Are you guys sure about Grid?
There was this video posted on WOW Insider today showing how to configure Grid. I’ve thought about trying it for quite a while, and many of the people who looked at my post about my UI recommended it, so I thought I’d give it a go today when I saw the video. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been pretty satisfied with Healbot. But so many people sing the praises of Grid over HB that I always felt like I should at least give Grid a go. I’m a bit underwhelmed, and am wondering if I’m just not doing something right…
So here are the things I don’t like.
1) I installed Grid with Clique and HotCandy, hoping I could get rid of a set of Unit Frames. Neither on Grid nor on HotCandy can I seem to configure them to show up who received Wild Growth.
2) I like on Healbot how someone’s frame will actually get an icon of the HoTs on that person. I don’t like how on Grid there are just those little dots around the box and I have to memorize which dot means what. I also don’t like the way HoT Candy stacks every HoT on a timer, but sort of chaotically. Healbot has one frame for one player, and every HoT I’ve got on them shows up there.
3) Clique kept me from setting the most natural button settings for me. I can’t use Left Click because then I can’t target anyone by clicking on their frame. I can’t use Right Click because I can’t access the right click menu on my own portrait or anyone else’s with options like follow, leave party, trade, etc.
So, before I throw Grid in the recycle bin, do you all have ways of addressing these issues that I just don’t know about because I’m inexperienced with these addons? Any advice would be appreciated.
UPDATE:
Thanks to the comments here, I spent the morning working on this. Here’s an updated pic of my UI. Unfortunately, I was working on this at 7:00a.m. so there was no one on that I could bug to get in a raid group with me to see what that looked like. I’ll try to get a pic while in a raid tonight.
Here’s what I did:
1) followed Keeva’s guide to setting up HoT Tracking in Grid (omg how awesome thank you thank you thank you =))
2) reassigned some of my clique assignments. I decided alt+left click could work to target, while alt+right click could work for the menu functions. I’m not sure whether this will work, and it will take some getting used to, but it did free up my left and right click buttons to have the same assignments I had for Healbot, saving me from having to relearn them and possibly making big mistakes in the process.
3) got rid of HoT Candy. I don’t need it with Keeva’s set up in place. She’s right… so much better to have it all in one place. Now I have HoT timers right in the Grid boxes. I love the timers and the color coding so I can remember which timer is for which spell. This is a nice alternative to the HoT Icons that show up on Healbot.
Here’s a zoomed in pic of my grid box with all HoTs going on myself:
We’re raiding tonight, so I’m going to leave all of this in place and give it a whirl. Thank you so much to those who commented here and on my Clean Slate post. I’m excited about the way that this looks… I mean just LOOK at how clean my screen is right now! =) I’m also much more optimistic about how it will function for me. I might be a Grid convert after all.
There are 17 Comments to "Are you guys sure about Grid?"
I think you can get corner and side icons for Grid, which would allow you to have your HoTs showing as icons rather than dots. Dots are okay – they may seem odd at first because it’s just a dot and you need to learn which is which, but when you have them in particular spots on the person’s frame, and colour them accordingly (eg Rejuv=purple, Regrowth=green etc), you’ll get used to them very quickly.
Personally though I ditched HotCandy and changed my dot indicators to counters with GridStatusHoTs. Trying to look back and forth from Grid to HotCandy was just too difficult, and the HotCandy frame wasn’t easy to interpret quickly. It’s better to have it all showing on your Grid so you don’t have to look to different mods.
Here’s my how-to:
http://treebarkjacket.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-grid-hot-tracking.html
Note that I don’t have WG on that picture but it’s basically just the same procedure as rejuv/regrowth – I have WG in the bottom right hand corner now.
Hope this helps
Keeva’s last blog post..Azeroth Arbor Day 2009
aaah =) I should have gone straight to your site to set it up, Keeva. I knew you had done some great work on HB and Grid, but forgot about it in my tizzy fit over all of this newness. lol! Going to take a look. I, too, was very disconcerted about looking back and forth from HoTCandy to Grid, although I do like that very precise timer on HoTCandy and might keep it installed for 3.1 regardless of whether I stick with Grid or HB just to have that precision for eeking out the last drop of mana with Lifebloom. I’m going to head on over to your how-to in the morning and have another go at this. Thanks so much! =)
It’s pretty overwhelming at first, the menus leave a lot to be desired, I think. That is one of the really good things about Healbot – the menu screens/tabs are easy to understand and navigate. I’ve always felt that the Grid menus need someone to get in there and tidy them up!
Keeva’s last blog post..Azeroth Arbor Day 2009
Yea, to be honest, all I did was follow the video from WOW Insider, stopped by Phaelia’s (admittedly quite old) post about grid config and cherry picked what I thought I wanted, then ran off into an instance and got irritated. LOL! I didn’t really make any attempts to personally customize the addon because the menus were mostly just a sea of unexplained functions. =(
I read your post and the first thing that came to mind was “she has to see Keeva’s guides”… but Keeva beat me to it. =P The guides are great… honestly I’d love to know if there’s a way to use clique on grid so that I can use my left mouse button by hovering over someone and not have to have it target them. Let me know if you find an answer on that one please? I love Grid and Clique but that’s one thing that’s always driven me a bit nuts. =)
Pixiedark’s last blog post..Holy Productive Batman!
