AdiBags - My Bag Addon Of Choice

Being able to quickly find items in our bags is one way we can become more efficient gold-makers. Today I wanted to give a brief introduction to and recommendation for my bag addon of choice: AdiBags.

I've been using AdiBags for years and its ability to automatically organize items and highlight new items are some of the reasons I love it so much.

Download it on the AdiBags page on Curse and read on past the jump for more detailed info on why it works so well for me.

Auto-Organization

The best thing about using AdiBags is that organizes all the contents of your bags into groups automatically in one unified window.

Another testament to this being a well-made addon is that is simply works well right out of the box. Other bag organizing addons I've tried have lots of configuration involved before they work well. I've never really messed with any configuration.

One of the things I like best is that if you have gear sets set up in World of Warcraft's default gear organizer it will group all of those items together. This helps my bags stay tidy and also helps if I want to compare an item drop with my off-set item of the same type.

New Item Highlights

One of the best features of AdiBags for gold-makers is the green spinning highlights that AdiBags places around new items that have been placed in your bags.

New items in AdiBags are highlighted in green.

It also puts these new items into their own section of your bags. This is especially helpful when getting expired auctions out of the mailbox.

When I have posted all of the items I need to with TSM the new item highlights lets me know if there are any other items in my bag that still need to be posted by hand.

Move the Icon Not The Item

One thing I think is really neat about how AdiBags does it's organizational magic is that AdiBags doesn't move the items around in your bags, rather it simply reorganizes the icon locations around in the window.

The reason I think this works so well is that never has to do any physical sorting of items to get them to the right place in your bags. It's simply moving icons, not spending time moving items.

Bring Back Your Bags

If you need to look at the actual configuration of your bags (rather than the organized icons that AdiBags provides) you can simply hit the "Equipped Bags" icon in the upper right hand of the window in order to show bags as they really are.

AdiBags' "Equipped Bags" icon.

AdiBags' "Equipped Bags" view shows items in actual bags.

Hit the bag icon again to bring back the organized layout of AdiBags.

Anchors Away

One thing you may need to do when you first try AdiBags is move its anchor into a place that is more convenient for your UI layout.

Due to it's shape-shifting nature (as the number of items in your bags expands and shrinks) AdiBags can change shape on the fly.

I found when I first started using it that I needed to place the bottom-right anchor just to the left of my right-hand action bars.

You can move the anchor location by selecting "Unlock anchor" from the AdiBag settings (Options>Interface>Addons>Adibags>Configure button or simply type "/adibags" into your chat box).

Select "Unlock anchor" from the AdiBags settings.

AdiBags' "Lock anchor" button and green anchor block.

To pick a new location for AdiBags to grow from, move the anchor (the green box) and press the "Lock Anchor" button when done.

By default AdiBags will grow to the left and up from the location of the anchor.

Not For The OCD At Heart

While I absolutely love the way AdiBags automatically organizes my bags for me (I let it do it's thing and enjoy the benefits) my wife April can't stand it.

She tried AdiBags for a few minutes and summarily declared that she would never be able to use it. She has a very specific way that she likes her bags to be organized and AdiBags threw all her careful organization into what she felt was an uncontrollable disarray.

If you are *very* particular about how exactly you like your bags organized AdiBags may not work for you. For me the gains in its easily organization outweigh the seeming lack of control.

Just The Beginning

I've only scratched the surface of some of the features of AdiBags that I find the most useful. There are many more options available in the addon for those who like to tweak all the things.

For me AdiBags just works out of the box and that  is one of it's biggest selling points.

Conclusion

If you're a gold-maker looking to tame your cluttered bags give AdiBags a shot and see if it can increase your efficiency. I know it has for me.

If we can save ourselves a few seconds here and a few seconds by not having to scan our bags for a specific item we can become more efficient and therefore make more gold in the same amount of time.

If your interested in addons you can learn more about all the other addons I use on my addons page.

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