There are a lot of options you can change and modify in healbot. I am still just figuring some of these out but I'll try to share some of the things I use. There is a lot here that I really am not totally sure of more due to not even trying to figure it all out yet. (sorry about that, but maybe we can learn together)
General Tab:A lot of this is clear toggle on or off options for various things. The bottom is where you set up to automatically notify a channel of your healbot actions. (healing, rezzing, etc) I have mine set up only to notify on resurrection so another healer and I aren't rezzing the same people. (notifying every time I cast a heal spell would be insane)
Spells Tab: You want to go here asap and set up what mouse button/comb does what. So in the end you basically hover over the player bar in healbot and click a mouse button to heal them, cure them, buff them, etc.
The smart cast is what it does out of combat type thing. If I try to healbot heal a dead person out of combat its going to rez them. Etc.
Healing Tab: Make sure you check the things you want on your healbot window. I always had to add in pets. Also I have no idea what changes if you click self, self pets, main tanks, and vehicle... as right now they aren't checked yet I still get them on the bar. (maybe they are ordered different? Must test this)
Cure Tab: This one I find to be very very useful.
First, I wanted it to be very clear who had poisons and curses on my healbot window. so I went down and checked the two options under Bar Colours. Then I clicked individually on those bars for both poison and curse. I changed it to a color I would notice, that would stand out. (change to your tastes/spells)
Second I checked "Display Warning on debuff" and also to "Play sound on debuff" and chose sound.
At the top, make sure that you do not have it checked to ignore debuffs you want to see.
Now when someone in the raid or group is debuffed I get color and sound. I never ever miss it, ever, and my reaction time is improved. (hey every millisecond counts?)
Skin 1 and 2 Tabs: Here you can change up your appearance. I don't recall getting too much into skin 1 tab yet, so I'll just go to tab 2.
Number of Columns: It wasn't such a big deal until I did my first 25 man with healbot. It is all personal preference and how it meshes with your ui. I like mine to fit in the lower half of my screen so mess around with it and change column # etc and see what you like. It might take some fiddling. When I'm experimenting trying to figure the options out I'll usually have someone else in the group fighting so I can test it out and see what changes.
Buffs Tab: This last one you can set it up so that when one of your buffs is about to wear off, or already has, the players healbot bar will change color. You can also choose who it checks. for instance for my Mark/Gift of the Wild it checks the raid (everyone in group or raid basically), but for thorns I just have it set to melee usually. Everyone's different in preference and what works for them. (for example I probably don't need the thorn one as I am pretty good at keeping that one up)
You can also set up when you get that warning. I have it set to show me 30sec before the buff wears on short buffs and 2 mins on long ones.
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Obviously I just touched on a few things. I suggest spending some time with a few patient friends in a group to get to know your healbot and mess around with the settings.
good luck, I'll try to add anything new I figure out, now that you've got me trying to figure it all out again :)
Also, remember this: People might try to tell you which addon you should use and call you a moron if you don't use it. Go ahead, try them out. In the end you decide which one best works for you. When people kept telling me to use another addon over this one I went an gave it a good try (I mean only a moron wouldn't use it, according to them). The fact of the matter is, that for me, healbot worked better for me. Perhaps it has something to do with my physical disability that said people have no clue about. They might if I kept using the other addon. We're all different so what works better for one person, might not for the other.
*edited out some rambling, no really, I did*
Edited, May 7th 2009 1:16pm by darkmoss