Pixie, I’m not sure about the mouse hovering, but have you tried out the mouseover macros that Sydera posted about on World of Matticus? http://www.worldofmatticus.com/2009/03/23/a-guide-to-mouseover-macros/
1) Use Status->Auras and enter Wild Growth into the Add New Buff box, to allow it to pop up on the Frame list.
2) Extra Addons: GridIndicatorCornerIcons, GridIndicatorCornerPlus, GridIndicatorCornerText, GridStatusLifebloom, GridStatusMissingBuffs.
This will give you 4 icons in each corner, 4 dots in each corner, the ability to put text in each corner, the ability to have text counting down lifebloom’s completeness (with colours for stack count) and allow you to configure MOTW to show up when missing.
3) I have Clique set up for “Alt-Right Click” to open the menu, using a Custom Action through the Clique menu. This frees up Right Click for things like Lifebloom.
I use:
Right Click – Lifebloom
Middle Click – Rejuv
Button 4 – Regrowth
Button 5 – Wild Growth
Ctrl-Right Click – Abolish Poison
Ctrl-Middle Click – Remove Curse
Alt-Right Click – Show Menu
@Brent, aaaaah good stuff! Going to have to give these a go! Thanks so much for the info!!! =) Off to take a look at your blog…
f.y.i., happy update in the body of the post =)
I’ve always been a fan of healbot. I’ve tried grid but was daunted by the learning curve and quickly went back to HB. I know people rave about it, but I just can’t get into it.
Elk
Running Elk’s last blog post..Some Hunter Love
@Elk, yea we’ll see how this goes. I actually have it set up so that the functionality SEEMS to be pretty close to the same as using Healbot. If that is the case, I’ll probably stick with it now that I have it all set up, because I think those very precise HoT timers in the box are going to trump the HoT icons of Healbot, and I was able to ditch an extra set of raid frames to clear up more real estate on my screen. I think that this wide open screen is going to be VERY helpful when raiding. It will be much easier to catch changes out of the corner of my eye while healing (i.e. black pancakes on the floor for Lady B. in Naxx, poison clouds, etc.) and move out of them quickly without so much visual information competing all the time on my screen. I’ll be sure to post and let everyone know how it goes. =)
Sylly’s last blog post..Are you guys sure about Grid?
Thanks for being a guinea pig for me Sylly! I’ll have to go try that out now. X-perl unit frames HealBot are always giving ‘Crow and me trouble, all of a sudden conking out and not showing buffs, requiring a UI reload. Maybe Grid will give me a little excitement for a few days, get me out of my WoW blues.
@Hummy, awww sorry you’re blue sweetie pea! Let me know if you get stuck on something in Grid. Not that I’m an expert. heh! But it’s all fairly fresh for me, so we might be able to muddle through it together. <3
Ah, Grid … I love Grid. I’d recommend it to anyone. It can be a painstaking walk to get all the options set right and as you want them, but when you have … It’s pure bliss. Am going to try out the extra Grid features Keeva mentioned as well to make things even smoother. I think I lost those when 2.4 went live (basically, a looong time ago). Thanks, Keeva! =)
Grid requires a lot of tweaking before you get it just right, at least it did for me, so good luck with it. =)
[...] I had some issues setting up Grid, some readers here came to my rescue and helped me to resolve my largest issues with the Grid + [...]
Sylly, I’m happy to hear about your Grid adventures! After having read Keeva’s Grid/Healbot analysis a few weeks ago, and looking at her Grid walkthrough, I’ve been tempted to give it yet another go (I think this would be my fifth time!), but I don’t know if I can bring myself to do it again. I’m sorry you didn’t care for HoTcandy! But you are absolutely right, it’s a double feature with the Grid set up that you are using. (Just as an FYI…HoTcandy’s HoT bars are arranged by HoT expiration, so you see who has the HoT and when it’s going to expire. The HoTs at the top will always be those with the least amount of time on them!)
It sounds like you have gotten your clique issues resolved, but just in case, you can opt to have clique not cast in certain portions of your unit frame via the menu (for example, I turn off “name frames”, so that if I click on a name frame I get my normal options and not a heal).
Let me know how you end up liking Grid! I may give it one last try
Beruthiel’s last blog post..Azeroth Arbor Day!
aaah, nice to have that little tidbit about Clique. I’m still trying to work out how best to target people. The alt+click thing works, but is less than optimal. I really like Grid so far and wrote another post about that today, so take a look if you’re interested. HoTCandy was something I would still have installed if I had stayed with Healbot, but Grid offers the same accurate timers without having to look away from Grid to see them, so that was a nice perk. =)