Features of LunarSphere

Honestly, LunarSphere does a lot of stuff. Some might be intimidated by the sheer amount of options it has, while others will dig right into it like a new toy to mess around with. It functions as an action bar replacement, a reagent stocker, a roleplaying tool, an information HUD, an auto-assignment bar, an auto-repairer, and a whole lot more. Of course, most of these extras can be disabled so that your copy of LunarSphere does just the stuff you need.

Feature Breakdown (On the outside)

The "Sphere" and its "Gauges"

LunarSphere was based upon the same "sphere" addon concepts that other addons such as Necrosis, Cryolysis, Serenity, Totemus, and others have used. Basically, you get a sphere looking object that has a "gauge" or circular bar that wraps around it that can be used to show your current health, mana, energy, rage, combo points, reputation, experience, target health and mana, pet health and mana ... even item counts if a max count is specified. The sphere also can have a text display in the center that also displays this type of information.

LunarSphere, however, differs from other traditional sphere addons by offering one OR two gauges that can be configured, or a setting to not show the gauges at all. The gauges in LunarSphere also offer many other events to watch than the standard sphere addon. The gauges, when combined with the sphere text as well, offer up to three different data events to watch on the sphere.

The 10 Main Buttons

Keeping with the concepts that other sphere addons used, LunarSphere has 10 buttons that circle around the sphere. However, unlike the other sphere addons, these buttons are not static and are treated like action bar buttons that can be assigned spells, items, and macros to the button's left, middle, and/or right mouse button clicks. Most sphere addons are static, meaning that each button is preset to a specific spell or ability. While this works wonderfully for a specific class (Necrosis, for example, is a sphere made JUST for warlocks), this doesn't work well for all classes, since a priest won't have warlock spells. Another sphere addon, iSphere, used the same mechanic of treating each button as an action bar button, but one could only assign one action per button, whereas with LunarSphere you get the left, middle, and right click actions.

Each of these 10 buttons, while LunarSphere is in "Edit Button" mode, can be clicked to bring up that individual button's Button Settings window. Within this window, users can really fine-tune the button with various advanced features, such as turning on stance support, converting the button into a menu button (more on that later), assigning special actions to the click actions, such as "Use strongest health potion" or "Use best flying mount" which will find the best option in your bags and automatically assign that item to the button, and many more options.

Menu Buttons

Each of the 10 main buttons can be turned into menu buttons. This will provide up to 12 new button that spawn out from the main button when the correct "Open Menu" click action is used. While other sphere addons have usually included anywhere between 2-4 menu buttons, LunarSphere provides 10. The 12 submenu buttons are also treated like action bar buttons and can be assigned spells, items, and macros just like the other buttons. Also, while in "Edit Button" mode, these buttons can be clicked to access the advanced Button Settings window where the user can modify most of the same options that the 10 main buttons have (except for the options strictly related to menu buttons, since the submenu buttons cannot be menu buttons as well). 

Auto-assign button actions

As mentioned earlier, a button can have special actions assigned to its left, middle, and right click actions. Typically, a sphere addon would have a few buttons that would auto-assign the best water, food, potion, mount, and bandage, depending on the character class the sphere was designed for. Some of these would have left and right click actions for the buttons (left click for the best health potion, right click for the best mana potion). LunarSphere provides various "Use strongest" and "Use weakest" button types for food, drink, healing potions, mana potions, rage potions, bandages, ground mounts, flying mounts, healthstones, mana gems, and more. To help with removing the elements of the main UI from within WOW, LunarSphere also has button types that link to all the menu bar buttons (character screen, social panel, quest log, spell book, etc.), the bag buttons (backpack, bag #1, bag #2, etc.), even trading buttons (will trade a specific item to a target, useful for lower level mages that want to share food and water in a party) and "apply to weapons" buttons (Lets you set, say, a poison or fishing item that will be applied to a weapon ... all done with one click). Pet users can also set a button to have the same actions as the pet action bar buttons, so they can use the LunarSphere buttons for their pet actions instead of their normal pet bar.

