Huge Macaroon Setup Guide
Because the lovely Miss Rith over at Polka DoTs and HoT Chocolate got fed up with Bartender, I kept nudging her to try Macaroon. To sweeten the deal, I told her I’d write her a setup guide if she tried it.
Well, she tried it. So now I have to hold up my end of the deal and write her a guide for it.
Here you go, Miss Rith.
Installation
This is the same for all AddOns. There’s a video guide from Ask Apadwe and my older guide still applies.
There are multiple parts to Macaroon. You’ll want to download the following components:
It’s not that exciting once you install it. But we’ll make it exciting, I promise! To help, I have a cat.
Essentially you have two things showing: the menu bar and the bag bar. First we have to disable the Blizzard bars because they’re going to be in the way, and the whole point of this is so you don’t have to use them.
You can use “/mac menu” or you can left-click on the minimap button (it’s a red M).
Disable the Blizzard Main and Vehicle Bars by unchecking their boxes, then get into the configuration mode by either typing “/mac config” or right-clicking on the minimap icon and choosing “Bar Edit” mode. Nothing exciting happens until you mouse-over one of the bars and *gasp* IT TURNS BLUE! This means you’re in config mode, so right-click on either bar to get into the tools console.
The tools window is a complex-looking console, and right now it might be a little intimidating. Don’t touch anything yet (we don’t want to mess with the bag or menu bars for now) and just click on the “Create New Bar” button in the lower left corner. The text above it should turn from yellow to green, asking you what kind of bar you want to create. You already have a bag and menu bar, so let’s make a Standard Bar.
The text will go back to yellow and you’ll have a new bar listed called Bar 1. If you look below the console there should be a semi-transparent blue rectangle. That’s an actionbar. Now we get to do fun stuff to it!
Button Controls
The lower right part of the console is for adding and changing buttons. You can click on anything here and little arrows will pop up on the left and right, letting you change the values. The picture below has the buttons part selected.
Curr State: If you have a shapeshift/stance bar or a bar with multiple pages, you can flip between them here. For example, if I wanted to change my Tree of Life bar without blowing my cooldown (or if I wasn’t resto at the moment) I could change the bar to be in the Tree of Life state while I’m configuring it. It’ll pop back to whatever state it was in previously when I leave config mode.
The padding speaks for itself. That’s how much padding you want between buttons in a row or column.
For now, we’ll leave those settings alone and give this little bar some buttons. Click on the right arrow until it has 12 buttons.
Exactly, Macaroon Cat. Long lines are boring at both the supermarket and on your interface. You can change the number of columns on a bar to change how the buttons stack up. It works just like a multiplication table.
A 12 button line in 3 columns becomes a 3x4 rectangle. Likewise if we have 2 columns, we have a 2x6 rectangle.
Personally I use an 18 button actionbar that’s 3x6 for most of my spells and abilities, but you can have however many buttons you want.
Also if the number of columns = the number of buttons, it’ll be a regular line. If there’s only one column, then it’s a vertical line. You also might have noticed that if you don’t have a nice divisible number of buttons and columns (like a 3x4 block with only 10 buttons) the extra buttons will be centered on the top row. So whatever you do to the bar, it will still look centered and clean.
You can also change the number of columns in your bag and menu bars, just in case you want to change their look as well or need to make them fit into a certain space.
Visual Controls
There’s an actionbar with buttons on it, but it doesn’t look that great and Macaroon Cat doesn’t seem to be too enthused. Time to make it pretty. Note that all of this applies to your menu and bag bars too, so you can pretty them up.
Scale: changes the size of the bar, with 1.00 being the default size. Anything smaller gives you smaller buttons (all scaled down) and anything larger gives you larger buttons (again, all scaled up).
Alpha: transparency, with 100% being totally opaque (not see-through). Anything less makes it more transparent.
AlphaUp and AlphaUp Speed: how quickly the actionbar will pop into full alpha, if at all. You can use this so that a bar is faded out partially or entirely, then it goes into full alpha when something happens. For example, I have a bar with potions that’s semi-transparent when I’m not in combat, but it shows up fully when I’m in combat. You can change it to trigger on mouseover too.
