rpTags

rpTags lets you create customized unit frames based on fields from roleplaying profiles, such as those used by totalRP3 or MyRolePlay. This lets you choose which details are most important to you.

Current Status (Updated!)

~~As I no longer play World of Warcraft, this addon is no longer being developed.~~

Update (as of 2022/09/11):

I've started playing WoW again! Therefore I feel obligated to go back to working on this. I've unarchived the repositories for this and other RP_* addons on GitHub, and will be updating their Interface numbers to the current Wow (retail) versions.

What's a Unit Frame? What's a tag?

Unit frames are the boxes on your screen that show information about specific units -- for example, yourself ("Player" frame), your target ("Target"), your focus ("Focus"), or your target's target("TargetTarget").

These are created by addons such as ElvUI

A tag is simply a word encased in square brackets that you use to customize unit frames. The tags in rpTags all start with rp: (with a few exceptions) and so, rp:tags.

Examples include:

rp:tag	Displays
`[rp:name]`	The unit's roleplaying name
`[rp:race]`	The unit's RP race, which might not be the same as their in-game race
`[rp:icon]`	The unit's icon
`[rp:age]`	The unit's age. if listed
`[rp:color]`	Changes the following text to the unit's chosen color

Installation

The easiest way to install rpTags is by using an addon manager. (The above link is current as of WoW 9.2.7 -- Shadowlands -- and I saved you a backup copy on September 11, 2022.)

If you use Ajour, CurseBreaker, InstaWow, or WowUp, you can install directly from the releases site on GitHub.

rpTags is also available on CurseForge.

If you want to install rpTags manually, go to your WoW directory, then _retail_, Interface, AddOns, and unzip the zip file there.

It will produce not one, not two, but six different addons?!

RP_Tags/
RP_Tags_ElvUI/
RP_Tags_Listener/
RP_Tags_MyRolePlay/
RP_Tags_totalRP3/
RP_UnitFrames/

To understand why, we need to talk about ...

AddOn Structure

This version of rpTags is built on a modular base. Everything that is specific to a certain module has been isolated there. This allows us to use WoW's normal AddOn management system to best adavantage.

For example, everything related to integrating MyRolePlay into the rpTags framework can be found in RP\_Tags\_MyRolePlay.

The module won't load if you aren't running MyRolePlay. Okay, it might, but we can't be responsible for any error messages you might see! That said, we do have code to minimize actual errors of that kind, instead popping up rpTags alerts.

rpClients and unitFrames

There are three kinds of integration modules for rpTags:

A Roleplaying AddOn module that lets rpTags access information about characters from a RP AddOn such as MyRolePlay, which provides the information about characters by sending, receiving, and storing RP profiles; and
A Unit Frames AddOn module to display that information in a customizable format, such as the unit frames provided by ElvUI
A Data Source AddOn module that allows rpTags to use tags based on another AddOn, such as Listener

This means that you're going to have five (or more) addons active:

1️⃣ Your roleplaying addon;
2️⃣ A rpClient module that serves as a bridge between rpTags and the roleplaying addon;
3️⃣ rpTags itself, which provides the core functions;
4️⃣ A unitFrames module that is the bridge to a unit frames Addon; and
5️⃣ Your unitFrames addon itself.

The second, third, and fourth are all included with rpTags. In fact, we've even thrown in a simple unit frames addon as well, called rpUnitFrames, which can run alongside or parallel to ElvUI's or Blizzard's frames.

Supported AddOns

The current version of rpTags supports integration with these addons:

AddOn Name	rpClient	unitFrames	dataSource
Blizzard's unit frames	--	❌	--
ElvUI	--	✅	--
Listener	--	--	✅
MyRolePlay	✅	--	--
rpUnitFrames	--	✅	--
Total RP 3	✅	--	--
XRP	❌	--	--
Generic oUF addons	--	❌	--
GnomTEC Badge	❌	--	--

Other AddOns

rpTags will continue to evolve and grow, and may support other rpClients, unitFrames, or dataSource addons. If this happens, a new integration module will be written. See below for more discussion on each type of addon.

If you think you've found some addons that might fit these qualities, feel free to contact us on Discord (Spindrift#1617), on WoW (Oraibi#1617 or Oraibi-MoonGuard), or through GitHub. Currently we're looking at several other addons that we could write integration modules for, including Elephant, RUF, CrossRP, among others.

dataSource Addons

dataSource addons are the easiest to write -- such as Listener, which already stores its own data. The RP\_Tags\_Listener integration module just adds tags that read the information that is already being saved.

dataSources can only read the data that your computer stores in the WTF/Account/username/servername/charname/SavedVariables directories. For example, there are addons that keep track of your achievements. However, they can't read someone else's achievements; that information isn't available to you as a fellow player. At least not through WoW.

The types of addons that we're looking to make dataSource integration modules for have the following qualities:

They're primarily used for roleplaying
They store data per-player
That data can be displayed within inline text (this can include graphics -- rpTags has tags based on gender and pronouns)
The information being stored isn't already better displayed in ElvUI or another unitFrames addon.

rpClient Addons

There are far few rpClient addons that we support than unitFrames addons. rpClients are addons like totalRP3, MyRolePlay, XRP, and other addons that support MSP -- the so-called Mary Sue Protocol that lets roleplayers create profiles and then exchange them behind-the-scenes and display them.

Because all MSP addons store the profiles they receive, they are also dataSources that rpTags uses to get the profile data to display for you. We usually work a little bit of magic on those -- such as the rpTags that try to guess a character's gender and/or pronouns, or that search for certain phrases that you might want to highlight.

