This add-on provides a new way of dealing with cooldowns during combat.
It simply shows a live countdown when you try to use an ability or item that is currently on cooldown. After a few seconds it will quickly fade away again, leaving you without anything taking up space on your screen, having provided you with the information you needed: That the thing you tried to use was on cooldown and how long before you can use it again.
On top of that you can get it exactly where you need it so you don't have to look around your screen at cooldown bars or your action buttons to find the cooldown for that ability/item, making sure you can focus on the combat at hand.
If a cooldown expires (one that OUCN has reported as being on cooldown) while you're in combat it will show a quick animation to alert you that it's available to use now. This will always be the last thing OUCN showed as being on cooldown.
This also checks to see if your target is in range for that ability/item (if range is an issue), you have enough mana/rage/energy for it and you aren't otherwise unable to use it (silenced for instance). If those criterias aren't met the effect won't be shown.
It might sound a little confusing but I urge people to try it out and I'm betting most people will find it really useful when they see how it works. It simply provides you with the information you need, when and where you need it.
To better give an idea of where this add-on comes into play, it's when you're involved in heavy fighting. I bet we've all tried hitting a key binding furiously a few times, wondering why our Blast Wave (or whatever) isn't going off. Having OUCN you can quickly see that it's because it's on cooldown, then see how long until you can use again and quickly get on with your next move, instead of wasting time with hitting key binding repeatedly and looking around to see if the ability is on cooldown and so on.
This also means that the add-on isn't meant as a replacement for cooldown bars or similar, since it's only really usable while in combat.
This add-on is still being developed and is currently lacking an option interface for handling the options (imagine that).
Currently most of the options can be set by typing "/oucn" and following the instructions.
Some features:
- Works (at least hopefully) with all possible action bar add-ons.
- Works with pet abilities and items.
- Works with abilities/items used even though they're not in an action bar (activated through a different add-on for instance).
- Choose between 17 different animations for alerting you about a finished cooldown.
- Option to toggle showing GCD cooldown.
- Freely position any of the elements on the screen.
- Toggle showing the name of the ability/item you tried to use.
- Toggle showing fraction of a second when the cooldown is below 10 seconds.
- Toggle showing h/m/s after the time.
- Toggle the colorfade (red to green) when the cooldown is below 10 seconds.
- Set the time the message should stay visible.
- Toggle showing pet/item prefix.
- Choose between fonts from SharedMedia.
- Set font sizes for each element.
It caches the spells in your action bars so if you move them around you should type "/oucn i" to re-index them, otherwise you will see wrong ability/item names for the cooldowns when trying to use something from your action bar.
More things will follow, but I can't say when since it depends on my time and such. I just decided to release it now since it's stable and working so people might as well get access to it and hopefully I'll be a little more willing to complete it if it's recieved well.
So for now it's supplied a bit "as is", but the add-on has been used for months now without problems and with great satisfaction from those who had access to it.
11-27-07, 07:24 PM