Button keybinding

All the click actions assigned to a button can be bound to keys. The keybind for action that is show on the button (typically the left click action) will also be shown on the top-right of the button. Of course, this can be turned off for those who don't want to see it.

Button cooldowns

Buttons can have the cooldown timer displayed as text, a grayed out cooldown effect, or both. There are several cooldown effects that can be applied to a button to suit most users' needs. Also, if you don't care about the global cooldown, you can turn that off as well and the buttons will only show "real" cooldowns.

Simple setup, complex setup, or pre-made templates

LunarSphere was built to be simple for the people who want it simple, and complex for the ones who like to tinker. The simple setup is in the form of assigning actions via the "drag-and-drop" (drag a spell, item, or macro to a button to set it to the left click action) and "click-to-pickup, click-to-drop" (drag a spell, item, or macro so that it is attached to your mouse cursor, then CLICK the LunarSphere button you would like to assign it to. The mouse button clicked will be the click action assigned, so right-clicking will assign the action to the right mouse button) methods. Also, every class has a pre-built template that will load every spell the user has onto the buttons. These templates were modeled after other sphere addons, so the priest template will look similar to the Serenity button layout, and the shaman layout will be similar to the Totemus layout. These templates only assign the spells the user has, so if the template is assigned to a low leverl character, the user will need to add new spells as they acquire them. Or, if they don't make any changes to their layout whatsoever, they can just reload the template and LunarSphere will wipe the button data and use the template again.

Skinning and color customization

For those who like to color coordinate their interface or would prefer different colored and/or shaped buttons, LunarSphere can be customized to fit most of your needs. Each gauge event can be recolored to a new color (don't like your health gauge in LunarSphere to be green? Make it blue, red, or any other color combination you want). The cooldown text, cooldown tint, out of mana, out of range, and out of mana and range colors for buttons can be changed. The sphere texture can be changed to one of over 15 different images, the player's 2D or 3D portrait, as well as recolored with a tint overlay. The buttons can be set to one of over 50 different images as well as color tinted for menu buttons and normal buttons. Shines can be added to the buttons and the sphere, the cooldown effect can be one of at least 5 different effects, the sphere and gauge borders can be changed and recolored as well. Even the tooltip border and background can be colorized to match your color preference. These are all the built-in options. Users also have the ability to import their own sphere, button, gauge, and border artwork into LunarSphere, skinning it with an endless amount of options.

Speeches (for roleplaying, information, or just being a jerk)

A lot of sphere addons would have fun little sayings when the user would bring out their mount, summon their pet, resurrect a party member, and more. These sayings were hard-coded into the addons and, if the user wanted to change them or add new ones, they would need to edit the addon's files to do so. Not with LunarSphere. Not only can you edit the speeches from within LunarSphere's settings window, you can create new speeches and scripts and assign them to specific spells and items. Want to tell the world that you're healing someone with Flash Heal? Create a script for it and you can. Want to let the people around you know who you are soulstoning? Create a script, let them know. LunarSphere has some built-in scripts for mounts (flying version and ground versions) as well as a few resurrect speeches for the various classes who can resurrect (or all, if you use the jumper cables). Speech scripts can also be made global for all of your characters to use, or kept local to that one character. Also, all speech scripts can be exported for other users to use if they choose to use the import feature.

Feature Breakdown (On the inside)

Reagent restocking

Most sphere addons have the ability to restock specific reagents the class might need. For priests, the Serenity addon would stock up on the candles needs for the group buffs, whereas ammo would be bought for hunters with the Venantes addon. LunarSphere takes it further by letting the user drag-and-drop any number of items they have in their inventory to the "Auto-restock" list within LunarSphere's settings, set a max amount to have in inventory, and the addon will take care of the rest. When visiting a vendor, LunarSphere will check your inventory and if you have less than the max amount you should have, LunarSphere will purchase up to the max amount you need. Useful for candle purchases (always make sure you have 20 candles), tailors can benefit by always having 20 of their favorite type of thread, and many more uses can be found. There is even an option in the Reagents settings that will let you top-off from your bank. So, if you want to make sure you always have at least 10 healing potions, drag a healing potion to the list, set the number to 10, make sure the bank restock option is turned on, and you'll always have at least 10 potions when you visit your bank (assuming you have them). This makes preparing for raids quick and easy, and saves you the trouble of accidently forgetting to stock up before you go while at your bank.

