Welcome to the Grid User's Guide. These wiki pages will help you understand what Grid is, and how it works.

Getting Started

If you're already familiar with Grid, jump ahead to the related pages section. Otherwise, sit down and I'll tell you a story.

About Grid

Follow me back in time to early October 2006. The Burning Crusade is expected to arrive in late November, and we've just found out that emergency monitors (like Squishy) and smart debuff curing (like Detox) aren't going to work when the expansion is released due to some fairly major changes in the UI.

Action buttons and targeting frames are "protected", and may not be programmatically moved, shown or hidden, or have their action changed while in combat.

Maia starts discussing ideas for a new addon to replace Squishy and Detox. This new addon is Grid.

It is compact.

A compact grid of units lets you select a target quickly.

It displays as much information as possible without overloading the user.

A good healer needs a lot of information to make healing decisions.

It is customizable.

You should be able to see what you want, where you want, how you want.

It is modular.

The easier it is to add new features, the more likely features will be added.

Terminology

If you're new to Grid, you might not be familiar with some of the terms used in the related pages. Here's a handy list of terms used by Grid.

Unit

A unit is a specific player or NPC. This includes your character, your pet, your party and raid members, their pets, targets, your target's target, and your focus. Grid tracks all members of your party or raid, including yourself, your pet, and other group members' pets.

Frame

A frame is a container object in the WoW UI system. They are the fundamental building blocks of a graphic interface and are used to separate functions and information. Grid itself is a frame, containing smaller frames for each unit it is tracking.

Status

Status refers to a unit's condition. This includes its health, mana, buffs, debuffs, and location. Grid is designed to display as much of a unit's status as possible in a small and configurable manner.

Indicator

An indicator is a visual display of a unit's status. Examples include health bars, (de)buff icons, and text.

Layout

A layout is a collection of indicator and frame settings. You can have multiple layouts for a character in Grid (for instance, healing and buffing), and you can have layouts for different characters (for instance a mage decursing layout and a priest healing layout).

Aura

An aura is a buff or debuff. Don't confuse this with paladin auras, which are auras in this sense, but not the only ones. Any buff or debuff can be called an aura.

Related Pages

User's Guide for Healers
User's Guide for Raiders
User's Guide Other Resources