ShortNames

Supported versions

All development targets WoW: Forever.

No dependencies. ShortNames does not use any library, and needs no configuration to be useful.

1.0.0 — first public release

Forever gives every character a surname. In a busy chat frame that doubles the width of every name, and after a while you stop reading them. ShortNames rewrites what chat displays — first name only, or first name plus an initial — and leaves everything else alone.

• Three modes. /sn first gives you Ashmar, /sn initial gives you Ashmar T., /sn off gives the name back. Bare /sn toggles between off and whichever mode you last chose.
• Clicking a name still whispers the right person. Only the text a player link displays is rewritten; the link's target is left exactly as the server sent it. This is the whole reason the addon is careful — a whisper to a stripped name goes to a character who does not exist.
• Item links and every other link are untouched, for the same reason.
• Cross-realm names keep their realm. Dropping it would merge two different people into one name in the same conversation.
• One pass over the finished chat line, rather than a handler per CHAT_MSG_* event. That covers every channel, whispers, emotes and anything an addon prints, with no per-event list to fall behind on when a new channel appears.
• /sn debug prints the next five chat lines with their markup escaped, which is the quickest way to see what this client actually sends.

Nothing is saved to the server and nothing is sent anywhere; the only stored setting is which mode you picked.