Strata: If you have bars on top of one another, this dictates which will cover what. It’s like layers. I don’t overlap my bars so I don’t make use of this.
Autohide: Hides the bar when it’s not in use and doesn’t have any buttons (good for a vehicle or pet bar if you’re not a pet class).
Showgrid: Shows or hides empty buttons on the bar.
SnapTo and SnapTo Pad: If you have bars close to each other, you can make them snap together so they move as one bundle. I usually have my bag bar snapped onto the menu bar since they tend to move together when I’m configuring things. You can change the padding between the actionbars when they do snap.
Hidden: Hides or shows the actionbar (you won’t be able to access it outside of the config mode)
Dual Spec: Changes this actionbar when you switch specs in dual spec. If this is disabled, the bar won’t change regardless of your spec. Normally you’d only have this enabled on your main actionbar or actionbars since your bags and the menu bar don’t affect your spec.
Shape: Changes the shape of the bar.
Bar States
Because druids have the most shapeshift forms or stances of any class, we will have the most bar states. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. You’ll have a state for each shapeshift form plus caster form, and you can opt to have a state for when you’re prowling. I use all of them because I cover all specs, but you can tailor this as you please.
I use the preset states to keep it relatively simple. There are three types of major states for a bar and eleven minor states. Think of them like conditions in a macro. “If X, then the bar does Y.”
Druids will probably want the Stance and Prowl states enabled on their main actionbar. To cycle through the states on your actionbar in config mode, just left click it. The little title of the bar at the top will change to tell you what state you’re looking at currently. You have to manually add buttons to each bar state, because they act like individual “bars” just tucked onto one element.
So if you want all of your shapeshift states to have 12 buttons, you have to flip through the Curr State bit and add buttons to each of them. Tedious? Not really, since you just have to click the arrow to make/delete buttons. And they line up oh so nicely.
Meta Bar Options
These are mostly minor options that speak for themselves. You can hide the bar in combat, lock it so you can’t throw it across the screen by accident (or choose to have a key to let you move it outside of config mode), enable/disable spell tooltips on the bar, show enhanced tooltips when in config mode, and toggle spell outlining when things are activated.
The Spell Activation Glow is awesome, and it works with the new visual alerts Blizzard gave us. When you’re in Tree of Life form, Wrath and the other special tree spells light up like holiday lights. On my hunter, his Focus Fire gets shiny when his pet has 5 stacks of Frenzy. It’s very handy, but some people might not want it enabled.
Types of Buttons (Some Troubleshooting)
Macaroon is very sneaky with how it handles different things on the buttons. You see, there are actually three types of buttons: macro, action id, and pet id. When you’re changing out abilities and things on the bars, you might run into a problem where a button won’t “accept” what you’re trying to put in it. Fret not – we can fix that!
To go into button edit mode, type “/mac edit” or go to “Button Edit” from the minimap menu.
By default, every button is a macro. Macaroon auto-writes it and it doesn’t take up any space on your normal macro window, so don’t fret. When you click and drag your spells from the spellbook or items from your bags, they’ll go into the macro buttons with no issue. It’s simple.
When you click and drag macros from your actual macro window, they’ll go into action id buttons. These are created automatically, but unlike macro buttons they have unique numbers. Anything from 1-121 is part of the default UI (those are assigned to the default ugly bars). Anything at or above 222 is part of a vehicle bar on the default interface and won’t be nice when holding macros you create. For a vehicle bar or possession bar, you’d want to make sure the buttons (even when empty) have action id’s at or above 222.
The pet id is probably obvious: it holds abilities that would normally go on the default pet bar. They’re also numbered, but only go from 1 to 10. They can ONLY hold pet abilities, so you probably want a unique pet bar for your UI. When you make a pet bar, the buttons should automatically pop up with pet abilities in them if you’re a hunter or warlock or have a controllable pet out.
