Okay, let’s look at a couple of nifty addons that add extra functionality to the quest log. I’m not going to discuss MonkeyQuest or addons like that here, because I don’t like or use them, but here are a couple of handy addons that will help you get more out of your questing.

LightHeaded
Download from WoWInterface here.

This handy addon shows quest information from WoWHead in-game, so you don’t have to alt-tab to a browser window when you get stuck – as happens so often.

The left-hand image shows LightHeaded in its collapsed state; the little pullout tab on the right edge of the quest log is clickable to pop the LightHeaded panel out. The right-hand image shows the log with LightHeaded popped out; the panel shows the details of the quest, where it starts, and so on. (The quest giver names are clickable, which will show you the co-ordinates where the giver can usually be found. The coordinates are also clickable, which apparently adds them to map mods like Cartographer or TomTom as waypoints, although I haven’t tested that.)

You can page through the LightHeaded panel to see all the WoWhead comments for a given quest (or you can set them to all show on one page in the pane, and scroll down).

DoubleWide
Download from WoWInterface here.

This addon does pretty much what the name suggests: it gives you a double-wide quest log. The picture above shows it all, really; the left-hand panel shows a list of your quests, the right-hand panel shows the quest description. Usual buttons at the bottom. A nice addon for people who have plenty of screen real estate and prefer to see more info at a glance.

And as you can see, LightHeaded and DoubleWide play nicely together; if you’ve got a widescreen monitor, this combo works well.