Blocky Chat

Blockychat is a comprehensive chat modification addon for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic (version 2.5.5).  It enhances nearly every aspect of the default WoW chat UI, from visual customization to quality-of-life utilities. All settings are saved between sessions and managed through a polished amber-themed settings panel accessible via /bcm or /blockychat.

Features

Chat

• Alt Invite — Makes all player names in chat ALT-clickable to instantly invite that player to your group, including BattleNet friends.
• Channel Names — Replaces verbose channel names with short custom abbreviations (e.g. [General] → [GEN], [Party] → [P]). All abbreviations are configurable.
• Edit Box — Customizes the chat input box: move it to the top of the frame, hide its background, and scale its size.
• Fade — Fades chat frames out completely when your mouse moves away, keeping your screen clean during combat.
• Font — Change the font name, size, and style across all chat frames and the edit box.
• Highlight — Plays a sound and highlights your name in your class color whenever it is mentioned in chat. Supports an optional custom highlight word in addition to your character name.
• Player Names — Enriches player names in chat with their level, group number, and class color. Pulls data from your target, mouseover, party/raid roster, friends list, and guild roster automatically.

Display

• Button Hide — Completely hides the chat frame side buttons (menu, channel, minimize) for a cleaner look.
• Resize — Removes Blizzard's default size restrictions, allowing chat frames to be resized freely beyond normal limits.
• Scroll Down — Enhances mouse-wheel scrolling in chat frames. Shift+Scroll jumps to the top or bottom, Ctrl+Scroll pages up or down.
• Timestamp — Adds fully customizable timestamps to all chat messages. Choose a color, toggle 24-hour vs 12-hour format, and show or hide seconds. Clicking a timestamp copies that line of chat to a popup.

Utilities

• BattleNet — Customizes how BattleNet/RealID messages appear: modify brackets, add class coloring, replace real names with BattleTag names, and remove BNet icons.
• General Tab Pull — Lets you drag the General chat tab up or down at any time to resize the frame height, with the height saved between sessions. Clicking the tab scrolls to the bottom.
• Minimap Ping — Displays a floating label on the minimap and prints a chat message whenever a party or raid member pings the minimap, showing their name in class color.
• Shift Info — Shift-clicking a player name in chat opens a small popup showing their name, level, class, guild, and current zone, retrieved via a /who query.
• Sticky — Makes the chat edit box remember the last channel type used (e.g. yell, emote, raid warning) so it doesn't reset to Say after each message.
• URL Copy — Detects URLs and IP addresses in chat and turns them into clickable links that open a copy popup for easy copying.

Always-On Features

These are active regardless of settings and cannot be disabled:

• Screen Edge Dragging — Chat frames can be dragged all the way to the very edge of the screen, removing Blizzard's default clamping restriction.
• Chat History — Preserves up to 1000 lines of chat history per frame and restores the last 5 lines across UI reloads so you never lose recent messages.
• Smart Group Chat — Adds /gr and /group slash commands that automatically send your message to the appropriate channel: Instance, Raid, Party, or Say, depending on your current group status.
• Tell Target — Adds /tt and /wt slash commands to whisper your current friendly target directly without typing their name.
• Tab Drag Resize — When chat frames are locked, dragging a chat tab up or down resizes the frame height upward, with sizes saved per session.
• Auto Log — Optionally logs all chat automatically on login, and logs combat automatically when entering a raid instance.
• GMOTD — Re-displays the Guild Message of the Day in the main chat frame after each login.

Settings Panel

The settings UI (/bcm) features a sidebar layout with an amber color theme, organized into Chat, Display, and Utilities categories. Each module has its own panel with a toggle, description, and any relevant sub-options. The panel is movable, scalable via a slider or Ctrl+Scroll, and remembers its position between sessions. A minimap button is also available if LibDBIcon is loaded.