Remember that small but nifty AddOn ErrorMonster, which would redirect UI error messages like “spell not ready” and such to whatever frame you wanted it to?
Well, from the very same author, Rabbit, comes another little but oh-so-handy AddOn of a similar purpose, AuraToChat. Its function is summed up in its name: It allows you to redirect information about gaining or losing an aura to wherever you want it to be.
Whether you want to keep track easily who in your group is entering or leaving your paladin’s aura range or to be alerted when you get close, too close, to some boss’ nasty tricks like Shirrak’s Inhibit Magic, AuraToChat enables you to get the warning where you want it and where you can see it best.
The first screenshot to the right just shows you the Strange Aura you get in Terokkar Forest’s Cenarion Thicket, redirected to a custom Parrot notification area. Again, straight and to the point, no needless bloat, these are perhaps the most defining traits of a Rabbit-written utility.
The configuration is accordingly attuned to the KISS Principle (Keep It Simple, Son!), as displayed in my now trusty RockConfig GUI and shown to the left.
You add an Aura by typing it in the top textbox, select a colour, hit enter, and there you go. As a nice additional touch, by default, AuraToChat will cycle through the colour palette all on its own, shifting through soft pastels for each additional Aura you add.
In order to avoid unnecessary bloat and due to the flexible nature of AuraToChat, though, it doesn’t have any preconfigured Auras. There could probably be some room to write presets for player-auras, instances and raids, but that’s adding a lot of bloat to a lean AddOn for stuff many players will never use. Perhaps one day someone will write a couple of default .lua files power-users could import for that purpose, but again, adding what you need is so simple, quick and straightforward that AuraToChat does very well without that.
The second screenshot to the right is very similar to ErrorMonster’s own, the Output selection, which will offer you a lot of options for notification ranging from Raid Warning to Popups, also recognizing certain popular AddOns like the mainstream Combat Text Scrollers, SpellAlerts and BossMods. Obviously, only the available options are displayed, that’s part of the Rabbit polish.
In summary, AuraToChat is a highly valuable complement for two kind of players, those who want to tweak interface and display to the max, and players needing to have important game information displayed where they will see it rather where the default Blizzard UI puts it. No needless bells and whistles, no creeping featurism – as always coming from this author, you have a very small tool with a strictly defined purpose, redirecting Aura gains and losses to where you want to read them. Something AuraToChat fulfills extremely well.
