[Maul]

TrinityBarsFAQ

1. How do I configure these bars?

In order to configure the bars, you must be in configuration mode. On a fresh install, configuration mode is on by default. However, to enter and leave config mode, you have three options.

• 1: Shift-click the main minimap button

• 2: Click on the top submenu of minimap buttons.

• 3: or type "/trinity config" in the chat box.

Once in config mode, these special frames called docks will appear over Trinity Bars buttons and status bars. The docks are reference frames that tell the buttons where to place themselves and stores info on how the associated buttons should behave. The docks are a shaded gray color until moused-over, then they will turn a blue color.

To adjust the properties of buttons associated with a dock, simply left-click on the shaded area of the dock and a set of configuration options (Option Set One) will appear at the bottom, left and right sides of the dock. A right-click on the dock will display a second set of options (Option Set Two) on the top and bottom sides of the dock.

2. What can I do in Option Set One?

Option Set One consists of the following, reached by left-clicking the dock:

Bottom -

• The feedback bar: this bar at the bottom tells you what configuration property you are currently editing and it's current value. To change the property being edited, click on the feedback bar itself and a drop-down menu will show with new choices.

• The increase value (+) button: This button generally increases the value of the current property or toggles the value to the "positive"

• The decrease value (-) button: This button generally decreases the value of the current property or toggles the value to the "negative"

• The down arrow button: This button allows you to hide other docks while working on the currently selected one in order to temporarily reduce on-screen clutter while configuring the docks.

• The key button: This button toggles key-binding mode. It is green when not in key binding mode and red when key binding mode is active. It is important to only use TrinityBars key bindings and not rely on key bindings set in the default Blizzard interface.

Left Side - There up to three extended options available here, currently on one is active.

• Extended Option #1 - Toggling this button will hide/show a color picker frame to color the button skins of the currently selected dock

Right Side -

• This side has two buttons, an up and a down arrow. These buttons allow you to scroll through the available states a dock may have inwhich to place buttons.

3. What options are available via the feedback bar in Option Set One?

• Arc Start - This allows you to set a certain degree in which a round shaped group of buttons starts it's arc.

• Arc Length - This allows you to define how long of an arc a round shaped group of buttons should have, 359 degrees being a full circle.

• Bar Width - This is a special property of the cast bar and XP/Rep bar. This property will increase the bar's width.

• Bar Height - This is a special property of the cast bar and XP/Rep bar. This property will increase the bar's height.

• Add/Remove Buttons - This is the primary means of adding or removing buttons to be associated with a dock. A dock can have any number of buttons associated with it given the limit of the maximum number of the type of buttons the dock uses. It is important to remember that docks can have different "states" they can exist in, and each state can have a sub-group of buttons associated with it. An example of this are the warrior stances. Each stance is considered a state, and each state can have a varied number of buttons associated with it, and are only visible when that stance (or state) exists.

• Button Edit - This option allows you to select a specific button on a bar to edit indivdual properties. When this option is selected, a new secondary feedback bar is displayed on the top side of the dock.

• Button Skin - This will allow you to choose what types of graphics a bar should use to skin the buttons.

• Columns - This is a special property that is specific to the multi-column shape, one of many shapes, that the buttons can be arranged in. The description of shapes is below.

• Orientation - This is a special property that is specific to the casting bar and XP/Rep bar. You can decide through this property if you want the bars to be vertical or horizontal.

• Scale - This property allows you decided how small or large associated buttons will be in relation to the UI.

• Shape - This property allows you to choose from several different arrangements to have the buttons of a dock displayed:
  
  • Horizontal - This is the default shape for all bars.
  • Veritcal - A single column top-down arrangement for buttons.
  • MultiColumn - By defining the "Columns" property above, you can have an arragement of buttons in multiple columns.
  • Circle - A 360 degree arrangement
  • Top Arc - A 180 degree arc arrangement of the top half of a circle
  • Bottom Arc - A 180 degree arc arrangement of the bottom half of a circle
  • Right Arc - A 180 degree arc arrangement of the right half of a circle
  • Left Arc - A 180 degree arc arrangement of the left half of a circle
  • Circle + One - This is a special case of the circle shape that adds a single button to the center of the circle.

• Spacing-Horzontal - Adjust the horizontal spacing between buttons

• Spacing-Vertical - Adjust the vertical spacing between buttons

• Target - Set a specific target for a bar so that all spells on that bar will be cast upon the target.

• Transparency - Adjust how transparent buttons are on the bar

• Transparency-Up - This allows you to define when buttons set with the transparency option should come up to zero transparency. Options are on mouse-over, when entering combat, and a combination of those two.

• Visibility - A unique property that allows you to hide or show a statusbar like the casting bar or XP/Rep bar.

4. What can I do in Option Set Two?

Option Set Two consists of the following checkbox options, reached by right-clicking the dock:

Top -

• Paged: Checking this option will make the bar respond to page changes with up to 6 pages available. Due to the nature of the way the paging code is handled internally by Blizzard, the bindings to change pages are in the Blizzard Keybinding Interface. By default these are shift-mousewheel and shift-#, where # is the page number.

• Stance: Checking this option will make the bar respond to stance/form changes including druid forms, warrior stances, priest shadowform, and rogue stealth (yes, rogue stealth is handled like a stance)

• Alt, Control, Shift: These three options allow you to display a new set of buttons for a bar when one of these modifier keys are held down, and then returning to the previous state when released.

