Aloft - Customized Nameplates - Official Thread

[Roartindon]

Aloft is an addon that allows you to customize and enchance how nameplates and nameplate casting bars appear in the game.

It is a fully self-contained addon, however it can take advantage of the following addons if they are installed:
1. Prat.PlayerNames - if this is installed, then Aloft can use the database to color player's nameplates according to their class - no longer needed!
2. MobHealth3 - Health text of mobs can be displayed right on the nameplate. Make sure you have r32001 of MobHealth3 or later

The customization options in Aloft allow you to change the size, shape, anchors, font, font options, textures and colors of:
1. Name text
2. Level Text
3. Health Bar
4. Cast Bar
5. Spell Icon
6. Boss Icon
7. Raid Icon
8. Mouseover Highlight

Aloft also enhances the display by providing options for:
1. Health text - you can display health percentage, health, or health deficit right on the nameplate
2. Spell name - Aloft will place the spell name right on the casting bar
3. Spell casting timer - Displays the remaining casting time
4. Combo points text - Displayed on target's nameplates for rogues and druids
5. Recently Damaged icon - Displays an icon next to any unit that has recently taken damage
6. Finer visibility control - A collection of options that give you specific control over which nameplates are shown - eg. You can hide friendly pets, out of guild players, and lots more
7. Guild Text - Show guild information right on the nameplate. Shows abbreviated forms by default.
8. Border and backdrop color
9. Comments - Show "Banker", "Flight Master" and other automatically gathered comments, or your own custom ones right on the nameplate
10. Mana Bar/Text - show group member mana, energy, rage
11. Combat Text - display all damage and healing done to group members or targets right on the plate.
12. Pets Owner's Names
13. Polymorph Timer bar / Undead shackle timer bar
14. Unit Aliases
15. Fine Alpha control (This is by far the most expensive module CPU wise in Aloft. If you are concerned about maximizing FPS, leave these options disabled)

All of the additional options are written to require no additional overhead if they're not enabled.

Aloft is designed to be easily extensible. All of the functionality is separated into discrete modules which should make it relatively easy for people to tinker with adding their own functionality.

If you want additional texture options, make sure you install SharedMedia
For additional font options, ClearFont2 and its fontpacks provide a number of extra font choices.

Aloft is still a work in progress.

I hope you enjoy it.

FAQ is in POST #3 in this thread

[Roartindon]

A screenshot of Aloft in action thanks to ZealotOnAStick



And a different example screenshot in a quiet Ironforge:



And the Aloft configuration that I currently use taken in Shattrah City

[Roartindon]

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:How do I get my nameplates to look like the first screenshot?
A: First, make sure you have SharedMedia installed. Then select Set All -> Texture -> LiteStep

Q:Why do I sometimes see a flicker of the original nameplates?
A: Aloft doesn't create nameplates - it adopts the ones the game makes and enhances them. However, once Aloft has gathered the nameplates, they stay under Aloft's control when they're shown in the future.

Q:Why do I need to mouseover units before they change color, update text or hide properly?
A: Unlike unit frame addons, Aloft does not have the luxury of querying the game about the information behind the units it represents. To get around this, Aloft builds databases of character classes, guilds, pet names, unit classifications and other information to determine what it needs to know. For example, many modules contain separate options for hostile players, hostile NPCs and hostile pets. The only information given inherently by the game is that name of the unit, the bar color and sometimes the unit's level. Anything that relies on differentiating these will only activate after Aloft has gathered the required information. Once the data is gathered, Aloft stores it for future reference.

Q:So Aloft stores a lot of data then?
A: Aloft stores only what it needs to make the nameplates appear as you want them. For example, if you do not show guild text, then Aloft doesn't collect any guild information. If you show Guild information, but not in short form, then Aloft doesn't store or update its guild short name database. Internally, all of the modules indicate exactly what data they need to function, and only that data is enabled, gathered and processed.

Q:Can I increase the range of nameplates?
A: In Burning Crusade closed beta, it was possible using the standard blizzard interface options to adjust the nameplate range. At this stage, it is uncertain if this functionality is still available for addons. If anyone can provide more insight on this matter, send me a PM. For the moment, extending the range of nameplates does not seem possible.

Q:How do I use the advanced health bar color and frame color tags?
A: You need to create a tag that will return a hex color. Only the first 6 letters of the return string matter, and will be interpreted as a hex color rrggbb. For instance, if you wanted to use the tag string to set all of your health bars to white, you'd set the tag simply to ffffff. If you wanted to set it to white if it's a totem, you could use [isTotem:"ffffff"]. If the tag does not return a string of at least 6 characteers, then the modules revert to their normal coloring scheme.

Q:Can I show target names on nameplates?
A: You can only show the target name of group members and of your direct target on nameplates. Use the "TargetName" tag to do this. It is not possible to show targets of other nameplates.

<... more to go here later...>

Known Issues

There are two known problematic modules in Aloft at the moment
- Frame module - Padding Width/Height and mouse enable can only be set out of combat. Settings made in combat will be applied after combat finishes.
- Visibility module - Only works out of combat

In both of these modules, nameplates that are within nameplate display range before combat will continue to operate properly. The difficulties are due to blizzard's in-combat protection system preventing Aloft from updating newly visible nameplates, and at this stage, there is no known workaround.

[Harwel]

I love this addon! The default nameplates are very obtrusive comparatively, and didn't mesh well with the rest of UI. This is just... beautiful.

[Bam]

Eh? Has something changed about the API? I seem to remember that it wasn't possible to change anything about nameplates from Lua as it was part of the 3D-gameworld. Just curious how you do it. But I can check the code of course. :P

Anyway, looks very pretty.

[Greywind]

I love this so much, all my unit frames and now the nameplates match! I love you!

[mag]

That looks fantastic, good job!

[zedbg]

Great addon i love it.

[elnaril]

Is there any chance we could get an option to use the default font, like it was before? I liked the one I use through Clearfont.

[justcallmefred]

How do I scale the entire bar bigger? I found where I could make the font bigger, but not the bar..