Auto-repairing

LunarSphere can automatically repair your inventory when you visit a repair NPC. You can also set LunarSphere up to withdraw from your guild bank, if you are allowed to. You'll also see a repair bill receipt if you set the option for it, and can always see the last 10 repairs made via a repair log which tracks the price, the day, and the type of funds (yours or guild)

Auto-selling junk items

Got junk? Let LunarSphere empty your bags for you when you visit a vendor. LunarSphere can be set to sell all gray weapons, gray armors, and gray non-equipable. If you want to keep all your gray weapons, you can turn that option off and LunarSphere will sell just armor and non-equipable items. LunarSphere ONLY sells GRAY (junk) items, so all your white, green, blue, purples, oranges and above will be fine. You can even turn on a receipt printout so you know just how much you made from that bag unloading.

Auction house features

While creating an all-class sphere addon, I realized that some classes will deal with the auction house more than others. Priests, mages, and warlocks might deal with a lot of tailoring and enchanting stuff, rogues with alchemy, shamans with leatherworking ... well, anyone with anything is more like it. So, to help with some of the professions that these classes will use, LunarSphere can take provide some AH features. Those who sell a LOT of stuff, or buy a LOT of stuff from the AH may benefit from the "Grab all auction mail with money attached" and "Grab all auction mail with items attached" features to get the money they made, or get the items they need for crafting, which can save several minutes of non-stop clicking if you have a lot of mails to grab. There is also the ability to show the total for all bids you placed in the Bids tab and the ability to show how much money you could make in your Auctions tab. Like most of the features in LunarSphere, this can all be turned off if you don't care.

User Interface hiding

Some users will use LunarSphere to add onto their interface, keeping their existing action bars, pet bars, player frame, etc.. Others will use LunarSphere as a REPLACEMENT for most of these options. If replacement is the option, LunarSphere has  you covered with the ability to hide the default UI's action bars, pet bars, stance bars, bottom artwork, menu bars, bag bars, player bar, and more. Just select the elements you don't want on your screen anymore from the list of choices (such as the gryphons), and they will be gone.

Minimap "Time" and "Coordinates"

Some users might want to see the current server time on the minimap, or maybe their own local time. Maybe the user wants to see their coordinates on the minimap as well. Well, LunarSphere can show that too, if you want.

Tooltips

The tooltips for LunarSphere can be small or large, depending on how many actions are assigned to a button. The tooltips will show all click actions, so if a button has a left and right click ability, the tooltip will show both actions' tooltips in one. You can see the full tooltip, just the name, just the white text, and a few other options to make the tooltips show the data you care about. Also, aside from the coloring of the LunarSphere tooltips, LunarSphere can also apply the color to almost all of the game tooltips. You can also set where you want the tooltip for LunarSphere to appear (on the button, a set location, at the mouse cursor, or the game tooltip location) and, if you like, can also set where the default game tooltip appears. Don't like the bottom-right corner for your game tooltips? Drag that puppy elsewhere!

DrDamage Support

Only because it seemed like the right thing to do, LunarSphere supports DrDamage so that users can see how much damage or healing they will do with their spells. Whatever view setting DrDamage is set to show on buttons (DPS, avg damage/healing, etc.), LunarSphere will also show. If you want to have the DrDamage tooltip information displayed on the LunarSphere tooltips, that can also be arranged (although I don't recommend it be always on, as the tooltip can get VERY large with 3 actions being displayed ... so setting up DrDamage to show the tooltip data while holding ALT, CTRL, or SHIFT is a very good idea).