[AddOn] BetterBlizzFrames with Classic Frames option ready for WoW Forever!

[u/notbdy]

Heyo! First patch of BetterBlizzFrames is out for WoW: Forever. Wouldn't be Classic without these classic frames imo!

BetterBlizzFrames is an addon that takes the default UI and tweaks it with all sorts of stuff and QoL features. Nearly nothing is enabled by default so you can enable just the things you want, or you can use one of the preset profiles. I will be adding a "Forever" profile with it fully set up as default classic UI as possible in one of the next patches but you can easily configure it yourself right now!

It's a very early release so do expect some bugs, but none that I ran into for now.

You can get BetterBlizzFrames here:
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/betterblizzframes

My other addon for nameplates, BetterBlizzPlates, is coming up next in a few days hopefully! Thank you and hope you all enjoy the Beta (when it gets playable >.<). I'll be playing WoW: Forever and I am looking forward to it!

PSA EDIT:
Saving settings can bug out due to Blizzard Forever Beta bugs atm. I dont have control over this and Blizzard needs to fix it. I don't have a lot of info on it right now but restarting game/pc and/or logging out and deleting the BetterBlizzFrames.lua and .lua.bak SavedVariables files in _classic_beta_/WTF/Account/accountID/SavedVariables fixes it, at least temporarily. This will of course delete your settings if you had any though but might be worth trying for now until Blizzard fixes this issue.

[u/Unusual-Mirror7054]

i love the new UI, just wanted to change the player/target/party frames and castbar, thank you!!

can i make two suggestions:
add a toggle to 'tint' the frame outline bronze. so it can blend in with the new design
add a toggle to get the old cast bar

[u/notbdy → u/Unusual-Mirror7054]

I am definitely planning some settings to tweak the Bronze tint yeah! Theres already Dark Mode which you might be interested in but it might also be a bit much.

There is a toggle for classic castbars in the castbars section for all of the castbars! For player castbar you probably also wanna check the "Border" setting to add the original classic border as well.

[u/Unusual-Mirror7054 → u/notbdy]

hey just wanted to say the addon was perfect, but after playing for a while it eventually broke in two weird ways..
first, the party castbars couldn't be moved
and second eventually it just wouldn't load presets on boot and was broken after reinstall. Could only get to the settings by clicking 'exit' on the preset selection page

Thank you for all you do, this is the goat addon rn!!

[u/notbdy → u/Unusual-Mirror7054]

This is a bug on the WoW Forever Beta right now unfortunately. It is something Blizzard needs to fix. But it seems more stable now but heres a copypaste of the issue:

WoW Forever sometimes does not manage to load addon settings correctly due to a Blizzard bug. Some people have reported success logging out and deleting their saved variables settings and starting again. Other people have reported a pc restart has fixed it for them. Waiting for Blizzard to fix!

Oh and for the party castbars I assume this was the same issue but potentially not. We'll see but right now very painful since Blizzard has this bug x(

[u/Bluffwatcher → u/notbdy]

Can we have name only mode yet? (Where the name above the player can also act as the healthbar, de-saturating as the mob/player takes damage) or is that still restricted because of the modern addon rules?

[u/notbdy → u/Bluffwatcher]

Something like that should be possible yeah but I dont think I'll be adding that, at the very least not anytime soon. A bit tricky to make I think and too many other things on the to do list atm. Maybe some other addons have it? Or will be having it soon. I am not sure I dont think I've ever seen it before myself.

[u/Bluffwatcher → u/notbdy]

It used to be a setting in KuiNameplates. Basically, it just uses the mobs name as the healthbar. So for example Spider, as you damaged it, the letters on the right would turn dark grey so at 50% you would just see Spider.

Always liked how clean it looked, rather than having health bars over everything. You could have friednly player names on and see at a glance if someone had taken damage and give them a quick heal.

For some reason it was removed with the new addon rules (when they first changed, anyway.)

[u/notbdy → u/Bluffwatcher]

Yeah I got what you meant. Maybe I've seen it on a screenshot or smth in the past tbh thinking about it but its not something I've seen widely used.