To change a button’s type, just left click it to cycle through pet/action/macro. To change the number of a pet or action button, right-click it and use the slider on the right side of the window to change the number.
You might have issues when moving written macros around with normal spells, so if a button is being stubborn, check what type of button it is. It should only take a few clicks to change.
Keybinding
You’ll never have an issue using this part of the mod. Seriously. Never. It’s so easy, so simple, so beautifully streamlined. To enter keybinding mode, type “/mac bind” or “Edit Binds” on the minimap menu.
To bind a button, just hover your cursor over it, press the key you want to bind, and that’s it. To clear a keybind, just press Esc when hovering over it. I’m not kidding, that’s all you do. You can bind multiple keys to a button, or if a bar has multiple states then one keybind can apply to multiple buttons.
For example, I have 1-5 bound on my main actionbar. So the first five keys when I hold down Ctrl, Alt, nothing, or shapeshift all have the 1-5 keybinds. It’s very nice and saves time instead of having to do every button in a bar’s states.
Things To Remember
Well, she tried it. So now I have to hold up my end of the deal and write her a guide for it.
Here you go, Miss Rith.
Installation
This is the same for all AddOns. There’s a video guide from Ask Apadwe and my older guide still applies.
There are multiple parts to Macaroon. You’ll want to download the following components:
- Macaroon (link) This is the base AddOn.
- This comes with Macaroon Profiles, so make sure that folder is in your AddOns folder as well. You’ll need it if you want to save a layout for use between characters or as a backup.
- Macaroon Xtras (link) This gives you the bag and menu bars.
- Macaroon Spell and Macro Binder (link) This lets you easily keybind macros and spells.
- I don’t use this, but Macaroon Alerts (link) lets you move the alert and loot windows.
It’s not that exciting once you install it. But we’ll make it exciting, I promise! To help, I have a cat.
Essentially you have two things showing: the menu bar and the bag bar. First we have to disable the Blizzard bars because they’re going to be in the way, and the whole point of this is so you don’t have to use them.
You can use “/mac menu” or you can left-click on the minimap button (it’s a red M).
Disable the Blizzard Main and Vehicle Bars by unchecking their boxes, then get into the configuration mode by either typing “/mac config” or right-clicking on the minimap icon and choosing “Bar Edit” mode. Nothing exciting happens until you mouse-over one of the bars and *gasp* IT TURNS BLUE! This means you’re in config mode, so right-click on either bar to get into the tools console.
The tools window is a complex-looking console, and right now it might be a little intimidating. Don’t touch anything yet (we don’t want to mess with the bag or menu bars for now) and just click on the “Create New Bar” button in the lower left corner. The text above it should turn from yellow to green, asking you what kind of bar you want to create. You already have a bag and menu bar, so let’s make a Standard Bar.The text will go back to yellow and you’ll have a new bar listed called Bar 1. If you look below the console there should be a semi-transparent blue rectangle. That’s an actionbar. Now we get to do fun stuff to it!
Button Controls
The lower right part of the console is for adding and changing buttons. You can click on anything here and little arrows will pop up on the left and right, letting you change the values. The picture below has the buttons part selected.
Curr State: If you have a shapeshift/stance bar or a bar with multiple pages, you can flip between them here. For example, if I wanted to change my Tree of Life bar without blowing my cooldown (or if I wasn’t resto at the moment) I could change the bar to be in the Tree of Life state while I’m configuring it. It’ll pop back to whatever state it was in previously when I leave config mode.The padding speaks for itself. That’s how much padding you want between buttons in a row or column.
For now, we’ll leave those settings alone and give this little bar some buttons. Click on the right arrow until it has 12 buttons.
Exactly, Macaroon Cat. Long lines are boring at both the supermarket and on your interface. You can change the number of columns on a bar to change how the buttons stack up. It works just like a multiplication table.
A 12 button line in 3 columns becomes a 3x4 rectangle. Likewise if we have 2 columns, we have a 2x6 rectangle.Personally I use an 18 button actionbar that’s 3x6 for most of my spells and abilities, but you can have however many buttons you want.
