LunarSphere User Manual

My official user manual for LunarSphere is, well ... not finished. However, a wonderful user of LunarSphere decided to create a user manual for LunarSphere on her blog, and for that, I send out a huge THANK YOU! to Kae. Here is a link to her user manual, with her permission:

http://dreambound-druid.blogspot.com/2009/03/lunarsphere.html 

The following information is to help start you off with some simple tricks and provide some answers to the more commonly asked questions. Until I get my version of the user manual finished, the above blog post and the FAQ below are what there is to offer. This is in NO ORDER whatsoever. I did this so that you can read something, go "Huh? What does that even mean?" and then continue to the area that talks about the thing you go confused on, then you will hopefully go BACK and re-read the thing you didn't understand. Yes, I'm tricking you to read this 2-3 times. ^_^

Upon starting LunarSphere for the first time, you will be asked if you want to load a class template, the generic template, or start from scratch. Here's what each options means:

Class Template:

Every class has a template. This template is basically EVERY 1-70 (some classes have up to level 80) spells and abilities that your character currently has, layed out in various pre-made menu buttons. An example template is the priest template, with a menu for buffs, menu for attack spells, a menu for healing, and a menu for other misc. abilities. There is also a mount button, food and drink buttons, potion buttons, and trinket buttons. As a reminder, the template has every spell that your character currently knows, at least up to level 70. This means that if you are level 20, you will only find a few buttons on your template and you will not see spell buttons for Prayer of Mending or other higher-level spells. Some templates don't have level 80 spells on them yet, but will be updated in the future to have them. Obviously, not everyone will like the template for their class, in which case I encourage you to edit your layout! Drag stuff to new locations, delete actions off the buttons, and create new menus and setup middle and right click actions. You have a lot of flexability with this addon.

Generic Template:

This template loads the five bottom buttons of the sphere with the 1st and 2nd trinket actions, your mount button, a food and drink button, and a potion button. All users can use this as a base and expand upon it, adding more spells, removing buttons, and of course, swapping stuff around.

Start from scratch:

This is just a blank sphere. You have 10 empty buttons around the sphere that you can assign any action to, or convert into a menu button (which provides 12 more buttons that pop out of the menu button) via the Button Settings window. This is really meant for users who are comfortable with LunarSphere to the point that they can just make the sphere the way they want it to be. Remember, LunarSphere can always be edited, no matter if you start with a template or not.

How to make a menu button:

Fairly simple thing, really. Remember, menu buttons can only be created on the 10 main buttons that encircle the sphere. You cannot make a menu button out of one of the child submenu buttons of another menu. When you have "Edit Button" mode on, you have two options:

1. Pick up a spell, item, or macro that you want to use for the menu image, so that it is attached to your mouse. Then, place your mouse over one of the 10 main buttons that circle around the sphere, hold CTRL and left-click the button. The image will be applied to the button and the border of the button will change to blue (default color, or whatever color you menu button borders is set to) and 12 new child submenu buttons will appear next to the menu button. Also, don't forget: CTRL right-click will DELETE the button.
2. Click one of the 10 main buttons you want to convert into a menu button. This will bring up the Button Settings window. For the left, middle, or right click action, select "Open Menu" from the dropdown list of button actions to assign. After this has been set, click the "SAVE" button to save your choice. The image that was already assigned to the left-click action will be applied to the button (if no image was there, you'll just have a black icon) and the border of the button will change to blue (default color, or whatever color you menu button borders is set to) and 12 new child submenu buttons will appear next to the menu button.

How to delete a button (slow and quick method):

Honestly, I doubt you want the slow method, but I'll list it anyway. This will clear or wipe a button for you. If you want to set the total amount of buttons to be displayed in a menu to a number smaller than 12, refer to the "How to change the button count of the main buttons or submenu buttons" note. As with all button editing, make sure LunarSphere is in "Edit Button" mode:

1. Click the button to bring up its Button Settings window. For the left, middle, and right click actions, select "None" from the dropdown list of actions. Once all have been set to "None" ... click save and your button will become slightly transparent, indicating that it is empty.
2. Move your mouse over the button you want to wipe. While holding CTRL, right-click the button to erase it.

How to turn on/off "Edit Button" mode:

If you move your mouse over the sphere itself, you will see two shortcuts appear inside the tooltip. CTRL right-click will bring up the LunarSphere Settings window, where you can turn on and off "Edit Button" mode near the bottom of the "Sphere" tab. Your other option is to hold CTRL and left-click the sphere to bring up a little drop-down menu. Near the bottom of the menu, you can check/uncheck "Edit Buttons" from there. This is a very important thing to know since you can't use the buttons to do ANYTHING if you're in "Edit Button" mode. Another things to notice is that if you are in "Edit Button" mode and you happen to get pulled into combat, LunarSphere will switch out of "Edit Button" mode for the duration of the combat and then once combat is over, you'll be back into "Edit Button" mode.

