PlateSmith Nameplates
Nameplates are one of the few parts of World of Warcraft that Blizzard lets you reshape, and most players never touch them. PlateSmith Nameplates changes that. Instead of editing Lua files or hunting through a wall of checkboxes, you open Blueprint Studio and drag your plates into the shape you actually want. Type /ps and you are already there.
What Blueprint Studio Actually Does
The core of the addon is a live preview. Every part of the plate sits in a tree on one side, the preview sits in the middle, and an inspector panel reacts to whatever you click. Drag a health bar and it snaps into place. Resize with the handles, nudge with the arrows, or rearrange the tree when you want a different order. No config files, no code, and no reloads between changes.
Parts That Follow Each Other
Small details matter more than people expect. Pin the level beside the name and it stays put no matter how long the name gets. Stack bars together and they close the gap when one of them has nothing to show. You can add up to 24 custom parts: health, power or threat numbers, your own text with tags like {health} and {health.max}, or a bar, box, or icon. Conditional text works too, so [if health.percent < 35]LOW[end] only appears when it should.
Rules, Presets, and Testing
Rules let you colour, blend, fade, or hide a part when a condition is true: low health, tagged, elite, casting, or who currently holds threat. Before you pull a mob, you can preview those rules against a low-health, elite, or casting test target. Eight ready-made presets ship with the addon, including PlateSmith, Classic, Sleek, Bold, Tank, Healer, Minimal, and Dungeon, so you have a starting point even if you never open the inspector.
Threat, Cast Bars, and Aura Rows
Threat is where PlateSmith Nameplates pulls ahead of a simple cosmetic addon. Every plate can show your threat percentage, how far ahead of the next player you are, and raw threat, all coloured by state: you hold it, you are losing it, you are about to pull it, or someone else has it. Up to five meter-style threat windows can be placed anywhere, and a Threat meter shows your group's threat on your current target while a Tank list shows every enemy and who holds it. You can attach a window to Blizzard's damage meter and it will follow that frame.
Cast bars come with the spell icon, name, and time left. Buff and debuff rows are shapeable: count, size, spacing, direction, cooldown swipe, and time remaining. Level, elite and rare marks, raid marks, TAGGED, guild, target of target, and quest icons are all supported, with optional Questie integration and a quest-item loot bag.
Supported Versions and Compatibility
PlateSmith Nameplates for World of Warcraft covers the modern game and the classic line alike. It runs on Retail and on Classic, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria clients. Because nameplate APIs differ between those versions, some features behave differently depending on which client you are on, and the addon is honest about it rather than guessing.
If you would rather not manage folders by hand, the foxygame.net launcher carries PlateSmith Nameplates in its addon catalog and handles the install in a single click, keeping it updated as new builds land. That takes the guesswork out of matching the right file to the right client.
How to Install
- Download PlateSmith Nameplates from your preferred addon source.
- Extract the folder into World of Warcraft/_retail_/Interface/AddOns or the matching classic directory.
- Confirm the folder name matches the .toc file inside it.
- Restart the game or reload the UI, then type /ps to open Blueprint Studio.
Optional companions include the bundled PlateSmith QuestieDB for mobs that drop quest items, and LibSharedMedia for extra fonts and textures. Commands are short: /ps opens the studio, /ps config opens settings, /ps console toggles the threat windows, and /ps diagnose produces a report you can paste into a bug thread.
Sharing and Safety
When your plates finally look right, export the whole setup as a Blueprint share code and hand it to a friend. Importing checks everything first and lets you choose what to replace, so a shared profile never quietly overwrites your work. Under the hood, PlateSmith never touches Blizzard's own frames and never guesses at values the game hides in combat or in instances. If something is hidden, it simply is not shown. Each plate redraws at most once per frame and only the parts that changed, which keeps it light in raids. Colour-blind friendly and high-contrast options are built in.
There are known limits worth knowing. Hidden combat values stay hidden, aura rows cannot filter by spell or dispel type yet, clicking a threat window row spotlights a plate but cannot target a mob, and the interface is English only for now. None of that stops PlateSmith Nameplates from being the most flexible way to make your nameplates look and read exactly how you want them.