Plugins (of the week?)

[Feachador]

Someone was asking in Kin chat about plugins the other day. I love plugins, and always have, no matter what game I play, so I try a lot of them out. Because of that, I was thinking about making a plugin of the week post, and sharing some of the information I've gleaned over the course of playing. It may be interesting, it may not. Consider this a test run. If people want more, I'll do more!

For the test run, I decided that I wanted to cover something really special. If I never told anyone about another plugin, what would I tell them to get? Well, the first thing that comes to mind isn't actually a plugin, it's a separate program. However, I've found that it's completely indispensable for finding, installing, and using plugins.


LOTRO Plugin Compendium

The Plugin compendium is a stand alone program that assists with installing and running addins. You can download the program here. Once downloaded and opened, you'll see a window with 3 tabs across the top.



The first tab is your currently installed addons (It should recognize any you already have installed), the second is new addons that can be installed (currently installed addons are hidden by default, but there is a checkbox to show those.) and the last is a configuration page.

On your installed addons page addons will be listed, as in the above image. You'll see every plugin you have installed, listed by name, as well as the current version on your machine, the latest version on the server, the Author's lotrointerface name, and the folder on your computer the addon is installed in. Additionally, the line will be color coded for certain addons. (Like the above screenshot, where a couple of lines are highlighted green). If the lasted version is newer than the installed version, the addon will be highlighted in yellow, informing you to update the addon. (To update, you check the box to the left of the addon, and click the update button at the top. It then overwrites the current version on your computer with the latest version from the server.) If the addon is NOT supported by the compendium, it will be highlighted in Grey. I had a couple addons show this way that were supported, but the folder structure was incorrect. I was able to uninstall them, and then reinstall them from the "add new plugins page", and they worked fine.

On the Add new Plugins page, (See the screenshot above.) you'll have the name of the addon, the current version, the author, the number of times that addon has been downloaded, the category, and the last updated time. All of these fields are sortable by clicking the field name. Additionally, if you have "hide installed" unchecked, you'll see any addons you currently have installed highlighted in green (as in the screenshot.) at the bottom of the screen, you'll see a box describing the currently highlighted plugin. This will change for each addon you select.

Finally, on the configuration page, you have your install path (In most cases, this should be your documents, or my documents folder, but if it is different for some reason, this is where you would change it.), your plugin downloads folder (where the file sits temporarily before being installed to your plugins folder.) and the feed url, in case you want to make manual updates to the xml file that lists all the updates. (If there's an update you want to track outside lotrointerface, for instance.)

This is completely indispensable, as I said. It removes the headache of properly installing addons, and keeps them updated with minimal effort on your part. If you're interested in addons, and you are intimidated by installing and maintaining them, this resource can't be beat!

So, if you'd like more of these covering (actual) addons, please let me know, and I'll start sharing!

[Yordin]

Nice post. I would like to learn more of what you know.

[Taisie]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[Golbo]

Yeah, I've got to look into this one. Right now I just have a macro set up to auto-load the ones I use. If you've seen crazy gibberish spout from me in kin chat (that's different from most of the crazy gibberish you've heard me spout!) that's why, so this seems a more elegant solution.

[Feachador]

This doesn't load the addons in game, it just makes sure the addons in your addons folder is up to date, and installed correctly.

Note that they snuck in an update recently that removes the need for macros to launch addons. There's now a plugin manager either under your system menu if you're logged in, or on the right side of your character login page.

[Golbo]

Here's my plugin for the week:

RaidAssistant

Absolutely sweet in that it keeps track of the highest rolls as they happen in real time, it SHOWS WHO HASN'T ROLLED YET, and can be easily reset after every roll.

It also has a loot history and optional log for previous runs, and a blacklist option so if you PUG a lot, you'll know who the bad guys are.

It really speeds up master looter and makes the process quick and easy, and for those reasons is my pick of the week.

[Amrastinuviel]

LOTRO Plugin Compendium is awesome. It really is a must have for every LOTRO player.

As far as actual plugins go, here's a list of my favorites:

HugeBag
Palantir
Mouse Cursor Highlighter Advanced
Travel Window (maybe not useful for everyone... but definitely for Hunters!)

If anyone has any other favorites, I'd love to hear about them!

[Taisie]

My fave is the minstrelbuff and the songbook and the raid loot role thing. There's also a travel plugin I use which is really helpful for hunters or someone with a alot of rep travel.

[Taisie]

Make my head spin. Ok here's three I downloaded.

Mount carousel, hobbit/dwarves, elves/men. Go to http://www.lotrointerface.com/downloads/search.php and put in "mount". Install the one titled Mount Carousel (Hobbits and Dwarves), or (Men and Elves). Now this plugin guy is lazy, so you have to do the actual patchwork yourself. After you downloaded it, you need to download Mount Carousel HD or ME. Read what he actually wrote and you'll see which file you need to replace, pain in the butt!

There is also the Pet Carousel. There's 2 links, download the one that does not say updated, and then download the updated one, its by the same guy, so again lazy, you have to do the patchwork, but its worth it!

[Galwimloth]

I downloaded the hugebag plugin, and I like it ok, but now I can't get into my legendary item panel, because shift-I now brings up the bag instead of the panel. Did that command move?

[Golbo]

Not sure if the command moved as a result of the plugin, but you can bind the LI panel to any key you like in the options section under keybindings.

[Taisie]

So I figured out the skirmish raid tracker. You want the one by Wal loaded, not morbius. You type /srt in chat and it lets you know what you are on cooldown for, so nice! Turbine still hasn't figured out we want that. If someone can make a plugin, you'd think turbine could easily put in a thing for us, but oh well.

[Taisie]

Ok, so my pot helper is buggy as hell post rohan, and I don't think the creator has any intention of fixing it. Is there a plugin like pot helper that is working properly with the new pots? The one I have puts a pot icon under where my arrow is when I have a debuff of some kind. Its really helpful to me because I don't pay attention to myself, so unless someone calls it out I usually don't see it.

[Golbo]

I'm on it!

[Golbo]

Just wondering -- have you written to Heta to see if s/he'll pick the programming back up?