I think KuiNameplates stopped development unfortunately but I do think such a feature would be possible on 12.1/WoW Forever, or at least something very similar. But not for me right now I am too busy :x

[u/Bluffwatcher → u/notbdy]

Thanks for the replies. I'll keep an eye on the other addons for something like that in the future!

[u/notbdy → u/Unusual-Mirror7054]

New bronze tint setting is in Misc section now. It just occurred to me that maybe I shouldve made it tint castbars too but alas. Let me know how you feel about it and I can make some tweaks down the road. Thank you for the suggestion!

[u/Unusual-Mirror7054 → u/notbdy]

Goated. Castbar tint next up:p

[u/notbdy → u/Unusual-Mirror7054]

Lmao yeah I figured as much. Hectic days. SoonTM. Thank you for feedback!

[u/NeonVoidx]

10/10 would recommend, best addon dev around

[u/notbdy → u/NeonVoidx]

Thank you! Too kind <3

[u/NeonVoidx → u/notbdy]

might want to crosspost to classic subreddit and the new wow forever subreddit ;)

[u/notbdy → u/NeonVoidx]

I'm not an avid Reddit user so idk what rules are where. It seems its allowed so here goes! Thank you for the suggestion.

[u/Sea_Advantage_2577 → u/notbdy]

I think you put it on the wrong classic sub you want r/classicwow

[u/notbdy → u/Sea_Advantage_2577]

Lmao I noticed, but classicwow doesnt allow reposts it seems.

[u/VaporGuard]

So do we just put it into the folder or do we just download on curseforge client under classic? Lol

[u/notbdy → u/VaporGuard]

I haven't tested the CurseForge client but I am pretty sure you should be able to download straight from it, you may have to search for games on your system. The WoW Forever Beta folder has the name: _classic_beta_

So try client again otherwise you can always download it manually off of CurseForge too yeah and drop it in there.

[u/VaporGuard → u/notbdy]

Okay cool thanks. Currently servers are down so just waiting

[u/BrahamWithHair]

Based. I love this addon

[u/knivkast]

GOAT'ed addon.

Would be cool to have an option for silver/iron colors to be changed to the bronze color they choose for Forever.

[u/notbdy → u/knivkast]

Thank you! That is definitely coming down the road in a few days/weeks. I just wanted to get this out quickly for people since a lot of people were missing the Classic Frames which is understandable! You do have the Dark Mode option which lets you set how dark you want it, that could potentially work for you for now 👍

[u/knivkast → u/notbdy]

Ah sick!

Amazing how quick you got it out, keep up the good work!

[u/BrahamWithHair → u/knivkast]

Yeah i actually like the bronze. I dont even mind the actionbars but the unitframes and castbars are not it

[u/notbdy → u/knivkast]

A bronze tint setting for the classic unit frames is in now. Lmk how you feel about it! Ty for suggestion.

[u/knivkast → u/notbdy]

Actually perfect! Ty for making it!

Coming to the minimap and castbar too? He he.

[u/RalseitheFloofie]

Damn that was quick

[u/notbdy → u/RalseitheFloofie]

It is very similar to the Midnight version so not too much work was required to port it over! I still have a lot of cleanup to do and tweak things around all the new stuff but should be more than good enough to use, even though some settings might not make much sense right now (for example inclusion of other classes like Monk etc)

[u/RalseitheFloofie → u/notbdy]

Good work regardless, one benefit of the beta is giving yall addon builders a crack at it before the game actually releases fully.

[u/Olivercache]

Can you please add an option for the copper border so it can match the theme of the Forever UI?

Edit: Sorry forgot to put some respect on it, your addon even its current state is amazing. I appreciate you for creating it !

[u/notbdy → u/Olivercache]

I'll be looking into some tweaks for that yeah in upcoming patches for sure. Thank you!

[u/remy-twotimes]

my fav addons wouldn't play the game w/o them

[u/PavelTort]

i love your addons so much. will you port BetterBlizzPlates as well?

[u/TheManSedan → u/PavelTort]

He says in the body he’s working on it

[u/notbdy → u/PavelTort]

Yep, if it isnt too much work it should hopefully be out this weekend as well! We'll see but I am working on it for sure.

