Wow Addons Part Deux - a relief to the insanity

Back in January, I posted about my unbelievable frustration with maintaining the addons for World of Warcraft. Finding the right places to download mods, installing them correctly, making sure all the libraries are up-to-date... it was a mess.

Now my friends have shown me the light - WowMatrix.

Here is the best, easiest, and by far most conveinient way to download, install and maintain AddOns for World of Warcraft.

And it's easy - Go to the link. Download the program (no install needed, it's self-contained), extract the zip to your desktop, and run it.

It scans your AddOn Directory, matches up what you have with what it has in it's database, and tells you if you are running any outdated AddOns. Click on "Update All" and.. Viola! Instant upgrades for all your installed mods.

You can also download new mods from the program, but the only downside to that is you have to go online to get screenshots to see if it's something you want to install.

I found 5 new mods that I now can't live without, and I'm really glad my friends pointed me to that program.

WoW AddOns - The Truth behind the insanity

I love playing World of Warcraft.

It's a fun game with loads to do. And it has a thriving 3rd party scene that create AddOns for the game that either make the game easier to manage or give you information about the game.

For the most part, AddOns are easy to use. Download the AddOn, install it into the Interface\AddOns directory, start WoW and off you go.

I have 2 AddOns that work extremely well - TitanBar (which is a useful tool that tells you all about how much gold you are making, how much XP you need to get, etc.) and Auctioneer (which helps price items going on the Auction House). They work flawlessly and are easy to use.

Now Cartographer on the other hand is a different story.

What Cartographer does is allow you to add notes to the map and reflect Points of Interest. Great for someone who is just starting out and has no Idea where anything is. Just Shift-Right click on the map where you want the note to be, type a description, and POOF! Instant Map note.

But the downside of Cartographer is that if you decide to download extra Modules for it, you may need an AceLibrary in order for them to run. BUT, nowhere in any documentation of any of these extra Modules does it say that you need AceLibrary!

So you go through the frustration of trying to figure out why Cartographer_Mailboxes (a Module that shows where Mailboxes are on the Zone Maps and the Mini-Map) doesn't work at all when it was recently updated.

So after 2 hours of searching websites, checking forums, and even going as far as logging onto a IRC channel to find ANY help, I finally figure out on my own what exactly needed to be done to get Cartographer working again.

A night wasted (I could have hit Level 59 by now), and a few lessons learned. Oh well, Live and learn, Right?