Action Bars Part Three

In Part One and Part Two, I spoke about using Macro's to add a Shift or CTRL Modifier onto the action bars to fit more functionality into the your Action Bars. Now I am going to look at Custom Paging and how we can use Bartender4's Custom State Headers.

What is a Custom State Header?

I'm glad you asked...

The Custom State Header in Bartender4 allows you to control the paging and the visibility of bars by using any macro conditions supported by WoW.

Basically what it allows you to do is control the paging and visibility of your Action Bars with simple conditions. It's just like writing a /cast macro but instead of using the Spell name, you use the Action Bar number.

The Code?

At first glance, this can look pretty complex, but here it is.

[Nostance]1;[Nostance,Mod:Shift]2;[Nostance,Mod:CTRL]3;[Stance:1]4;[Stance:1,Mod:Shift]5;[Stance:3]6;[Stance:3,Mod:Shift]7;[Stance:3,stealth]8;0

Let's start by breaking down each condition and explain what it's doing.

[Nostance]1;
This line isn’t really required but basically if you have no Stance, Caster Form, it will page to Bar 1.

[Nostance,Mod:Shift]2;
If you are in Caster Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 2.

[Nostance,Mod:CTRL]3;
If you are in Caster Form with the CTRL key down, page to Bar 3.

[Stance:1]4;
If you are in Bear Form, page to Bar 4.

[Stance:1,Mod:Shift]5;
If you are in Bear Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 5.

[Stance:3]6;
If you are in Cat Form, page to Bar 6.

[Stance:3,Mod:Shift]7;
If you are in Cat Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 7.

[Stance:3,Stealth]8;
If you are in Cat Form and Prowling, page to Bar 8.

0
If no other condition has been met, do not page the Action Bar.

Please Sir, I want some more!

There are a lot of options available when it comes to Custom State Headers. You can have your action bar change based on your Target being Hostile or Friendly, In a Party or Raid, In Combat, and even based on your current Spec(Dual Specs). Here is some more information on Custom State Headers, Macro Conditions and Stances.

Conclusion?

There are a few factors that will assist in choosing if you should use Conditional Macro's or Custom State Headers. Custom State Headers require more Action Bars. As you can see from my example, I am using the first eight Action Bars, only leaving me with 2 more bars for the rest of my UI. If I also wanted to introduce Action Bars based on my Dual Spec, I would use every Action Bar on just 10 buttons. The issue with Conditional Macro's is the can be somewhat limited. For example it can be difficult to get Autoattack and a Spell cast in the same macro when using Modifiers. You also need to initially write the Macro and then change it whenever you make a change.

I will leave the decision to you.

EDIT: Looks like a few things didn't work. Here is the new code and I will explain the differences.

[Stance:0,nomodifier]1;[Stance:0,Modifier:Shift]2;[Stance:0,Modifier:CTRL]3;[Stance:1,nomodifier]4;[Stance:1,Modifier:Shift]5;[Stance:3,nomodifier]6;[Stance:3,Modifier:Shift]7;[Stance:3,stealth]8;0

1. Mod didn't work, use Modifier.
2. Nostance didn’t work, used stance:0
3. The conditions are read from left to right and stop when a condition is met, therefore had to use "nomodifier".
4. If "Nomodifier" doesn't work, I will reverse the order and put the Shift/CTRL arguments first.
5. Fingers Crossed.

EDIT2: Looks like a few things still do not work. Here is the new code and I will explain the differences. Hopefully it will all work now.

[Bonusbar:3,Nomodifier]4;[Bonusbar:3,Modifier:Shift]5;[Bonusbar:1,Nomodifier]6;[Bonusbar:1,Modifier:Shift]7;[Bonusbar:1,Stealth]8;[Nomodifier]1;[Modifier:Shift]2;[Modifier:CTRL]3;1

1. Stance:1 (Bear) did not work, replace with Bonusbar:3.
2. Stance:3 (Cat) did not work, replace with Bonusbar:1.
3. Stance:0 (Caster) did not work, moved to the end with no stance argument, just Nomodifier or Modifier.

Razorbax