• Stealth: Checking this option allows a bar to respond to changes in stealth status.

• Prowl: This is a special option only available to druids and only when the above stance option is active. This option will change the bar into a new state while a druid is in cat form and prowling.

Bottom -

• Reaction: This option allows a bar to respond to changes in your current targets friendly/hostile reaction to you.

• Battle: Checking this option will cause a bar to only show itself while in combat.

• Retreat: Checking this option will cause a bar to only show itself while NOT in combat.

• PvP: Checking this option will cause a bar to only show itself while flagged for PvP.

• PvE: Checking this option will cause a bar to only show itself while NOT flagged for PvP.

• Autohide: This option allows a bar to be hidden until it is moused-over

• Showgrid: This option if checked will cause empty buttons to not hide after exiting config mode.

5. My bar disappeared! What do I do?

When a bar seems to disappeard, it means it switched to a state that has zero buttons associated with it. If the state is one inwhich you desire to have buttons to use, add some buttons! (you may have to remove buttons from another bar before being able to add any)

6. I dont understand TrinityBars buttons! Help!

Trinity Bars takes a different approach to being a button addon compared to the other big button addons out there. Trinity Bars creates and manages 120 unique action buttons. The other addons will use the same button and swap out their ID's to make it look like you have another button to click on with a new spell, which is the same method Blizzard uses in the default UI but it is still the same frame just with new data. The advantage of doing things this way is efficiency in management code-wise and perhaps lower the memory an addon uses.

However, memory is not so much a concern as is how many cpu cycles and addon is using to keep it running. And you can usually tell an addon is eating up too many cpu cycles when your frame-rate suffers. The reason I mention this is that indeed Trinity Bars uses some memory to hold settings for each dock and each individual button, instead of holding that data for one button that continuously switches it's role and use. But Trinity Bars strives to use a little cpu cycles as possible while maintaining the option set it has available.

The reason for the indivdual buttons is advantages given in flexibility. One of the main advantages that stance using classes like is the ability to have a varied amount of buttons for each stance, which then also leads to the ability to have unique bindings for each button. The first button in one stance can have a completely different binding than the first button in the second stance.

Another advantage is being able to indivdually edit buttons.

6. Okay, my brain hurts, but what is in the main menu?

The main menu, reach by right-clicking the minimap button or simply typing /trinity in the chat box, offers some more options. Generally, the options here are for non bar-specific features of TrinityBars or bar features that are too complex to incorporate into the on-dock configuration option set.

• Current Selected Dock: This dropdown tells you the last dock you clicked on for editing or allows you to select a new dock to be edited via a drop-down menu.

• X Pos and Y Pos: These two options tell you the screen position of the current selected dock. You can edit these values for exact placement of a dock.

• Reset Dock: This allows you to reset the properties of a dock to its default settings. The associated buttons are left untouched, however.

• Delete Dock: This allows you to delete a dock you no longer want taking up space on your screen. However, you are not allowed to delete special docks that handle non-action button type objects, like the petbar dock.

• Create Dock: This allows you to create a new dock to use.

• Templates: This is where you can save a configuration to later reload or for easy setup of a new character.

• Self-Cast option: Here you can select what method you want to use to cast spells on yourself. Other than the right-click option, these options will self cast on a mouseclick or a keybind click.

• Global Button Skin: This option will let you skin all skinnable bars simultaneously with the selected skin.

• Global Skin Plugins: Here will be listed any plugins of addons available that Trinity Bars can skin in addition to it's own buttons.

• Action Button Tooltips: Toggles whether or not you want Trinity Bars to display tooltips when buttons are moused-over.

• Text Cooldown Timers: This is a simple part of Trinity Bars that adds text cooldowns to your buttons. It will most likely never do anything other than what it does now, and there are other text cooldown counters, like OmniCC, that is more feature-rich.

• White Cooldown Text: This option is provided for those who may have a hard time seeing the default colors of the text cooldown timers.

• Auto Adjust Formbar: This option allows you to tell Trinity Bars if you want it to manage your form bar. Which means it will add/subtract new stances/forms as they are learned/unlearned. Turning this feature off allows you to manually manage what buttons appear on the form bar.

• Enable Button Lock: A simple toggle to prevent spells from being dragged out of the buttons.

• Enable Button Shift-Drag: With the button lock above active, this option will still allow spells to be removed from buttons while the shift-key is held down.

• Enable Down Clicks: Turning this feature on will cause the buttons in Trinity Bars to respond to a down-click instead of the default up-click.

• Clamp Docks to Screen: With the feature on, docks cannot be dragged off the screen. If you ever lose a dock, you can quickly turn this option on to find it.

• Enable Keybind Text: You can toggle whether or not you want the text of keybindings to be displayed.

• Enable Macro Text: You can toggle whether or not you want the text of macros on buttons to be displayed.

• Enable Blizz Mainbar: If you want to continue to use the action bar that Blizzard provides but want extra, very flexible buttons, you can enable the Blizzard main bar with this option. Note you will have to still place the micro menu and bag buttons back where they belong.

• Cooldown Alpha: This slider allows you to cause buttons with spells on cooldown to fade out until the spell is ready again.

• Containter X,Y offsets: These two slders allow you to offset the default Blizzard contatiner bags to move them out of the way if they are interfering with a bar placement.