Note: This readme file is just slightly out of date.
Expect a completely rewritten version in the very near future!
About Atlas
For some reason, Blizzard decided to include beautiful maps for every area of Azeroth except instances. You can still see the area surrounding you in the minimap when you're in an instance, but never the overall layout of the entire dungeon. This is where Atlas comes in. The core of Atlas is basically an image viewer. However, it's the images that come with Atlas that make it worthwhile: a map for every instance in the game. Furthermore, the maps are marked with the locations of bosses and other points of interest. Atlas also includes maps of battlegrounds, dungeon locations, flight points, and outdoor raid bosses.
After installing Atlas, you'll notice a new icon on the minimap that looks like part of a little globe (you can right-click the icon to drag it around the minimap's frame). Click this icon to open up the main Atlas window, which displays the maps and legend. You can alternatively use the slash-command /atlas. The drop-downs at the top of the window enable you to navigate between the maps. You can also drag the Atlas window around the screen. Lock it in place with the little lock button in the upper-right corner.
At the bottom of the legend is a small text-entry field as well as Search and Reset buttons. Type part of a word or name in the box and click the Search button, and the legend's entries are reduced to only those that match your text. Note that the search is performed only on the entries for the current map, not all the entries in the database. While not so useful for instances with only a few entries like Ragefire Chasm, the search comes in handy when there are a ton of entries, like for Blackrock Depths or the AtlasMajorCities plug-in. If you want to get the whole list back, just click Reset.
Configuration
Atlas has a few simple options, accessible from the Options button in the upper-right corner of the main window, or with the slash-command /atlas options. A few of the settings aren't very self-explanatory so here's some more information about them. "Auto-Select Instance Map" detects the instance that you're in when you open Atlas, and then automatically switches to the appropriate map. This feature doesn't work in instances that have more than one map, like Blackrock Spire, Dire Maul, or many of the Outland instances. In this case, Atlas remembers the last map you had open. "Right-Click for World Map" makes the World Map open when you right-click anywhere on the Atlas window. This is useful when you want to quickly switch from Atlas to the World Map. "Clamp Window to Screen" makes it so that you can't drag the Atlas window off the edge of the screen. The rest of the options are pretty straightforward. The Reset Position button is useful if the Atlas window ever gets dragged completely off-screen and you can't get it back.
Atlas Plugins
Atlas has a built-in plugin system allowing for the easy addition of map packs. In fact, Atlas ships with four of these plugins (for battlegrounds, dungeon locations, flight points, and outdoor raid bosses). If you're interested in making your own Atlas map pack, I suggest you start with one of these four as a guide. You can contact me or post on the Atlas forums if you need help, however I suggest you do as much research as possible beforehand. Furthermore, there are several Atlas plugins that do more than simply provide additional maps. AtlasLoot provides a loot table for each boss, and AtlasQuest displays the quests associated with each instance. Note that I don't develop these plugins myself; they have their own project leads.
Before Installing
Any previous versions of Atlas must be deleted prior to installation.
Atlas plugins (AtlasLoot, AtlasQuest, etc.) designed for any version of Atlas prior to this one must be deleted.
Map packs supplied by Daviesh for Atlas 1.8.6 must be deleted prior to installation (they're unnecessary now anyway).
How to Install
Unzip the package into your World of Warcraft folder.
Your zip software must preserve directory structures.
If you're having trouble, please visit the Atlas FAQ:
Razark you are truly one of the top add-on authors. Having said that I do wish that you would change one thing:
When you do a /who on someone it does not say they are in Coilfang Resevoir: The Steamvault. Nor does it say that for any other dungeon. Please remove or give us the option to remove the pretext to instances. I don't know about you guys but my thought pattern runs like this:
-Ok, I think the paladin BP drops out of SV, let me check atlasloot.*opens atlas*
-ok, level 60-70, these are in alphabetical order... Steamvaults...
-where is steamvaults
-oh yeah, CFR: Steamvaults. Right.
I'm not trying to be mean, but it gets on my nerves every once in a while. On a somewhat related and mysterious note it doesn't bother me with the tempest keep dungeons. I guess maybe it's because they're all 70.
Also, I feel that there needs to be one more sorting type to choose:
Old/New
This would be sorted like
old instances
old raids
new instances
new raids
Level is the closest I could get to that and it does work out fine, so disregard this point if you disagree with it in any manner.
I know you have a lot of people using your add-on, and you do give everyone exactly what they need, so be sure that I mean no harm in my post here. I love what you do with this add-on and I look forward to using it for a very long time.
Originally posted by sarabeth1226 I keep getting this error, and am completely ignorant to coding or anything that could be causing this to mess up...can you let me know what' s wrong?
Hi, please remove all your Atlas folders, re-download the addon, re-install, and try running the game with your other addons disabled; go from there. Let me know how it goes, or if you need further help. Cheers.
I keep getting this error, and am completely ignorant to coding or anything that could be causing this to mess up...can you let me know what' s wrong? Here's the error message it's giving me:
"For some reason, Blizzard decided to include beautiful maps for every area of Azeroth except instances. You can still see the area surrounding you in the minimap when you're in an instance, but never the overall layout of the entire dungeon. This is where Atlas comes in. The core of Atlas is basically an image viewer. However, it's the images that come with Atlas that make it worthwhile: a map for every instance in the game. Furthermore, the maps are marked with the locations of bosses and other points of interest. Atlas also in
includes maps of battlegrounds, dungeon locations, flight points, and outdoor raid bosses."
This was in his book...
(Yeah... I read this dude's book... Sad, isn't it? Well, That just shows you how he made the book actractive to Noobs.)
This might not be the place to ask it, but, will Atlas ever get FuBar support? I know someone else did the titan one..
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"death knight: imagine a warrior and paladin had a baby, then they got divorced and the warrior took the baby and got with a warlock, but the warlock has a best mate who is a rogue, and he visits the baby alot, then kill the baby, ress him and you got a death knight.
I just installed Atlas, primarily to use the quest add-on (I deleted the gathering directories b/c I'm already using another add-on that works fine). Nice work on this: I can tell you guys put a lot of thought into the design. Unfortunately though, it doesn't play well with the "Simple Coordinates" Mod (also found on this site). I prefer to use that mod because it allows me to enter an x,y from chat and have it appear on the map, which is a feature Atlas doesn't have currently. The problem is that BOTH mods display current x/y and mouse pointer x/y in the same place, so I can't read EITHER of them.
Would it be possible to add an option in the configuration to turn off coordinate display in the map for those of us using another add-on for that?
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Last edited by Barnaby B. Barclay : 08-28-2007 at 01:37 AM.