Prat 3.0

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In loving memory of Jon Akthar (Sylvanaar)

Hello WoW community, I'm LuciferCatnip, Sylvanaar was my coworker and my mentor. It goes without saying that Jon was an amazingly talented individual. He always seemed to know everything... but he once said to me "It's not about knowing the answers, it's about asking the right questions", he always challenged me to ask me the right questions until I would arrive at the answer on my own terms. Jon was also a champion of the open source movement, and so with special thanks to Gil from Curseforge as well as Sylvanaar's family, there's no better way to honor Sylvanaar's legacy than to keep his project going strong in the community.

If you'd like to help maintain Prat, please reach out to MysticalOS or LuciferCatnip directly. Thank you so much.

About

Prat-3.0 is a chat enhancement addon for World of Warcraft.

It is made up of 30+ smaller "modules" which each provide additional functionality, and can be enabled or disabled individually.

In game, type /prat for a menu. Or use the icon on one of the many data broker hosts.

Prat has just about every feature you can think of, and then some. Really. When I get some more time, I'll try and put together a full list (Even I have lost count)

(Thanks to Dreamsight for this partial list)

Sync your chat settings across your account (Beta)
AI powered spam filter (Beta)
Change arrows, buttons, mouse scroll for chat scroll, scroll speed
you can add player color per channel, color per level, color per class
timestamps (styled)
whether to show timestamp (what format the timestamp should be in)
whether to show players level
you can select the option for channel "stickys" (last channel you used you auto use when hitting enter, that sort of thing – or last thing someone said)
change the looks of the chat's editbox - as well as where it appears (you can even undock it and move it to where you'd like it to be)
chat fading, fading delay
You can change the font to a list of fonts, add an outline to it, monochrome it (if you don’t mind messing with files a bit you could probably even add other fonts to that list)
change the chat frame/chat box appearance
Keep chat history between game sessions
Set channel abbreviations
set brackets and color(or something instead of brackets)round player/lvl
alt invite option (press keyboard “alt” button and click on the player’s name to auto inv them)
raid icon
invite links - click them to invite the person
URL copying
Full chat copying + copy button
Click timestamp to copy line
Configurable alerts when your name or other word is mentioned
enables tell target /tt which whispers your target
Alias options - make macros into short commands
See names of players Alt characters
change chat sounds (incoming and outgoing as well as per channel)
Achievements info and grats
Full chat search and search box
Customizable filters for advanced users
Show item icon next to item links and player class icon next to player names
Icon-only options for newcomers chat
Optional flashing or font color change for chat tabs when a new message comes in.

You can enable/disable all Prat modules - don't have to have the ones you don't use running

While trying to reduce resource utilization, it is also important to note that some people prefer the features, and don't care that an addon uses 500k more.

Comments

RDW
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#4256 RDW

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Posted Jun 23, 2018
In reply to sylvanaar:

I'll have to agree that the implementation of this feature was met with some... awkwardness on my side. Here's the key issues:

1) Users may assume the "new [grats] feature" was added by Blizzard, so
2) almost everyone is going to click it once (or more) to "find out what it does". Embarrassment ensues, because
3) the predefined "grats" messages are somewhat cringeworthy, and
4) it is not immediately clear to both the user and others that this is an addon-generated message, nor
5) are all the messages clearly congratulatory in nature, leading to
6) other players assuming the user is... mentally challenged or a bot/spammer of ambiguous/pointless messages, while
7) the user tries to figure out what just happened and where the silly messages came from, while
8) disabling the feature requires them to not only find out it was Prat who "did it", but also
9) where in the entirety of its menus it can be disabled

I mean, I didn't even know Prat HAD settings (because I was happy with the defaults, until this feature came along, so there was no need to change anything).

I'm also an addon developer, so I was able to figure out what was going on reasonably fast. Others, however, I've had to point towards the cause of the sudden "grats epidemy". I play on some of the bigger realms and people were literally asking in Trade chat what's up with the weird messages, repeatedly. It's almost a meme at this point.

On a final note, I'm unclear on the purpose of the feature in general. Why do I need it in an addon that is useful to me for changing the default chat frame's behaviour and extending it with practical features such as copy/paste and URL linking? This one doesn't quite seem to fit, IMHO.

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sylvanaar
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#4257 sylvanaar

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Posted Jun 26, 2018
In reply to Cakechart:

I am going to try to address your concerns without removing the feature.

I will do 2 things:

1) Change the "grats" link text to say "say grats"

2) Make the link less enticing by changing the color. I admit I feel compelled to click it in its current state.

I will consider a 3rd change to set the default behavior to just say "grats <name>" instead of my cheesy sayings (which I would love users to improve)

As for the other points, I always had an "anti-spam" take on Prat's features. At the same time, I wrote this one for myself - so I wanted people to use it to see what happened.

I have never encountered anyone using it and I am on a very large server, so I haven't had the experience you mention yet. I'd like to get more feedback before I change it again though. I want to resolve this before BFA however, so I'll have to make a call sometime soon.

Thanks for your support!

