Moving the default Blizzard floating combat text

[oopsminded]

This is from a green post on the WoW UI&Macros forums:

To set the record straight: The floating combat text that appears over other characters or mobs is handled through the 3D world, but the floating combat text over your own character is a frame provided by a Blizzard add-on and can be relocated.

1. what add-ons out there are doing this, and this only, if possible?

2. if you don't know of any, do you know what the name of this frame actually is, so maybe a script or small add-on could be made?

3. I ended it up asking here after googling and looking through a lot of the Combat Text add-ons out there; I've seen a lot of people asking for 2 things about the default floating combat text - "how to make it smaller" and "how to move it" without changing anything else. Well, I can tell you, after trying very many of them, that there is one that changes the default combat's text font and size without pixelating, distorting it - Blizzard SCT Font Size Control.

So now, anyone that can help me - and others like me - with the moving part?

Thanks a lot.

disclaimer: this is all about the default Blizzard scrolling/floating combat text, NOT about the floating damage font on top of the mobs/players you attack/heal

[voodoodad]

Mikscrollingbattletext
Sct + Sctd

among others.

[oopsminded]

Sigh... no, they are not moving that frame; those add-ons disable Blizzard's default combat text and then create some scrolling combat text frames of their own.

As their descriptions clearly point it out, they are "replacement(s) for Blizzard's Floating Combat Text and Damage output"

[Ailae]

While it might be possible, it doesn't seem to be that trivial to do. Moving the parent CombatText does nothing, since all the fontstrings used aren't anchored to it. There's a lot of :SetPoint calls to position these strings correctly, in relation to each other, so you would have to hijack a lot of stuff just to move it a tinsy winsy bit.

If you're familiar with lua, the code is available for browsing here:
https://github.com/tekkub/wow-ui-sou...rd_CombatText/

Sorry this isn't that helpful, but I think it would be a major undertaking to do what you ask, albeit possible.

[Canities]

Originally Posted by oopsminded Sigh... no, they are not moving that frame; those add-ons disable Blizzard's default combat text and then create some scrolling combat text frames of their own. As their descriptions clearly point it out, they are "replacement(s) for Blizzard's Floating Combat Text and Damage output"

Have you tried looking at xCT?
I'm sure this addon uses the the standard blizard SCT and allows the changing of font, font size and location of diffrent SCT elements separately.

[oopsminded]

Originally Posted by Ailae Moving the parent CombatText does nothing, since all the fontstrings used aren't anchored to it.

Hmm, thanks for the reply, it's a shame if that's the case, but probably explains it why there is no script for it (PVPers in tournaments would've used it by now as they do with other parts of the UI to move them around). And no, no lua knowledge so I'll have to move other parts of the UI around, or learn to live with it.

It never bothered me that much untill now but with rated BGs coming others will maybe look into it, as with the camera totally zoomed out, when you're focused by 2-3 melees, all that flurry of text makes you miss some of the graphical effects on them, you, and so on.

Originally Posted by Canities Have you tried looking at xCT? I'm sure this addon uses the the standard blizard SCT and allows the changing of font, font size and location of diffrent SCT elements separately.

I did; looking through it's lua it still appears it's just a more streamlined MSBT/Parrot, not what I was thinking/hoping for.

I might look into TukUi's, nUI's way of dealing with the issue, but I can't say I held much hope now.

[Guardix]

It is indeed possible to move the combat text. You can overwrite CombatText_AddMessage. It didn't seem to cause any taint for me.

https://gist.github.com/670886

[Ailae]

I stand corrected then, that does look simple enough. :P

[Dorwido]

you can do it with macro too, just changing the *x,*y values to fit your need:

/run COMBAT_TEXT_LOCATIONS = {startX  = 0,startY = 384 * COMBAT_TEXT_Y_SCALE,endX =0,endY = 609 * COMBAT_TEXT_Y_SCALE};

or with addon: a posthook on "CombatText_UpdateDisplayedMessages" and then change those value to have it permanent.

that is when you dont want to change every single message and just want to change the floating in general

[oopsminded]

Ok, thanks a lot to both of you for the replies. Looks promising

But...