Also if the number of columns = the number of buttons, it’ll be a regular line. If there’s only one column, then it’s a vertical line. You also might have noticed that if you don’t have a nice divisible number of buttons and columns (like a 3x4 block with only 10 buttons) the extra buttons will be centered on the top row. So whatever you do to the bar, it will still look centered and clean.
You can also change the number of columns in your bag and menu bars, just in case you want to change their look as well or need to make them fit into a certain space.
Visual Controls
There’s an actionbar with buttons on it, but it doesn’t look that great and Macaroon Cat doesn’t seem to be too enthused. Time to make it pretty. Note that all of this applies to your menu and bag bars too, so you can pretty them up.
Scale: changes the size of the bar, with 1.00 being the default size. Anything smaller gives you smaller buttons (all scaled down) and anything larger gives you larger buttons (again, all scaled up).
Alpha: transparency, with 100% being totally opaque (not see-through). Anything less makes it more transparent.
AlphaUp and AlphaUp Speed: how quickly the actionbar will pop into full alpha, if at all. You can use this so that a bar is faded out partially or entirely, then it goes into full alpha when something happens. For example, I have a bar with potions that’s semi-transparent when I’m not in combat, but it shows up fully when I’m in combat. You can change it to trigger on mouseover too.
Strata: If you have bars on top of one another, this dictates which will cover what. It’s like layers. I don’t overlap my bars so I don’t make use of this.
Autohide: Hides the bar when it’s not in use and doesn’t have any buttons (good for a vehicle or pet bar if you’re not a pet class).
Showgrid: Shows or hides empty buttons on the bar.
SnapTo and SnapTo Pad: If you have bars close to each other, you can make them snap together so they move as one bundle. I usually have my bag bar snapped onto the menu bar since they tend to move together when I’m configuring things. You can change the padding between the actionbars when they do snap.
Hidden: Hides or shows the actionbar (you won’t be able to access it outside of the config mode)
Dual Spec: Changes this actionbar when you switch specs in dual spec. If this is disabled, the bar won’t change regardless of your spec. Normally you’d only have this enabled on your main actionbar or actionbars since your bags and the menu bar don’t affect your spec.
Shape: Changes the shape of the bar.- Linear = lines with rows/columns
- Circle = circle of buttons, where you can change their orientation and the arc of the circle. It also has presets for making arcs of buttons.
- Circle + one = same as the circle, but with a lone button in the middle
Bar States
Because druids have the most shapeshift forms or stances of any class, we will have the most bar states. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. You’ll have a state for each shapeshift form plus caster form, and you can opt to have a state for when you’re prowling. I use all of them because I cover all specs, but you can tailor this as you please.
I use the preset states to keep it relatively simple. There are three types of major states for a bar and eleven minor states. Think of them like conditions in a macro. “If X, then the bar does Y.”- Paged Bar: Like pages in a book, this gives an actionbar six pages that you can flip through using a keybind. You can change that keybind in the default Keybinding interface.
- Stance: This is what we druids use. This will give you a state for each of your class’s stances based on what spells you have. Druids will have Cat, Bear, Tree of Life, Moonkin, Travel Form, Flight Form, and Aquatic Form. But you will only have access to the states you can shapeshift into. If you’re a level 15 druid, you will only have Cat and Bear states.
- Pet: It will put your pet buttons onto this bar. To be able to see your pet’s minimum number of buttons, you need to have 10 buttons on this bar. More is cool, but fewer means you’ll be missing abilities.
- Prowl and Stealth: Druids use Prowl. Rogues use Stealth. Yes, there is a difference.
- Vehicle: When you get into a vehicle, the bar will show those controls if you assign them here.
- Possess: You’re forcibly shapeshifted (like the last boss in Drak’Tharon Keep, or if bitten on Blood Queen Lana’thel) this will show your “new” abilities if you assign them here.
- Fishing: Shows when you have a fishing pole equipped.
- Combat: Shows when you’re in combat.