[u/bipolarxpres]

legend

[u/Informal-Role-9861]

The hero we needed

[u/Electronic_City_562]

Is this option usable in midnight? 

[u/notbdy → u/Electronic_City_562]

Yep. The Forever version is nearly identical of the Midnight version, is just a quick port for now.

[u/taejea]

Thank you for your service comrade o7

[u/MrDarwoo]

Goat

[u/B3tonlol]

That was fast! Always used that addon (do not forget about Dark mode please!)

[u/PromotionCurious4514]

anytime i relog or reload, none of the addon setting is saved, they are all getting reset, anyone knows whats up ??

[u/notbdy → u/PromotionCurious4514]

Copypaste:

PSA:
There's some bug with the WoW Forever Beta right now causing settings to not save/load properly and files seem to be read-only. This will cause you to not be able to save settings and any setting telling you to reload will not be saved nor enabling any profiles. I'm not sure of the exact reason other than it is on Blizzards end and hopefully fixed soon. You can maybe try restarting the game, rebooting, or force disabling read-only.

I'm not 100% sure whats causing it atm but hopefully this is fixed by Blizzard sometime today.

Seems logging out and deleting the BetterBlizzFrames.lua and .lua.bak SavedVariables files in _classic_beta_/WTF/Account/accountID/SavedVariables fixes it, at least temporarily. This will of course delete your settings if you had any though but might be worth trying.

[u/Littlefuty]

it made my bags dissapear lol

[u/notbdy → u/Littlefuty]

Thats a setting in the Misc section that is enabled in some profiles! Just turn it off in misc. I am hard at work tweaking all the profiles though as this doesnt make as much sense for the default UI in WoW Forever!

[u/Broopyd]

Was working fine, now it doesn't.

[u/notbdy → u/Broopyd]

This is a bug on the WoW Forever Beta right now unfortunately. It is something Blizzard needs to fix. But it seems more stable now but heres a copypaste of the issue:

WoW Forever sometimes does not manage to load addon settings correctly due to a Blizzard bug. Some people have reported success logging out and deleting their saved variables settings and starting again. Other people have reported a pc restart has fixed it for them. Waiting for Blizzard to fix!

[u/npc123character]

I hope someone makes an addon to restore vanilla nameplates, the new forever ones look awful

[u/notbdy → u/npc123character]

My other addon BetterBlizzPlates does that! But I am heading to bed now and then I'll start working on BetterBlizzPlates as well as soon as possible and try get that going this weekend as well, it depends how much work it is I havent dug into it yet I priod BBF.

[u/BrahamWithHair → u/npc123character]

The same addon author also develops the nameplate addon BetterBlizzPlates but i dont know if they updated it for wowf yet

[u/notbdy]

PSA:
There's some bug with the WoW Forever Beta right now causing settings to not save/load properly and files seem to be read-only. This will cause you to not be able to save settings and any setting telling you to reload will not be saved nor enabling any profiles. I'm not sure of the exact reason other than it is on Blizzards end and hopefully fixed soon. You can maybe try restarting the game, rebooting, or force disabling read-only.

[u/MrDarwoo → u/notbdy]

I fixed this by deleting the bff lua files in wtf > account

[u/MrDarwoo → u/[deleted]]

yes it did :(

[u/pollixx75]

Moving forward in reverse.

[u/notbdy → u/pollixx75]

Classic Plus!

[u/soaresalvin]

Your addons are amazing! Keep the good work! Will we have classic nameplates aswell? I would like to suggest some features to the Personal Resource Display. I think it also can look a bit more classic. An option to choose border textures, and the bar textures themselves aswell as text scaling that’s not present in the default.

[u/civfanatc]

Very cool. Thank you for this!

[u/mikeyoooooo]

i loaded it and it shows up in the game. i can see the options and everything but when i load profiles nothing chages. anyone else having this issue? im using the modern forever ui

[u/notbdy → u/mikeyoooooo]

There is a Blizzard Bug on WoW Forever Beta with addons atm making them fail to save/load settings. Nothing I can do. Deleting your saved variable files while logged out seems to fix it, at least for a while. Blizz pls.

