‘Mazing Mod Monday: AutoBar

Are you a lazy WoW player when it comes to dragging things to your bars or opening your bags to use something? Or you have 50 million mounts that you like to cycle through but don’t want to fill up your bars with a button for each? Or just to be able to release on of your non-combat pets?

Yes? I’m totally with you.

That’s why I’ve recently started using AutoBar for all my menial button needs. Without getting too deep into everything it offers, it has a “Basics” bar, an “Extras” bar, and the option to create custom bars. For all intensive purposes, I only use the Basics bar. However, you can create a bar and/or add categories not included by the default settings after you dump it into your Addons folder.

What the Basics bar does is it (as the name implies) automatically scans your bags for your hearthstone, bandages, potions, food/water, mounts, flasks, and elixirs. You can further customize it by going into the options menu (/autobar config or /atb config) and add/remove categories. I added non-combat pets & Tracking Fish, as you can see. :-P

When you have multiple items in a category, AtB also shows a pop-up when you mouseover the button in the bar, showing you all your options. This is great for different kinds of food that I have, as well as mounts and pets. When you have something that fits into 2 categories, however, the bar will show the item in each of the categories it fits into (Mana Strudel will show up in both Food and Food/Water combo but not Water for some reason). Regular food (Northern Stew, Grilled Goby, etc.) is also separated from buff food. Transient items such as Healthstones also magically pop up if you get one and disappear after you use it (unless you tell AtB to show the button for that all the time).

Besides the basics, you can also have it automatically show quest items that you have been given to use. I personally have this option disabled and use OPie to manage buffs, profession buttons, and quest items (saves screen space).

It doesn’t seem like it’s possible to add macros, much to my chagrin, but otherwise, is a solid addon. If you’re anything like me and find yourself juggling 5 different types of food in raids, this will help with screen clutter and action bar button hogs.

It really is a versatile little mod. Should you so choose, it can automatically generate buff bars, class spell bars, etc. Rows and columns can also be adjusted as you see fit and the mod is also skinnable by ButtonFacade (I’m using Caith skins here).

This mod has saved me seconds of time during raids that undoubtedly add up to a substantial amount of time saved. I no longer have to drag my Healthstones or my Mana Strudels to my bars because it just magically shows up!

I really would like to be able to add macros to AtB and/or have it interact with other mods (i.e. Mounted), as I like having my pets and mounts randomly selected for me (saves time from thinking… heh) but I haven’t figured it out yet or if it’s even possible.

Let me know if you guys maybe got that to work or can confirm that it doesn’t work.