1. I downloaded that CombatText.lua and tried turning it into an addon: I renamed it to MoveCT.lua, and created another file called MoveCT.toc with the following content:

## Interface: 40000
## Title: Move Combat Text
## Author: Guardix
## DefaultState: Enabled
## LoadOnDemand: 0

MoveCT.lua

I put both of them into a folder in my Addons folder, named Move Combat Text. On logging on, it appears in the list, it's checked, all nice and well but I tried changing the xOffset, yOffset from your .lua to no avail (I take it those are the values that control the position), nothing seemed to be changing. Where am I going wrong?

2. that macro works, it relocates the combat text, the animations of the floating text look wierd though *edit, got it, need to change the end values as well

[Rilgamon]

Your folder requires the same name as your toc file.

[oopsminded]

Originally Posted by Rilgamon Your folder requires the same name as your toc file.

Yep, I did that since yesterday, forgot to edit it. I even tried disabling all other add-ons except for this in case there was a conflict. I feel I'm missing something obvious.

About that macro though, I take it can't be turned into an add-on or to have it "run" when I login/zone, etc?

[Dorwido]

Originally Posted by oopsminded About that macro though, I take it can't be turned into an add-on or to have it "run" when I login/zone, etc?

local f = CreateFrame("FRAME");
f:SetScript("OnEvent", function(self,event,...) 
			local arg1 =...; 	
			if (arg1=="Blizzard_CombatText") then 
			  f:UnregisterEvent("ADDON_LOADED"); 
			  hooksecurefunc("CombatText_UpdateDisplayedMessages",
			  function () 
				COMBAT_TEXT_LOCATIONS = 
				{startX  = 100,
				startY = 384 * COMBAT_TEXT_Y_SCALE,
				endX =200,
				endY = 609 * COMBAT_TEXT_Y_SCALE};
			  end); 
			end 
			end);
f:RegisterEvent("ADDON_LOADED");

this will hook the updatedisplayedmessages function and always change back to your own values if there is a update which is called when changing options of the floating text.

[oopsminded]

Me love you long time, sir

PS Just as a curiosity, I see that as with your macro, the very first displayed message* appears in the normal/default position, but everything relocates after that, so it's more than fine for me.

* I always tested with Regrowth which has a high crit rate, it seems the first crit appears in the default position, than corrects, the rest is ok from the start

[Dorwido]

strange dont have the problem myself

edit: what i saw while testing for it, based on how you change the animation, the speed of it can be annoying, you can change that with adding: COMBAT_TEXT_SCROLLSPEED = 1.9; after "if (arg1=="Blizzard_CombatText") then", 1.9 is the default speed, for the case you need that.

[oopsminded]

Thanks for that scrolling speed customization option.

About that crit thing: the problem I think (as with that disabled it seemed to work as expected) is how it interacts with another add-on I'm using, mostly to control the colors on some of the combat text info (crits, entering/leaving combat, interrupts) evl's Combat Text - https://github.com/evl/CombatText

All crits I do are shown in the default position until a non-crit combat text info appears, then they relocate as well. But it really isn't something that bothers me, so no need to troubleshoot it any further, I took enough of your time.

[Jallel]

you can do it with macro too, just changing the *x,*y values to fit your need: Code: /run COMBAT_TEXT_LOCATIONS = {startX = 0,startY = 384 * COMBAT_TEXT_Y_SCALE,endX =0,endY = 609 * COMBAT_TEXT_Y_SCALE}; or with addon: a posthook on "CombatText_UpdateDisplayedMessages" and then change those value to have it permanent. that is when you dont want to change every single message and just want to change the floating in general

I've just tried this macro and it works perfectly. However, it seems that it resets the growing way of the FCT to downwards, and I was wondering if there's any script to do it grow upwards that could be combined with this macro.

I'm trying to have my floating combat text to hover just above my head, because sometimes, with the default behaviour, it gets over my raid frames and I find this quite annoying.

Anybody can help? Thanks so much in advance!