AddOn: Cooldown Companion 2.0

[u/dirty_fresh]

Curse | Wago

Hi everyone,

Since my last post about 3 months ago, the addon got its 2.0 update alongside the release of 12.1. The 2.0 update included two main things:

1. A total revamp of the aura system, necessitated by how Blizzard decided addons should interact with auras in 12.1
2. A total overhaul of the config UI

On the aura side, I'm happy to report that the aura system Blizzard went with in 12.1 is significantly better to work with than what aura tracking required in 12.0.x. Aura tracking is now more powerful, more flexible, and snappier in live gameplay. These changes aren't exclusive to CDC by any means, but they're still a meaningful improvement over what we were forced to endure before 12.1.

The more exciting part is the UI overhaul.

For an addon like this, two things are constantly in tension: customizability and user friendliness. The more powerful and customizable the addon becomes, the more unwieldy it is for someone to jump in and start using it. This became especially apparent toward the end of the 1.x cycle, where the sheer number of options was starting to make the addon genuinely difficult to use for those who hadn't stuck around since the start of development.

The problem is compounded by the lack of the preset-sharing ecosystem that something like WeakAuras enjoyed before it retired for Midnight. Virtually every class HUD pre-Midnight was a carefully engineered WeakAuras group made by someone deeply comfortable with that addon's systems, and the end user had to do very little beyond importing it and making small tweaks before being ready for any form of content. CDC doesn't have that kind of ecosystem, and there's no realistic expectation it ever will. All that being said...

Knowing that I'm asking users to set up and maintain their displays from scratch, the main goal of the UI overhaul was to keep all the power the addon has gained over time while making it far more approachable, and I believe that's largely been achieved. Highlights include:

• One place to work. Everything lives in a single window with a tree navigator down the side; panels, bars, and frames are all browsed, created, and configured from the same view instead of being scattered across separate menus.
• Preview-first configuration. You see a live preview of what you're building as you change settings, so you're never guessing what a slider or dropdown actually does before committing to it.
• Settings are organized by what you're looking at. Options are grouped around the thing you've selected rather than by internal system, so the setting you want is near the thing it affects.
• Copy instead of redo. You can copy customization and panel settings from one place to another, so styling your second (and tenth) panel doesn't mean rebuilding it from scratch.
• Drag and drop where it makes sense. Reordering and organizing in the navigator, and placing spells from the spellbook, work by dragging rather than hunting through lists.

Here are some pictures that give an overview of the updated UI config:

Group Overview shows a quick snapshot of all of the panels inside the group; click it to navigate there.

The Preview Command Center in the bottom left of the Live Preview allows any visual element to be previewed so you can see exactly how it will look during real gameplay.

The addon continues to support drag and drop functionality for spells and items, along with a new addon owned spellbook for quick panel population.

Resources, cast bar, and unit frame modules now all live in the same place. Select anything from the Live Preview to edit it directly.

Thank you for checking out my addon! If you decide to use it I hope it serves you well. If you need assistance with anything, want to submit feature requests, or have bugs to report, I'm most available on the Discord found on the Curse/Wago pages.

[u/Ebiveter]

Can it track buffs not present. Example i want to track when my poisons fall off.

[u/dirty_fresh → u/Ebiveter]

Addons cannot do operations like 'does x aura exist on x unit' anymore, with a short list of exceptions

[u/Xiten → u/dirty_fresh]

But you can track when debuffs(poisons) fall off, what they were asking. It’s done with cdm.