Aloft Alpha 

it appears that Blizzard silently disabled some texture tiling/clipping functionality in WoW 3.3.3. there was an API method that could be used explicitly, which suddenly no longer exists, but at this point i suspect the impact is broader than that. the API methods Blizzard provided as a functional substitute, in the words of Parnic (author of IceHUD, which has been severely impacted by this change), "don't work".

i, too, am having trouble getting status bar textures to tile and clip properly. Aloft doesn't do anything fancy (unlike IceHUD), but Aloft does need status bar texture tiling and backdrop insets to work correctly, and they do not. if the health bar texture is changed from its default, or its default dimensions are changed in any way, or any sort of backdrop is configured... everything breaks, as you have seen. and i have not been able to find a workaround that retains use of the Blizzard nameplate health bar (probably in part because Blizzard's new API methods "don't work").

so, at this point, i have discarded the Blizzard default nameplate health bar (Aloft will be rendering it invisible in some fashion, looks like by giving it an "empty" texture), and have replaced it with what was formerly the Aloft "Deficit" health bar... which will now always be present, slaved to changes in the default health bar (as health is gained or lost, or as colors change, etc), and will operate either in a "normal" fashion or a "deficit" fashion based on the user's settings.

doing this allows the use of both default Blizzard textures and custom textures, and has successfully gotten rid of the health bar stretching and other artifacts. i have a few more kinks to take care of (which could take an arbitrary amount of further experimentation, so i still have no ETA). once i have the health bar squared away, i will provide a release, and then go to work on the cast bar (which is also affected, but perhaps of slightly lower priority).

strange. once these changes take effect, there will be absolutely no component of the default Blizzard nameplate that remain visible to Aloft users, except perhaps for the cast bar spell icon. basically, all the Blizzard elements have to be disabled/replaced, in order to customize layout. kind of too bad.

i should play with some of the various "nameplate customization" addons. they are less invasive than Aloft, but they may well be affected too (and if they are not, maybe i can steal a trick or two ).

making some progress, but still no solution.

after experimenting with all of the nameplate frame assembly code (the stuff that glues graphical elements together), making sure anchor points and sizes and etc were all correct, i decided to see if there was a conflict with another addon. i disabled everything except Aloft, and noticed something interesting.

in the image below, everything seems superficially correct... but notice the bands of color across the nameplate health bar.


here is the same mob, near death. looks like the healthbar is anchored starting part of the way across the nameplate, from the left margin, such that 15% health looks more like 40% health. the health bar "fill" is also spilling out over the border.


i experience no LUA errors. disabling health bar and frame borders has no effect on this. it happens the same way in both Ace2 and Ace3 versions of Aloft.

i have no clue yet what is actually going on here, but i am guessing that something small and subtle has changed about the way graphical objects glue together, such that Aloft is now doing something "wrong". this is confusing the WoW client, and breaking the "layout" of nameplates.

unfortunately, it looks like it will require more experimentation (trial and error, i guess), to figure out what is "wrong" and how to fix it.

there will be an update as soon as i have a working solution .

update: the cast bar is also affected.

yeah, the "fill" on the health bar is "overflowing" to cover the health bar border (if any), as soon as there are updates to the health bar.

for those of you experiencing this, help me confirm a few things:

- this only seems to affect health bars (mana/threat bars are unaffected; i need to take a look at the cast bar, however)
- when i disable "borders" by setting the border texture to "None" (specifically under "Frame>Border" options, under "Health Bar>Border" options; i leave the mana/threat bar borders in place), the problem seems to go away
- when i enable "deficit" health bars (which hides the normal nameplate health bar, and replaces it with Aloft's own health bar), the problem seems to go away

seems like the nature of the Frame:SetBackdrop() API on statusbars has changed (or maybe just the nameplate health bar)? specifically, inset functionality has stopped working. normal "frames" (including the mana/threat bar) seem to be working correctly.

hmm, was on earlier (and on the PTR last week), noticed no artifacts.

of course, that doesn't mean there aren't any . i will start diggin into it.

sorry for the delay in announcement.

a new release of the Ace3 Aloft/AloftCastWarning is available (already approved by the moderator): Aloft-3.0.3-1704.

this has attempts at fixes for a few problems reported recently: AloftCastWarning not working as it should in arenas (that was fixed in the last release, but the last release version was mis-numbered, so i am "tagging" the fix to this release), Aloft not cleaning up its crowd control timers properly, and some issues with totem/pet visibility reported via private message (shaman totem elementals are now treated as pets... my "research" into all of this is summarized in this FAQ). please review the change log.

please revisit your favorite bug, and let me know whether or not this release fixes anything (or even just changes the behavior).

thanks.