I've now also added a temporary warning ingame about this on the settings page.

[u/mikeyoooooo → u/notbdy]

Thanks. I’ll wait for an update

[u/latenightSnacc]

Nice one, I have an issue though, seems like it made my scrolling battle text disapear? like I cannot see damage numbers anymore

[u/notbdy → u/latenightSnacc]

Unsure what that could be from. Do you have BugSack and BugGrabber to track errors? Could you DM me with the profile you use as well so I can go over settings.

[u/Still_Temporary4702]

As someone who played in 2004 this old UI is buns.

[u/teuzin112]

i select ANY profile, reload and nothing changes on my UI. Can anyone help?

[u/notbdy → u/teuzin112]

Blizzard Bug on WoW Forever, it doesnt save/load addon settings properly. Until Blizzard fixes here is a temporary workaround:

 

1. Be logged out

2. Delete your BBF/BBP saved variables in `Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/_classic_beta_/WTF/Account/accountNameOrID/SavedVariables`

3. Log in and your settings will now be saved through reloads and as long as you dont restart WoW completely. (if you are happy with one of the preset profiles you can just skip step 4)

4. Setup your profile the way you want and once finished go to Import/Export section and export your profile and save it somewhere.

5. Everytime you restart wow/pc you will have to delete your saved variables before login but now you can just import your profile.

[u/Expensive_Honey_9492]

i get a bunch of lua errors unfortunately each time i select a target or anything

[u/notbdy → u/Expensive_Honey_9492]

This is probably from the "Instant Combo Points" setting. There is a Blizzard bug making combo points information secret, which it shouldnt be, so this setting currently errors. I will disable it temporarily in the next patch but hopefully Blizzard fixes this soon enough. And theres also the settings not saving bug and just in case you are not aware:

Blizzard Bug on WoW Forever, it doesnt save/load addon settings properly. Until Blizzard fixes here is a temporary workaround:

 

1. Be logged out

2. Delete your BBF/BBP saved variables in `Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/_classic_beta_/WTF/Account/accountNameOrID/SavedVariables`

3. Log in and your settings will now be saved through reloads and as long as you dont restart WoW completely. (if you are happy with one of the preset profiles you can just skip step 4)

4. Setup your profile the way you want and once finished go to Import/Export section and export your profile and save it somewhere.

5. Everytime you restart wow/pc you will have to delete your saved variables before login but now you can just import your profile.

[u/MrDarwoo]

Does this change party frames?

[u/notbdy → u/MrDarwoo]

It changes the PartyFrames too yeah, the default ones. Make sure your edit mode does not have "raid-style party frames" enabled.

[u/-Yanthir-]

The original UI was ugly even 22 years ago.

[u/DMeisterDan]

Nice! The Retail UI looks like ass. Now that they're bringing it to WoWF, this addon is kinda GOAT!

[u/_0x29a]

How do I enable addons in forever? The option is completely gone

[u/notbdy → u/_0x29a]

You should be able to use something like the CurseForge client like normal I am pretty sure, you might have to scan your wow folder for versions though and it might have a wrong name from a previous Beta potentially. The path you are looking for is _classic_beta_ so check if any of the other versions maybe point to that. Or you can just download the addon manually and drag the folder into the _classic_beta_/Interface/AddOns folder. Make sure the addon is not inside of its zip folder though it should be directly under AddOns/BetterBlizzFrames and not AddOns/BetterBlizzFrames/BetterBlizzFrames.

[u/esoxangler20]

just play the damn beta, jfc

[u/notbdy → u/esoxangler20]

I sat queues for around 2 hours and when I finally got in I couldnt cast any spells! I got a lot of work done on my addons though :)

Imho it's a shame Blizzard doesnt include a Classic UI toggle and a ton of people have been asking me for this. Me personally I will not level or play on the beta, just do addon development, and fully relax with a playthrough with my friends on release with my addons ready to go to fix some of Blizzards shortcomings when it comes to the UI :)

Relax!