Better Forever Chat

Make your chat easier to read, search and copy. Better Forever Chat is a lightweight, independent, Prat-inspired chat addon for WoW Forever. Features

• Custom chat appearance: Adjust font size, line spacing, outlines, fading and fade delay.
• Flexible timestamps: Choose 12- or 24-hour time, seconds, dates or combined formats.
• First-name display: Shorten player names while preserving their full whisper targets.
• Race and class icons: Adjust icon size, alignment and visibility by chat type, channel or tab.
• Spell and item links: Type spell:ID or item:ID in messages and macros to display an icon and a clickable name. For example, spell:10060 on you! displays Power Infusion with its icon and linked name.
• Icons in chat bubbles: Spell and item references also show icons and names in accessible chat bubbles. Bubble labels are display-only, not clickable.
• Clearer whispers: Green > marks incoming whispers and red < marks outgoing whispers, keeping headers compact and sender icons aligned.
• Compact channel labels: Replace long headers such as [2. General - Stonetalon Mountains] with [2. Gen], preserving channel numbers and clickable links. Optional and enabled by default.
• Recall sent messages: Open chat and press Up to browse older messages you entered. Press Down to move forward or return to your draft, then Enter to send. The latest 32 entries are shared across chat windows, with a separate draft for each input.
• Channel colors: Customize channel colors or use Quiet mode for neutral message text with colored channel labels.
• Search and copy: Search recent messages in each chat tab and copy text or URLs.
• Timestamp copying: Shift-left-click a timestamp to insert the message into your chat input without sending it.
• Recent chat history: Optional, limited scrollback saved per character. Restoration is currently unreliable on the tested beta; see below.
• Settings profiles: Export your configuration as text and import it again when needed. Quick commands
• /bfc — Settings
• /bfc search — Search and copy chat
• /bfc colors — Channel colors
• /bfc export — Export settings
• /bfc import — Import settings

Alpha status and known limitations Developed against WoW Forever beta 1.60.1 (69913). The beta has a reported issue where saved addon settings and history may not load correctly. Received-chat scrollback restoration after /reload remains unreliable. Keep an exported settings profile outside WoW as a manual backup.

Up/Down recall is separate from saved chat scrollback: it keeps messages for the current session only, resets on reload, and pauses during combat or restricted chat.

Spell and item ID formatting happens locally. Other players need BFC or a compatible addon to expand plain spell:ID and item:ID tokens. Item details may take a moment to load. Bubble formatting skips protected bubbles and pauses during combat.

Protected messages are skipped. URL copying remains available through the search panel when live clickable URL support is unavailable on the client. Better Forever Chat is an independent project, not an official Prat release or a complete Prat replacement.