Battlefield Commander 2 (BFC)

Contents:

Installation

To install BFC, extract the BattlefieldCommander2 folder into <your_wow_installation>/Interface/Addons. Start the game and sign in, then press the 'Addons' button in the bottom right. Ensure that the 'BattlefieldCommander2' option is checked.

Basic Use

BFC is a drop-in replacement for the battlefield minimap included with the stock UI. Bind a key to BFC's "toggle map" function, or type /bfc to bring up BFC in any zone (except in an instance).

Players in your party will be shown with a different color than the rest of the players in the battleground. If in a raid, each raid group will be given a different color. Also, players currently in combat will be shown in red (this may not work if the player is too far away) and dead players will be shown in grey.

Resizing

The BFC minimap can be resized by dragging the triangular handle in the bottom-right corner (make sure the minimap is not locked, of course). It wil automatically retain the proper aspect ratio.

BFC also contains a feature called 'narrow mode', which trims off the left and right sides of the map. Since this is often empty space on battlegrounds maps, it saves screen real estate.

Channels

As of patch 1.12, BFC no longer requires a chat channel to use its advanced features. It will use the new addon communication channels, preferring a battleground channel but falling back to party or raid.

Pings

Shift-clicking the BFC minimap will send a ping to all BFC users who are in your raid.

Waypoints

Players are able to send waypoints to other BFC users in their raids using the new and improved waypointing interface. Click the < button in the top-left corner to expand the waypoint rollout. Drag a waypoint and drop it onto the map (note that it drops where your mouse is, NOT where the waypoint appears when you drag it - this is an issue with the WoW interface system). To clear a waypoint, simply drag it anywhere off the map.

"Radio"

BFC includes a two radio menus which let you send quick status updates to your fellow raid members. In your key bindings, scroll down to the BFC section and bind 'Display local comms menu' and 'Display global comms menu' to easily-reachable keys (I suggest Q and E). Press either of these keys and select an option from the menu to send a quick message to the raid. These messages to not require BFC to be received. Also, note that the local comms menu will only appear if local comms objectives have been defined for the zone you are currently in. For now, this is only Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin.

Plugins

Battlefield Commander 2 features a unique plugin architecture which allows end users to add their own functionality to BFC on a per-zone basis (for example, an AV or EPL module). These plugin modules can display new information to the user as well as zone-specific comms menus for new zones. See Helper_WSG in the BFC code for example code.

Credits

Vallerius - concept, coding, etc.
Casull - help with the color-coding system.
Sorne - suggestions, beta testing.
Teomyr - German translation.