WowAce

Allowing users to give names to their mounts and non-combat pets allows them to make macros more personal, rather than selecting a random name from a list every time.

Interface would include a drop down box with a list of all the player's mounts or companions, followed by a text box for name entry. New lines would be generated similar to new lines being generated in the phrase lists.

The new substitution would be something like <mountname> and <noncomname> or maybe <compname> to encompass them both. Data stored in the user's variables should be keyed off spell ID rather than the name of the companion (ie, 59569 instead of Bronze Drake).

I like it. So it calls for 3 main sub-tasks:

1. A new GUI page
2. A data table (per character) to store the data configured in that GUI
3. A couple of <substitution> keys to support references to that data.

The rest of my post here is just thinking about the details of that last item and what the substitution keys should be...

I like <mountname>. That initially feels intuitive.

I'm not sure what I like for non-combat pets, as far as the substitution key goes. Brainstorming alternatives here:

• <noncomname>
• <compname>
• <companionname>
• <vanitypetname>
• <noncombatpet>
• <ncpet>

Reminder: <pet> is your combat pet's name. Some redundant substitutions are already supported so this doesn't have to be limited to one. <pet> could be redundantly also defined as <combatpet>. Aliases for the same substitution are acceptable IMO.

The non-combat pet's species can be called out via the <spellname> = "Phoenix Hatchling" Mounts work the same way.

Or we could approach it another way with a prefixed naming convention, like <rpmount> and <rpcompanion> would be the RP names for those things.

Any way you slice it, it probably won't be guessed as an intuitive feature, but I want to pick something easy to remember after you read it in the help file.

I'd like to avoid using "name" in the substitution keys because most substitutions are the name of something and that just gets redundant. I'm not saying that's necessary, just another stray thought. There really are no concrete design rules in this area, but as the list of substitutions grows, some rules may be needed to ensure a kind of consistency. /shrug.