For those of us who use dozens of addons, it becomes far too easy to take the basics of using them for granted. I'd like to take a few moments to go over how to begin using addons. To begin, you addon newbs may be wondering how to go about finding good, reputable addons. Our own Addon Spotlight feature here at WoW Insider is a great place to start your search. We've reviewed many popular addons, and our readers have chimed in with lots of great advice and feedback about addons. You can also ask fellow gamers, or better yet, your guild. Some guilds require certain addons for members, but regardless of your own guild's policies, your guild-mates may have some good addon advice. There are a few primary sites you can visit to find addons, each of them doing essentially the same thing in different formats.
Another way to find addons is to search for them by name using a search engine like Google. Many developers keep the most current version of their addons on a native site. Examples are Auctioneer, CTMod, Cosmos UI and Healbot Continued. For you Ace advocates, I should mention the Ace addon system, which many players choose because Ace addons play well with each other and used shared libraries to minimize memory use.
Now that you've followed the links and downloaded your addon, you need to unzip it, or unpack it from its archived format. For most users, something like WinZip will handle the majority of your needs. For Mac users, you will need to use third party software to un-archive .rar files, which some addon developers use to package their software. I use UnRarX, which has worked just fine for me. Some sites, like Curse Gaming, provide an auto-install feature through their system. Something like this might work for you, but I tend to prefer more control over how and where new files get placed into my file system.
At this stage, you've got some unzipped folders sitting in front of you, it's time to find them a home. You'll need to locate your World of Warcraft folder. I'll detail how this is done for a default installation, using the default file structure. Hopefully if you know enough to change the defaults, you won't need this guide. For Mac users, you will need to open a new Finder window, open up your Applications folder, then open your World of Warcraft folder. For PC users, you'll need to open the My Computer folder from your Start Menu. From there, open the hard disk that you have WoW installed on. (Default is C:) Next, open the Program Files folder, then locate your World of Warcraft folder.
Now that you have opened the World of Warcraft folder, you should see a folder named Interface. Open up this folder and you will find the Addons folder. This is the new home of your addons. This step is where some addons require some extra attention. Some addons, like Atlas and Cartographer, come with multiple modules that work together, but are located in different folders within the unzipped directory. Open up your unzipped addon folder and look for files with the .lua .toc file extension. (Example: Atlas.lua Atlas.toc) Once you locate a file with the .toc extension, you can take the folder containing that file and move it into the Addons folder. The .toc file is the Table of Contents file, which the World of Warcraft client needs in order to recognize and load each addon. (Thanks to Bloodieros for pointing this out and teaching me something I didn't know.)
As an example, I have downloaded the Atlas addon from Curse Gaming, after unzipping the .zip file, I have a folder called "Atlas_v1.10.3" on my desktop. If I were to move this to my Addons folder, the addon would not function, as the World of Warcraft client would not have proper access to the addon files. Opening this folder reveals the following sub-folders:
- Atlas
- AtlasBattlegrounds
- AtlasDungeonLocs
- AtlasEntrances
- AtlasFlightPaths
- AtlasOutdoorRaids
Now that you have placed the appropriate folders into your Addons directory, you can go ahead and launch World of Warcraft. You will need to login, but stop at the Character Selection screen. In the lower left-hand corner of this screen, you will see a AddOns button. Clicking this button will open an AddOns List interface. At this screen, select the "Load out of date AddOns" option. From this interface, you can select specific addons to be loaded for individual characters. This can come in handy if, like me, you only use addons like Auctioneer on a single "bank character". Click "Okay", and you're all set.
Once you enter the game world you will need to configure your addons in whichever way you choose. Congratulations, successfully navigated basic addon installation. Stay tuned for more about addons from Addon Spotlight and check out the WoW Rookie feature for more beginner guides.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-08-2008 @ 1:15PM
Thander said...
To all the new players, don't rely on the mega hub addon sites to have the latest versions. At this time, authors are actually moving away from using addon hub sites.
The main reason they are doing this is for conveniance. Post it on every addon site available and you have to make sure to update it on every website. You also have to watch the comments and answer questions on every website.
Instead, they are using their own websites, their guild websites, or a developer website like WoWAce. This way they have one centralized place for posting new versions, questions, and comments.
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3-08-2008 @ 1:31PM
Lori said...
I'm confused about the part on moving .lua files to the Addon directory. I use WinZip, unzip directly to Addons and everything seems to get to where it belongs.
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3-08-2008 @ 1:34PM
Bloodieros said...
Rather than looking for .lua files in the root folder, look for a file that is the name of the AddOn and ends in .toc.
Example: Atlas.toc
This will always be in the root folder for the AddOn in question. If you don't see a .toc file, then you are not in the root addon folder. Drill down until you find the toc file. The folder that contains the toc file is the one that needs to go in your AddOns folder.
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3-08-2008 @ 2:07PM
npm said...
How can you mention sources of addons without mentioning Ace Addons? There's an easy to use user interface that makes installing and updating addons a snap. You can download it here: http://wowace.com/wiki/WowAceUpdater
Ace is my favorite place for addons since all the Ace Addons use common libraries and are open source. That means their footprint is likely to be smaller (shared libraries) and that multiple people are updating (less likely to be orphaned).
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3-08-2008 @ 2:40PM
Fuon said...