- Reaction: Changes if your target is hostile.
- Group Bar: Changes if you’re in a party or in a raid.
- Alt, Shift, Ctrl Key: Changes if you’re holding down one of those modifiers (no combos).
Druids will probably want the Stance and Prowl states enabled on their main actionbar. To cycle through the states on your actionbar in config mode, just left click it. The little title of the bar at the top will change to tell you what state you’re looking at currently. You have to manually add buttons to each bar state, because they act like individual “bars” just tucked onto one element.So if you want all of your shapeshift states to have 12 buttons, you have to flip through the Curr State bit and add buttons to each of them. Tedious? Not really, since you just have to click the arrow to make/delete buttons. And they line up oh so nicely.
Meta Bar Options
These are mostly minor options that speak for themselves. You can hide the bar in combat, lock it so you can’t throw it across the screen by accident (or choose to have a key to let you move it outside of config mode), enable/disable spell tooltips on the bar, show enhanced tooltips when in config mode, and toggle spell outlining when things are activated.The Spell Activation Glow is awesome, and it works with the new visual alerts Blizzard gave us. When you’re in Tree of Life form, Wrath and the other special tree spells light up like holiday lights. On my hunter, his Focus Fire gets shiny when his pet has 5 stacks of Frenzy. It’s very handy, but some people might not want it enabled.
Types of Buttons (Some Troubleshooting)
Macaroon is very sneaky with how it handles different things on the buttons. You see, there are actually three types of buttons: macro, action id, and pet id. When you’re changing out abilities and things on the bars, you might run into a problem where a button won’t “accept” what you’re trying to put in it. Fret not – we can fix that!
To go into button edit mode, type “/mac edit” or go to “Button Edit” from the minimap menu.By default, every button is a macro. Macaroon auto-writes it and it doesn’t take up any space on your normal macro window, so don’t fret. When you click and drag your spells from the spellbook or items from your bags, they’ll go into the macro buttons with no issue. It’s simple.
When you click and drag macros from your actual macro window, they’ll go into action id buttons. These are created automatically, but unlike macro buttons they have unique numbers. Anything from 1-121 is part of the default UI (those are assigned to the default ugly bars). Anything at or above 222 is part of a vehicle bar on the default interface and won’t be nice when holding macros you create. For a vehicle bar or possession bar, you’d want to make sure the buttons (even when empty) have action id’s at or above 222.
The pet id is probably obvious: it holds abilities that would normally go on the default pet bar. They’re also numbered, but only go from 1 to 10. They can ONLY hold pet abilities, so you probably want a unique pet bar for your UI. When you make a pet bar, the buttons should automatically pop up with pet abilities in them if you’re a hunter or warlock or have a controllable pet out.To change a button’s type, just left click it to cycle through pet/action/macro. To change the number of a pet or action button, right-click it and use the slider on the right side of the window to change the number.
You might have issues when moving written macros around with normal spells, so if a button is being stubborn, check what type of button it is. It should only take a few clicks to change.
Keybinding
You’ll never have an issue using this part of the mod. Seriously. Never. It’s so easy, so simple, so beautifully streamlined. To enter keybinding mode, type “/mac bind” or “Edit Binds” on the minimap menu.
To bind a button, just hover your cursor over it, press the key you want to bind, and that’s it. To clear a keybind, just press Esc when hovering over it. I’m not kidding, that’s all you do. You can bind multiple keys to a button, or if a bar has multiple states then one keybind can apply to multiple buttons.
For example, I have 1-5 bound on my main actionbar. So the first five keys when I hold down Ctrl, Alt, nothing, or shapeshift all have the 1-5 keybinds. It’s very nice and saves time instead of having to do every button in a bar’s states.
Things To Remember
- If buttons are being stubborn, check the type and/or number.
- You have to add buttons to each bar state individually, but it’s not hard.
- Bar states can let you combine different types of bars into one.
- Use columns to change shapes of linear bars.
- Keybinding is easy.
- Ice writes REALLY long, detailed AddOn posts.
