255 character macro

[griffin01]

Kind of a noob question, but I see many people posting macros that are far over 255 characters in length... is there something I am missing to be able to get around that 255 char limit?

[Sam DeathWalker]

macaroon.

[griffin01]

I always throw this out when these questions come up.

WTF do you need 255 character macros for? (Coming from a guy who's done most heroics and karazhan with minimal macros)because I'm new... and I dont know all the tricks.

for example, my shadow priest, I dont know if there is a way to get him to not cast shadow word:pain again if its up on the target already... If I knew something like that, it would probably shorten up a lot of my macros.

[pixelimp]

I always throw this out when these questions come up.

WTF do you need 255 character macros for? (Coming from a guy who's done most heroics and karazhan with minimal macros)If you have looked into the FTL system there are alot of reasons why you would need over 255 character macros.
Especially if you want one button to do multiple spells. LB on friendly and LHW on friendly, f.ex


And to griffin: Take a look at the Macaroon addon.

[algol]

WTF do you need 255 character macros for? (Coming from a guy who's done most heroics and karazhan with minimal macros)Easy to end up needing them, or a workaround to stop needing them. FTL for example...if you don't have really short character names, five characters worth of mod-mod-nomod + target= will easily run you to 255 or more if you don't find ways to avoid it.

Me, I like avoiding duplication of code. So I made one macro for "target leader based on hotstrings" and the majority of others then only use /click thatbutton.


is a way to get him to not cast shadow word:pain again if its up on the target already No. Or at least, not a programmatic one - you can always not push the button. The policy is that you should not have commands available that substitute for human decision making. You CAN however have it select based on whether the target is hostile or friendly, and a few other things like that, such that your SWP and Renew spells could be cast with the same button depending on what you are targeting.

[Maxion]

Or just make a castsequence that resets when the duration of SWP is over.

[griffin01]

Or just make a castsequence that resets when the duration of SWP is over.mind flay resets the duration of SWP on the target... for shadow priests anyhow.

I was just hoping there would be a way around recasting it other than making a really long macro.

But thanks all for the Macaroon tip.

[Bigfish]

I always throw this out when these questions come up.

WTF do you need 255 character macros for? (Coming from a guy who's done most heroics and karazhan with minimal macros)

It doesn't come up too often in my macros, but there are some things I like to include to ensure a short duration buff gets reapplied without having to hit a seperate button. Off the top of my head, it comes in to play on my warrior and paladin. For the Warrior, I attach "/castrandom Battle Shout, Demoralizing Shout,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,," etc up to the limit at the begining of her ability spam macro. I put the same thing on my Paladin for JoR so it doesn't drop when I'm not paying attention to a long fight.

I think I also got close to the limit on my healing macros, since I have the numpad set up to correspond to my 10 characters, with a vanilla press being HoT, alt-mod is direct heal, and ctrl-mod is a cleanse/decurse. I wanted to throw a shift in there somehow but it turns out that turns your numpad in to arrow keys.

[Dominian]

I always throw this out when these questions come up.

WTF do you need 255 character macros for? (Coming from a guy who's done most heroics and karazhan with minimal macros)If you have looked into the FTL system there are alot of reasons why you would need over 255 character macros.
Especially if you want one button to do multiple spells. LB on friendly and LHW on friendly, f.ex


And to griffin: Take a look at the Macaroon addon.

You cant LB friendlies frooob!

PS: Your mom is a goat :S

[elsegundo]

solutions?
use abbreviations. modifier = mod. stance = form.
use shorter names. griffin01 = grifa, grifb. but then you'll have to rename all your characters. sucks.

or use macaroon.

[Harem]

USe macaroon for more than getting around 255 character limit.

Look at it. love it.

[emps]

Been using that macaroon too, just recently. It's awesome! I wrote a totel pet care macro that involves almost all pet families and the food they eat + call pet + revive pet + mend pet + use buff food for pet, all in one button. I had to play with modifiers but this is not achievable using the cheap 255 limit. I think i was up to 970+ chars on this one alone. :P Not that you'll be using more than 255 for every macro, but at least I have a lot of padding for every macro i create or further expand. Only thing i'm concerned about is macaroon breaking (from patches,xpacks,etc..)... /crosses fingers

[moosejaw]

If you don't want to use Macaroon then you can use Bindpad to get around the character limit. I already have pitbull Bartender setup the way I like it and bindpad works excellent. I would use Macaroon if I was starting from scratch, then you can use the bar targeting functions to simplify your macros.

Edit: Change pitbull to Bartender. Silly me.

[Ken]

I always throw this out when these questions come up.

WTF do you need 255 character macros for? (Coming from a guy who's done most heroics and karazhan with minimal macros)

I can think of some things:
- To have a complete "accept all" macro.
- To have complex healing macros with modifiers, so you have 1 button for healing with different behaviors and that doesn't heal when the group composition changed and another healer has taken place. My shamans have a healing macro that stops when the priest is in the team. It goes more or less like this:



/stopmacro [target=mypriest,exists,alive]
/target [target=focustarget,exists,help] [target=focus,exists] [ ]
/cast [nomod] Greater Heal
/cast [mod:shift] Lesser Heal
/cast [mod:ctrl] Chain Heal

Of course this is well within the macro limit(got about 20-30chars left) and there are some white space that can be removed, but I'd rather be extending this to such an extend that I can have "alt" modifiers for self heal and I'd rather not have the /target in but have the cast macros to have targetting embedded in them.

[edit] The quote functionality is seriously broken on this forum :( So is the post functionality (I see 2 text panes always)