the bar control panel are options controlling the bar's actiong behavior:

Paged Bar: checking this will enable this bar to be paged like the default UI main action bar.
Pet: checking this means this bar is a pet bar, reacts if you have a pet/guardian available.
Stealth: this is the option for bar to change it's button when you stealth.
Reaction: set this bar to display a button set based on the current target's friendly/hostile reaction.
Combat: this bar will only show itself while you are engaged in combat.
Group: the bar will only show itself when you are in a group.
Possess: the buttons on the bar changes to the abilities of the unit you are currently in control, like Gorefiend fight and the drakes in Oculus.
Alt Key: set this bar to display another set of buttons when the alt key is held down.
Ctrl Key: set this bar to display another set of buttons when the Ctrl key is held down.
Shift Key: set this bar to display another set of buttons when the alt key is held down.
Custom: the bar will change to another set of buttons on the specific state you define, checking this will bring up the custom state editor, type the state you want the bar to react, the states you can add is exactly like you use in macros.
Autohide: Set this bar to hide itself until it is moused-over
Show Grid: Set this bar to always show empty buttons
Snapto: this is actually "sticky frame" in meaning, just like the feature in other bar mods, the bars will stick to each other when you drag them together.
Hidden: set the bar to be hidden and never show itself.

The custom state is a serie of macro state code which allows you to change the bar's button set on specific states you desire, and what's more, is you can set mulitiple states for the bar to react, not only one like possession, pet, combat, etc.


The state code should be included in a bracket and multiple stats should be devided by a ;. Like this
[actionbar:1];[stance:1];[stance:3];[stance:3,stealth]

the first state is the default one, if the state manager is confused, it will use it as the current state, which is the main action bar.
The later 3 states are the ones to react, I wrote this to reflect a feral druids situation, so the 3 states are: Dire Bear Form (the no. 1 stance on the form bar), Cat Form, and Prowl mode in cat Form. Whenever you switch to those forms, the bar will change to the corresponding button set, and first, you need to switch to this form once to drag ablilities you need onto them.

[digmouse]

Reserved for use 4~

[digmouse]

Reserved for use 5~
Wish I wont need this much

[Malsis]

Just wanted to say, Maul, as a long-time trinity user, I can't wait to see how Macaroon will turn out.

Do you remember the original Flexbar? That was the most perfect bar addon. It removed all the restrictions on where/what/how bars were used. Then of course, Blizzard broke the api.

Trinity was easily as good as Flexbar, and exceeded it in several ways. Being a coder myself (though not on addons yet) I completely understand what you mean when you say Trinity was heading the wrong way.

Very often in coding projects you write loads of stuff and suddenly something clicks and you can see the whole thing heading for a cliff or a brick wall.

Nothing to do but bite the bullet, pull out what you can use, discard the rest and start over.

If you don't do that, you end up with Microsoft Windows

Patch day tomorrow here in Europe. I'm going to clear out my addons folder and the first thing in will be Macaroon.

Then we go through the rest and see whats broken.
All the best..
BAzz

[Maul]

"If you don't do that, you end up with Microsoft Windows "

Haha

[skeller]

A couple of questions from a user of TB (I'm playing around on other servers as my realm isn't up yet and I've not been able to try the importer):

1. Can you clone bars?

2. Is there a way to create bars that have menu options/bags/etc. as their buttons?

[Scorpiodrush]

Question. In Macroon can you make the individual buttons the Circle skin they had in Trinity Bars 2? If not, I'm going to be mightily depressed. (not the circle alignment, I know you can do that.)

[Maul]

Originally Posted by Scorpiodrush Question. In Macroon can you make the individual buttons the Circle skin they had in Trinity Bars 2? If not, I'm going to be mightily depressed. (not the circle alignment, I know you can do that.)

Yup, you can use Button Facade to skin the buttons (curse.com) and get the Button Facade: Trinity skin pack here on WoWI.