Although the LibMSP library maintained by Ellypse makes MSP-compliant addons relatively each to write, there are actually very few of them out there. It seems that most people already get what they want from myRolePlay, totalRP3, XRP, or GnomTEC Badge. I even added an extra one to that list -- RP_Identity, which is about as bare-bones as an rpClient can get.

I'm drawing the list of existing MSP-based addons from this page.

Whither GnomTEC?

Looking at the usage stats for which MSP-based addons are used the most, GnomTEC is way, way behind XRP -- and thus not a priority for me right now. This isn't a slam on GnomTECH Badge and I'm sure they're perfectly nice people!

unitFrames addons

Unitframes are the boxes on your screen for your character, your character's pet, your target, your target's target, and so on. unitFrames addons are often based on the oUF unit frame framework, which also forms the basis for ElvUI and most of the addons that you can find with "oUF" in the name.

The standard way that someone would use oUF is to use the framework like a lua library, and then just decide what information will be displayed and where it will show up on the screen (and under which conditions). These essentially "hardcode" only what you need into the unit frames; you can't easily change oUF layout or display information without digging through lua code.

ElvUI is a full user-interface replacement addon that can replace all the unit frames and other displays or windows or panels on your screen. It's designed to be configured by the end-user, who fills in boxes with "tags", and sets their locations on the screen.

rpTags was originally created to work with ElvUI. We are planning to write a generic "oUF" integration module, but most of the existing oUF addons have hardcoded tags/values and locations, and are thus designed for lua coders instead of players. For this reason, we highly suggest using ElvUI if you want to start experimenting with UI customization.

Because oUF -- the framework -- does most of the work for the lua programmer, it's not really that hard to set up your own unitframes, which is why there are so many of them, each with a different purpose (such as healing) or created by a different lua coder according to what she needs for game play. As far as I know, ElvUI is the only oUF-based unitFrames addon that lets you enter the tags you wish to see. If there was another that was in widespread use, we could look at supporting that was well.

As stated, oUF is not that difficult. In fact, rpTags comes with RP_UnitFrames, a barebones oUF unitFrames addon that lets you insert whatever tags you want into the display panels. RP_UnitFrames is disabled by default, to reduce complexity for new users.

Using rpTags

Assuming that you've got both a supported RP addon and a supported unit frames addon, you can just start using the new tags wherever they're found in your unit frames addon.

In ElvUI, you type /ec to open the options page, go to the Unit Frames section, and then choose a frame, such as your target or the members of your party. Pick a field as Power -- or create a custom field -- and then enter one or more rp:tags into the box.

In rpUnitFrames it's similar; you can specify not only what you see when you are viewing the frame, but also the tooltip shown when you mouse-over those sections of the frame. For example, you could use this in the "Name" panel:

[rp:name]

And this in the "Name Tooltip" panel:

[rp:shorttitle] [rp:firstname] [rp:lastname] [br] [rp:title]

rp:tags

A tag, in this sense, consists of an opening square bracket -- [ -- then the letters rp, then a colon -- : -- and the name of the tag in lowercase, all ending with a closing square bracket, ].

You saw one example above. Here's another:

[rp:glance-3-icon] [rp:glance-3] [rp:glance-3-text]

This serieso tags would display the subject's third "At First Glance" icon, the title of it, and the associated description.

If any of those aren't set, nothing will be shown for that setting.

List of rp:tags

The full list of rp:tags is long -- over 300 at last count -- and you can use modifier tags (see below) on many as well.

You can browse them on WoW with the /rptags command, or review the list on our Wiki.

Modifier Tags

There are two types of modifier tags -- labels and sizes. A label modifier is applied after the main tag, with a dash (-) after it, like this:

[rp:title:label]

Title: Stormwind Fashion Icon

A size modifier is also applied after a tag, in parentheses.

Size Modifier	Default Size
`(xs)`	5 characters
`(s)`	10 characters
`(m)`	15 characters
`(l)`	20 characters
`(xl)`	50 characters
`(8)`*	8 characters
`(42)`*	42 characters
--	no limit

Numeric size modifiers are not supported in ElvUI.

/Slash Commands

The following commands can be typed into the normal WoW chat box:

Command	Displays
`/rptags`	Help, tag reference, options
`/rptags options`	Options
`/rptags colors`	Color options
`/rptags changes`	Recent changes
`/rptags version`	Current version information for rpTags and related addons
`/rptags rpuf`	rpUnitFrames options

Configuration

Configuration is fairly simple; you can set your own colors for many of the color tags, the formats for fields like height and weight (feet and inches, or meters and centimeters?) and so on.

You don't have to tell rpTags which rpClient or unitFrames modules to use; it can figure out which ones to use based on which of the supported addons you're already using.

Localization

The addon is currently only available in English, but if you want help with translations into other languages, you can get in touch with us.

RP Tags

rpTags

Current Status (Updated!)

What's a Unit Frame? What's a tag?

Installation

AddOn Structure

rpClients and unitFrames

Supported AddOns

Other AddOns

dataSource Addons

rpClient Addons

Whither GnomTEC?

unitFrames addons

Using rpTags

rp:tags

List of rp:tags

Modifier Tags

/Slash Commands

Configuration

Localization

To Do

Share to

rpTags

Current Status (Updated!)

What's a Unit Frame? What's a tag?

Installation

AddOn Structure

rpClients and unitFrames

Supported AddOns

Other AddOns

dataSource Addons

rpClient Addons

Whither GnomTEC?

unitFrames addons

Using rpTags

rp:tags

List of rp:tags

Modifier Tags

/Slash Commands

Configuration

Localization

To Do