How to do middle or right click actions:

Two ways to do this too! As usual, please make sure you are in "Edit Button" mode.

1. (For drag and drop stuff) Pick up a spell, item, or macro that you wish to assign and release the mouse button so that the action is attached to your mouse still. Now, move your mouse over the button you want to assign it to and click your left, middle, or right mouse button. Viola, you're done.
2. (For advanced editing, which is required for special button types) Click the button you want to edit to show its Button Settings window. You'll see a left, middle, and right click icon, each with a dropdown list and an "assignment box" to the right of the button, and a keybind button. If you drag a spell, item, or macro to the assignment box, you assigned it to that button's click action. If you want your left, middle, or right mouse button to use a special button type, such as "Apply best Instant Poison to Main-hand Weapon" you will want to select the action you want to assign from the dropdown list of the respective click icon. Important: Your changes don't take effect unless you click the save button to, um, save your changes! So, click the save button.

How to do advanced editing on a button:

While in "Edit Button" mode, if you click the sphere or any of the buttons around the sphere (or, if you press the keybind of a button on the sphere), you will bring up its Button Settings window. This area lets you assign click actions for the left, middle, and right click buttons, keybinds, special "Button Types" from the dropdown list, and spacing between other child buttons. If you are editing one of the 10 main buttons around the sphere, you get a bunch more options for menu opening styles, stance support (which filters down to the submenu buttons of that menu button, if its is a menu button), show/hide in and out of combat, and more. Feel free to experiment with this data, it's fun.

How to make your tooltips not show so much text:

Get into the LunarSphere Settings window and you'll find some tabs on the left side. I advise checking out every tab while you're there and finding out all the crazy stuff this addon does. But right now, focus on the "Tooltips" tab. In here, you can show normal tooltips (full details), just the name, a "simple" tooltip (just white text, basically), or nothing at all. You can also modify what parts are shown on the tooltip in the "Tooltip description" section. Don't want to see the green "use" tooltips? Turn them off. Want to just see short green tooltip text, hide the long text then. You can do the same for the yellow text and, well, you'll find out when you check the tab. Lots of fun stuff in there.

How to make the sphere's icon match your selected sphere button's "show icon" setting:

I admit, this is odd. First, you click the sphere (while in "Edit Button" mode) to bring up the sphere's "Button Settings" window. This is not the same as the LunarSphere Settings window... this will let you assign actions to the sphere itself. Near the bottom, you'll notice that you can set the icon to be shown on the "button" ... and while the sphere can be used as a button, it is still technically the "sphere." So, set your setting for the icon to be used from your left, middle, or right click actions and save. Next, visit the LunarSphere Settings window and click the Skins tab. On the "Skin to change" dropdown, make sure it says "Sphere" so that you can see the specific sphere skinning options. In this section, you'll see a check box labeled "Use sphere click icon" ... guess what this does? Turn it on and watch your mind explode. While you're here, check out all the other skin options your sphere can have. Yeah, you can even import your own files. Watch your mind explode.

What is the debug tab?

It's a tab that has debug features.

... oh come on.

Fine. The debug tab is where you can disable all of your addons (except LunarSphere) and reload your UI, to see if an issue you're having is being caused by LunarSphere or some other addon. This same button will then enable all addons and reload your UI when you check it out next. You can also do an Item Printout which will dump some stuff into your chat window, in case you are interested if LunarSphere is finding that low level water that you sworn that you had and adding it to the drink catagory which is used for the "Use best/worst drink" features. You can also wipe button data (this will reset your sphere's buttons to ALL EMPTY), or wipe ALL data (this will reset your LunarSphere to "Fresh out of the wrapper and never used before"-state. Don't press this unless you want to start over from the beginning. Occasionally, when I'm doing beta tests on new versions, new feature will be added to this tab as well because those features don't have a home in the other tabs yet. The "Delete Export Templates" will delete all saved templates on all characters for LunarSphere (not your sphere layout, just the template you you might save SAVED). Also, the "Stacks to Trade" option lets you specify how many stacks of stuff you trade when you use the "Trade item" button types within LunarSphere. You'll notice one feature that is there (as of the first public release) which is "Force minimap as sphere texture" which will ... force the minimap to be the sphere texture. This is very experimental and probably won't play well with many addons. Lastly, there is the "Show Debug Tooltip" feature. This is used by me, and can be used by you if you are having issues with your buttons and I need you to run some tests to figure out the problem. I basically give you some code and you paste it into that box and it will give you debug information in a special tooltip that appears when you hold CTRL and ALT and mouse-over a button in LS. If the code is malformed, you won't be able to see the tooltip. Happy now?

Yes.