Last edited by sylvanaar: Jun 26, 2018

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RDW
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#4261 RDW

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Posted Jun 27, 2018
In reply to sylvanaar:

I'm not saying you NEED to change it, just that it has been... interesting. I've seen those messages posted on some of the largest realms (Outland-EU and Silvermoon-EU), though I will concede that maybe it was merely a coincidence.

The messages seemed totally random and I've even had guildmates ask me what the hell I was talking about after clicking the [grats] link on some of their more pointless achievements. I guess it can be funny if you know about the feature, but otherwise it's just... weird for everyone involved :)

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touch_4597
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#4234 touch_4597

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Posted Jun 4, 2018
At the moment, I am using "Leatrix Plus" anyway, so I do not mind to have to use a second addon for what I would like to suggest to you:

Amongst other things it has the ability to "hide the combat log". It does so by rename the combat log to a blank space and reduces the size of the text and the corresponding tab to a minimum. Then it fades the tab out. This way it looks like the combat log is gone.

Maybe it would be a nice idea to implement a similar ability in Prat, too.

Last edited by touch_4597: Jun 4, 2018

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touch_4597
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#4235 touch_4597

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Posted Jun 4, 2018
In reply to bezat22:

Also, with the module "Substitutions" loaded, Prat´s settings are not longer available via "/prat". Even if I try to open the settings via "ESC - Interface - Addons", the settings in the second tab ("Chat formatieren" in german) are not available.

I admit that I have this issue since sometime of the beginning of Legion and should have reported it way more early.

Last edited by touch_4597: Jun 4, 2018

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sylvanaar
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#4258 sylvanaar

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Posted Jun 26, 2018
In reply to bezat22:

Thanks for the input. Historically Prat has never done anything to the combat log. This is really for concerns that were mostly valid around the time Prat 2 was written (2009ish). I think for now I'll just stay the course and leave it alone so that other addons can do what they want to it.

Thanks for your support!

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Forge_User_94142338
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#4232 Forge_User_94142338

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Posted Jun 3, 2018
Feature Request.

I was wondering if I can request a feature? I love prat but feel it could be made just a little bit better. There used to be and old addon called chatter that had an awesome feature. A Groupsay (/gr) command to talk to your group, whether that's battleground, raid, or party. Would this be possible to integrate into Prat? Thanks.

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sylvanaar
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#4233 sylvanaar

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Posted Jun 3, 2018
In reply to Forge_User_94142338:

Prat has always had that feature. It's called smartgroups, and its part of the ChannelSticky module.

The command is /smrt , but if you don't like that command you can make your own using the Alias module.

/alias /gr /smrt

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Forge_User_94142338
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#4236 Forge_User_94142338

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Posted Jun 4, 2018
In reply to sylvanaar:

Oh wow. Thanks. Never new that. I knew I could make aliases but didn't realize the smartgroup was what I was looking for.

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LFGKilikk
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#4241 LFGKilikk

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Posted Jun 5, 2018
In reply to Forge_User_94142338:

FYI - /i is built-in for raid/party but not sure if it works for battlegrounds or not.

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serb1tar
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#4247 serb1tar

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Posted Jun 10, 2018
In reply to ray_smith:

It does, /i works for any group/raid/team you may be in.

Last edited by serb1tar: Jun 10, 2018

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sylvanaar
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#4251 sylvanaar

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Posted Jun 10, 2018
In reply to lilikari:

Personally, I use /i myself

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touch_4597
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#4230 touch_4597

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Posted Jun 2, 2018
With Prat enabled, I am no longer able to turn off the whisper channel in a chat window. Hopefully that is getting fixed soon; I have to use another addon meanwhile.

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sylvanaar
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#4231 sylvanaar

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Posted Jun 2, 2018
In reply to bezat22:

Fixed, thanks for reporting.

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milotic03
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#4214 milotic03

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Posted May 28, 2018
@ sylvanaarHi i have a problem with achievements grats since the new updates. To do rbgs people want you link via whispers your achievement and prat send achievement + date + grats in this whispers

Last edited by milotic03: May 28, 2018

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sylvanaar
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#4216 sylvanaar

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Posted May 28, 2018
In reply to cancerberus:

It doesn't send that, only you see it, so you shouldn't worry - I should probably disable adding that info when displaying outbound whispers though

Last edited by sylvanaar: May 28, 2018

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sylvanaar
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#4219 sylvanaar

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Posted May 28, 2018
In reply to cancerberus:

Looks like it was adding the info to the wrong whisper - outgoing instead of incoming. Fixed in the new build.

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milotic03
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#4221 milotic03

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Posted May 28, 2018
In reply to sylvanaar:

oh, ok thank you very much for your reply

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mathynal

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#4213 Posted May 28, 2018

Hello, I have a problem with the update when I receive mail in my box to the letter I do not see it anymore. How to solve the problem? I still disable the addon to confirm that the update was the problem.

Ps : The icon came back after deactivation / reactivation of the addon can you still look into the worries? or if it starts again, thanks in advance

Last edited by mathynal: May 28, 2018

sylvanaar
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#4217 sylvanaar

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Posted May 28, 2018
In reply to mathynal:

If I can reproduce I'll fix it, but I have gotten mail recently, and Prat doesn't do anything really with the mail - but you never know.

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