[Maul]

Originally Posted by skeller A couple of questions from a user of TB (I'm playing around on other servers as my realm isn't up yet and I've not been able to try the importer): 1. Can you clone bars? 2. Is there a way to create bars that have menu options/bags/etc. as their buttons?

1) Not yet

2) You can make as many menu/bag bars as you want, however there are only 11 menu buttons and 5 bag buttons to share amongst them. You can however make macros to emulate many of them.

[skeller]

Originally Posted by Maul 2) You can make as many menu/bag bars as you want, however there are only 11 menu buttons and 5 bag buttons to share amongst them. You can however make macros to emulate many of them.

Excuse me if I'm being dense, but I spent a while messing around with this and couldn't quite figure it out. How do I get access to menu/bag buttons?

[marketfresh]

im having some trouble. i play a warrior, so i have my stances. so i create a bar, with 12 buttons, set it to stance, and do a /mac config to disable config mode, but everytime i do so, the bars become completely invisible or something, i dont seem them at all. I have been messing around trying to make a bar stay on screen, but it wont. any ideas?

[marketfresh]

Originally Posted by marketfresh im having some trouble. i play a warrior, so i have my stances. so i create a bar, with 12 buttons, set it to stance, and do a /mac config to disable config mode, but everytime i do so, the bars become completely invisible or something, i dont seem them at all. I have been messing around trying to make a bar stay on screen, but it wont. any ideas?

well, "/reload ui" seems to bring everything back up and working, now if only i could stay online long enough to set it all up :-/

however, if there is something that im missing, pls let me know.

[Maul]

Originally Posted by marketfresh im having some trouble. i play a warrior, so i have my stances. so i create a bar, with 12 buttons, set it to stance, and do a /mac config to disable config mode, but everytime i do so, the bars become completely invisible or something, i dont seem them at all. I have been messing around trying to make a bar stay on screen, but it wont. any ideas?

Sounds like you may be a bit unfamiliar with Trinity/Macaroon

Each state (stance) has it's own unique set of buttons. Therefore, as a warrior, you will have to add buttons to the battle/defensive/berserker stances. This is a bit different than the other bar addons. It offers some unique flexibility.

So, while in config mode, simply left-click on the bar and it will cycle through each stance. When you get to each stance, add as many buttons are you need for that stance. Each stance can have an independent number of buttons. I hope this helps

[Rhoirhoi]

I play a hunter and am ahving trouble with the pet bar. I cant see it at all. Ive tried making a bar but all i can figure out is how to make a bar that apears when I have my pet out. Not an actual pet bar. The wow ui wont let me link from my pets spellbook to my normal bars so i dont know what to do. Please help.

PS Seems great so far otherwise. I tried to load my old trinity settings using the addon but it didnt work.

[Maul]

Originally Posted by Rhoirhoi I play a hunter and am ahving trouble with the pet bar. I cant see it at all. Ive tried making a bar but all i can figure out is how to make a bar that apears when I have my pet out. Not an actual pet bar. The wow ui wont let me link from my pets spellbook to my normal bars so i dont know what to do. Please help. PS Seems great so far otherwise. I tried to load my old trinity settings using the addon but it didnt work.

Once you get buttons on your pet bar, enter button edit mode /mac edit or alt-click the minimap button. Then left click the buttons until they say "pet". Each one should have a unique ID number from 1 to 10.

[Rhoirhoi]

Originally Posted by Maul Once you get buttons on your pet bar, enter button edit mode /mac edit or alt-click the minimap button. Then left click the buttons until they say "pet". Each one should have a unique ID number from 1 to 10.

THANKS! it helped heaps

[trishcfo]

Originally Posted by Maul Once you get buttons on your pet bar, enter button edit mode /mac edit or alt-click the minimap button. Then left click the buttons until they say "pet". Each one should have a unique ID number from 1 to 10.

This worked great - however, with the new patch and the additional talents that give you new skills, I need more than 10 Hunter Buttons...and all I seem to be able to get is 1 through 10 over again. I can switch out the non-passive skills, but then it changes them in both spots...how do I fix this?

Thanks!
Anarané
Blood Elf Hunter, Aegwynn