I agree. Leaving out wowace.com makes this article very much lacking in the credibility department.
3-09-2008 @ 2:14PM
Theserene said...
I think because some of those add-on management packages have been implicated in account hacking and keylogging attempts.
3-10-2008 @ 9:50AM
Khanmora said...
You can still use the site without the .exe for the updater though.
3-08-2008 @ 3:04PM
crt4 said...
All addons are open source, but I too am a fan of Ace addons due to the updater. Makes it a snap to download new addons and keep them updated.
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3-08-2008 @ 3:41PM
p-diddy said...
I'm going to endorse Ace as well. 1) It's super easy and more memory efficient and 2) a big thing for me - I open it, update, and close it. I just installed Curse because my Omen is being wonky and thought Curse might have a better/newer version. The Curse client runs all ... the ... time. Yuck. Why? I don't need the latest version of addon when I'm asleep at 4 in the morning. I only need it right before I play. But there Curse sits, taking up my system's resources 99.9% of the time I don't need it. Blech. Oh, and thanks for installing the DeCurse addon for me. The one I don't want and can't seem to get rid of.
Ace is great. I'd stay away from Curse.
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3-08-2008 @ 3:54PM
Matthew said...
Hope you guys prefer to use the curse client instead of the Ace updater. A couple of my friends work at Curse, and they're saying that they're going to try and migrate the functionality of the wowaceupdater over to the Curse client. Apparently they want everyone to use one updater for the purposes of selling more ads:
http://news.curse.com/details/3692/
Whether or not this is something that they can feasibly do (they're businessmen, so all they really see are the dollar signs) might be in a bit more doubt. But still, I'd hate to see the ace updater go under.
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3-08-2008 @ 3:56PM
Matthew said...
Note that that link doesn't necessarily back up what I'm saying, I'm just implying that a "strong relationship" with wowace is a bit more financially involved than what some people might think.
3-08-2008 @ 5:14PM
mrdp said...
wasnt it not long ago when curse had hidden within their tos that once a mod is posted all rights and ownership are turned to curse gaming?
Or hows about not long ago when one of the 3 your posted were infected with keyloggers once it was downloaded from their site.
I will NEVER use anything out of wowace, and the updater makes it so easy, if I can do it..any monkey can ;-p
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3-08-2008 @ 6:54PM
Fin said...
To Sean: You forgot WowAce.com's Files
- http://files.wowace.com/
Yes, technically WoWAce.com is a developer site, and most of the authors of addons hosted there say that to avoid full responsibility for bugs; but the fact remains that there are hundreds of addons hosted on the site that aren't hosted elsewhere, and a large number of people check it regularly (most people I know actually just use WAU; but you know what I mean).
To everyone! :) Interested in keeping up to date with updates to all your favourite addons? Tired of having to check multiple sites on a regular basis? Yeah, I was too, and a while back I finally got off my arse and made something where I don't have to check each site anymore:
- http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/
It shows updates to addons hosted on wowace, curse, wowui, and wowi, with an RSS feed, some filtering options, and details for each mod (with changelog history). Here's hoping others find it useful too!
cheers,
- Fin
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3-08-2008 @ 9:21PM
paren said...
Another vote for wowace.
but to the original author, you say:
"For you Ace advocates, I should mention the Ace addon system, which many players choose because Ace addons play well with each other and used shared libraries to minimize memory use."
You've got it all wrong - people don't love WowAce because of the libraries, or the memory usage. People love it because the updater ROCKS.
I'm an addon-junkie, and tried tons of addons.
The biggest headache is not installing them, but keeping them up to date. The WowAceUpdater is MILES ahead of anything else out there.
In fact, I'd rather have a less-functionality addon from WowAce than a more-functionality addon from somewhere else. The ease of managing, installing, updating, and removing addons with the WoWAce addon is just so much easier than doing it manually, or with the other tools.
I have 55 addons that I use through WoWAce.
How do I keep them up to date?
-Launch the updater
-Hit F10
So, it's got to be a really compelling addon for me to go outside the WowAce family these days.
e.g. Auctioneer and Bongos.
3-09-2008 @ 3:33AM
Grimmtooth said...
I want to put in a good word for WUU - an auto-updater that works with various sites. It is not limited to ACE, but comes with the same "just hit F10 and get updated" philosophy, works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
http://wuu.vagabonds.info/
Been using it for months now and am quite happy with it.
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3-09-2008 @ 2:16PM
Theserene said...
I don't use an auto-updater due to the fact it introduces a security risk onto my system. I'll download the addons manually and install them.
Installing them straight into the addons director is easy as pie :)
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3-10-2008 @ 11:20AM
npm said...
To mitigate issues with trusting updaters I'd recommend using a Firewall and having the default rule be to block out-going connections from unapproved applications. That way if you get a keylogger, the thing it is going to do is not just log your key strokes but it has to send them somewhere. If you get a message that pops up and says "Allow program Xyz access to host 126.35.101.123?" and you've got no idea what that is then you know you have a problem.
AVG Internet Security came bundled with a nice firewall and it was preconfigured to do exactly this.
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3-11-2008 @ 12:45AM
chuckie said...
I used wowmatrix it seems very simple to use and easy. Id recommend it. Anyone else use it?
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