Addon Spotlight: Lightheaded (and DoubleWide)
by David Bowers 
Jul 15th 2007 at 7:07PM
But after I've already started playing, I typically don't like to bother with external programs and websites. To illustrate, consider the following hypothetical situation: you're in the middle of a quest you thought would be simple and those Disgusting Whosamawidgets simply refuse to drop the required Sticky Yellow Fluid. You've been wandering around for an hour killing (and getting killed by) these horrid creatures, and you feel stopping to open up your web browser and check Wowhead would only add to your frustration. Finally you call out in desperate all-caps leetspeak on the general channel, only to be thoroughly ignored! Then finally one wise and tender-hearted player informs you that were actually supposed to be killing the Grotesque Whosamawidgets just next door, not the Disgusting ones. You thank her, of course, but in your gut you're still feeling dumb and regretting having wasted so much time and energy.
It's enough to make you feel lightheaded indeed! Thankfully that's where Cladhaire comes to the rescue with his addon designed to bring those helpful sorts of people and their comments on Wowhead right into the game for you. Lightheaded (the addon) opens up just to the right of your questlog and shows whatever wowhead's commenters have to say about the quest you click on. It only loads that portion of the quest comment database your quest is in, too. This helps to save on memory usage, save on trips to a website, and also save on massive frustration all in one lovely addon.
And... on a related note, consider using DoubleWide (shown above, working with Lightheaded) to make the questlog into two panels instead of one. This makes quests and quest lists so much easier to read, Blizzard really should incorporate it into the standard interface.
Filed under: Add-Ons, Quests, Humor, AddOn Spotlight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nixxen Jan 24th 2008 7:32AM
Used lightheaded alot before, but when QuestHelper came along(search for it at curse.com), i felt that lightheaded quickly became somewhat obsolete.
There are still a few quests that isn't supported by QH, and for those i use lightheaded, just to get the coords and/or check if there is any important "click the 3rd item on the floor, not the 2nd one." comments that i have missed.
The extrended quest log addon is really nice tho. Gonna hunt it down as soon as i get back from work ;)
Kazen Feb 19th 2008 9:25PM
Hi,
I've been using Lightheaded and Tomtom for about 2 months now and LOVE it! However, the last week, Lightheaded keeps unloading, so it does not appear with my quest log. I've unloaded and re-loaded; and uninstalled and re-installed it but it still does not work. Tomtom is fine (from when I had points on my map - it's still there) but Lightheaded won't work. Can you help?
tyniehealz Mar 18th 2008 3:21PM
wesley said...
how do i down load it im having some kind of troubles
_______________________________________
I actually made a webpage for guildies that shows this very thing. Its a pictorial so noobs wont get lost. It covers and provides the proper links with instructions for:
Cartographer, TomTom, Doublewide, and Lightheaded...
Cant beat this set-up...FTW....
Tyniehealz
migellito May 16th 2008 7:29PM
yeah.. warcraft for dummies. it's disappointing how many people can't figure out quests. not surprising, just disappointing. i'd hate to see how these kids do on the reading comprehension part of their SAT.
Tyniehealz Mar 2nd 2009 4:17PM
This setup is still working as of 3-1-2009 with WoTLK. I am still using it on all my toons and have recently added TourGuide.
Still to date for me its Cartographer, TomTom, LightHeaded, and DoubleWide. TourGuide should be added to these to make things go even faster. All five of these interact with each other to make a very formidable leveling system.
I suggest using WOWMATRIX to keep your addons updated. WowMatrix has a pretty decent interface that allows you to install/delete addons with the push of a button. No surfing.
bob the rogue Dec 7th 2009 11:45PM
I have a dumb question, how do I put a comment into the lightheaded addon. Like there are 16 pages of comments made by people and I know at one point you could add your own comment in game so others could see it. Is that function no longer available???
dreadlorde Jul 15th 2007 7:20PM
clad FTW!
Phoenic Jul 15th 2007 7:56PM
2 thumbs up!!
Bullsmilk Jul 15th 2007 7:59PM
This are the 2 add ons I could not play without. Lightheaded can also show waypoints too if you have TomTom or Cartographer. I personally have both. Nice AddOn spotlight!!
Scott Jul 15th 2007 8:56PM
Nawice!!!
Downloading it tonight!
Chris M Jul 15th 2007 9:38PM
Too bad it doesn't reference thottbot instead of WOWHead. Commentary on Thott is so much more fun to read. ;)
Chris
dreadlorde Jul 15th 2007 10:42PM
@5 thottbot sucks. It's not funny to read.
dreadlorde Jul 15th 2007 10:42PM
@5 thottbot sucks. It's not funny to read.
CVJ Jul 16th 2007 12:00AM
Great mod combo but I am getting a bug where if I shift click the quest to track the quest it no longer shows up on my screen.
ranova Jul 16th 2007 12:14AM
I use lightheaded, bEQl (like double wide but ace 2), and nQuestLog (like monkey quest, but ace2 and incorporates lightheaded.
Naturemilk Jul 16th 2007 2:19AM
Wow! this mod is a must for everyone! thank you for finding this for us!
Vespaholic Jul 16th 2007 4:41AM
I love this mod too, but heres the hard question:
Does this mod somehow make the game inherently easier to play? and if so does that break the ToS we all agreed to? We have in the past seen mods nerfed, like the click heal fiasco and the Spam Sentry nerf. The cosmos mod collection has included for years the ability to put a marker on the map with co-ordinates, but to make it a matter of a few clicks is a different monster.
I hate to say it but I think Blizz might block whatever it is lightheaded does in game instead of including it in game. Also it might be noted that a maker can be put on the map, ie in every major city you can ask a guard where the AH, mailbox, FP, etc.
Tridus Jul 16th 2007 7:51AM
To be clear on what Lightheaded actually does, it does NOT go out to wowhead and load the comments every time you look at a quest. The comments are actually contained in the mod download itself, all it does is display what it already has.
That means if new comments are added, they won't be in the mod's database until the author updates the mod and you download the update.
Hone Melgren Jul 16th 2007 10:51AM
For the record they didn't purposely nerf Spam Sentry. They just put measures in place which made reporting spam with Spam Sentry obsolete. I still have spam sentry report spam blocked.
Lightheaded was nice for a while before I realised it was putting unecessary load on when i open my quest log and it was much more fun to find out how to do the quests myself. Also I have windowed mode set up in such a way I can use Expose (on mac) to get to a wowhead window with just a bump at a screen corner while holding down my option key.
As for making the game easier to play ? How is that against the terms of service ? They do nerf addons that may be doing things like modifiying game files unfairly but not this . This is no different than switching to an explorer window and looking up WowHead. This is not the same thing as that Glider program man !
Vespaholic Jul 16th 2007 12:33PM
I love these two mods I am just saying that I am getting the feeling, using these mods changes how we play the game, you no longer have to read the quest log you can just skip that and find the co-ordinates much easier than before, and with the addition of tom-tom it totally changes how I've played and that changes the experience of the game. you no longer have to find hogger on your own you just have to hop from node to node to complete quests,