Tip Tac (and a new UI shot)

First off, I'd like to apologize to anyone who's been checking for updates (I'm assuming very few people have been). I've had some things going on in my life that made getting motivation to do much of anything nigh impossible. I would look at my blog and think, "Damn, I really need to update that.." and then go off and do something else. The fact that we just got a new Wii was not helping my attention span in the least bit either. So my sincerest apologies to those who are actively following this blog. /cookies?

What is Tip Tac?

Tip Tac is an addon that allows you to customize your tooltip frame both graphically, informationally, and locationally. (I am making up words left and right apparently, according to the little red dots under half of that sentence.) 

What makes Tip Tac worth downloading?

Well, firstly - you can move where your tooltips show up, which is particularly nice for those of us with pretty customized UIs. The default tooltip shows up in the bottom right hand corner of your screen, but with Tip Tac, you can move that anchor anywhere on the screen you want. Or you can have it set to show up wherever your cursor is, making the tooltip's anchor based on your mouse. It's really pretty versatile in that sense. On top of that, you can have it set for how you want it being shown while in combat. For me personally, I have it set so that if I'm hovering over a unit frame such as Stuf or Grid (which I usually am since I'm healing), I don't get tooltip spam from it. However, if I hover over an actual player character or NPC in combat, I'll still see the tooltip.

Another fancy feature of Tip Tac is the ability to see who someone is targeting, or who is targeting that person or NPC. I tend to use this to see if someone is spying on my character without actually targeting someone. Is that badly geared paladin (you know, the ones gemming for spell power, NOT using the Libram of Renewal, not specced for Divine Sacrifice...) that's hovering next to me peeking at my gear? I don't have to actually target them to see if they are targeting me - I can just hover over their character and see who they're targeting. Also particularly nice when you're tanking and you want to know if that mage that just blew all his cooldowns on trash is targeting the mob you're not and is about to play nice with the dirt.

Finally, the two features I probably love most about it - the talents/spec indicator and the guild rank title. I LOVE being able to hover over someone while running lagging around in Dalaran and being able to know their spec immediately. Some classes you can tell their spec just from looking at their gear (like say... fury warriors, ret paladins, frost DKs, etc.), but some classes can be somewhat more enigmatic - like shamans with water shield (are they resto or elemental? or just a terrible enhance shaman?), mages in general, hunters, healing priests, non-frost DKs, etc. I love being able to see that in a glance. It's also nice to know exactly how bad someone is in a glance if they're 0/0/71.

The guild rank title is really just something I like because I'm a silly person. My guild has some silly titles because our guild name is Cosbowned because.. well Cosby Owned. All our guild titles are based around something Cosby related. Our GM rank is Mr. Huxtable. Raiding rank is Theo. Alt rank is either Rudy or J-E-L-L-O, depending on how lazy our officers (Pudding Pop rank name, by the way) are. I love seeing the silly guild ranks of other guilds. I know there's a guild on my server that has guild ranks based entirely on hugging. Another is based off of Super Mario NPCs (Koopa Trooper, Hammer Bros, etc). I am a silly person and I like to see other people being silly.

What are its drawbacks?

For a period of time (maybe a month or so?) I was entirely unable to use it at all. It was being incredibly buggy in regards to my unit frame tooltips and I had no idea why. I've said in the past, that I'm no lua expert, so I couldn't figure it out on my own. It drove me nuts playing without it. I got so accustomed to having pretty tooltips, that the default ones made me a saaaaaad panda. I tried other ones, but they felt so clunky in comparison. Somehow it decided to start playing nice about a month later for reasons beyond my understanding (I don't think I had changed anything with my UI at all between working - not working - working again). 

So... it's buggy. Sometimes it tells me that a mage is specced into unholy because it's still got the information from some death knight in the talents cache. It can be really buggy like that, but so far (knock on wood) I haven't had problems since it suddenly decided to start working again about 9 months ago.

Additionally, I have been having issues with it in regards to Dominos. I don't get a full tooltip for my skills/talents when they're on my bars. I get a very abbreviated "Skill Name  Skill Rank #" and that's it. It's frustrating when I'm actually trying to see something specific, like the cast speed of my Holy Lights when I'm fully buffed and all hasted up. I'm not sure if this is a Tip Tac problem or a Dominos problem though, because I've had conflicting reports from friends. One has both, and has no problems at all. Another only has Dominos, and has the problem. I'm leaning towards it being a Dominos problem more than Tip Tac, but I haven't been able to confirm this 100%.

Should I get it?

Are you obsessive about knowing if someone is targeting you (and thus, potentially inspecting you)? Probably. Do you have a customized UI and really need to move the default tooltips? There's a good chance. (There are other tooltip addons that allow you to move the tooltip, but retain the default tooltip look.) Do you like pretty things? Yeah, I'd suggest it. Obviously, tooltips are not likely to make or break your UI, but it IS a nice finishing touch if you want something a little more refined. I love Tip Tac personally, and would have a hard time functioning without it at this point. If you can live without shiny, pretty tooltips, you can probably live without Tip Tac.

And now - my UI as of March 22, 2010. 

Addon next up for review? Deus Vox Encounters!