WoW Custom Interface

[CrazyMAC]

Like most people i use a custom interface when i play WoW but i always find it a pain in the arse when ever a new update comes up to keep the tiny/not so supported mods alive.

So i'm thinking about trying to make them my self or at least understand how they work so i can edit/fix them.

Does anyone dabble in the world of WoW interface customization that can point me in the right direction to understand/learning about them?

CHEERS!

[Skjalg]

I suggest you toy around with modding for GMOD first either that, or perhaps just make something small in LUA for WoW like a small addon that prints "HELLO DORK" everytime you mounts your horse or whatever.

[dissonance]

easiest thing to do is open the .toc file and change the number in the first line to 20000

[Zacker]

I am dabbling in the world of addon coding and got over 5000 downloads for my first addon called Fountain.

LUA is a nice language and WoW has a good,although fairly restricted API, so I can for sure recommend looking into it. If you got some previous scripting/coding knowledge, then you will learn this in no time.

The best thing to do is to look at other addons and see how they have done things. With the amount of WoW addons out there, chances are really good to find an addon which performes the action that you want to know something about.

http://www.wowwiki.com is a very handy site as they got some good lists of API commands and events available.

You should however not expect to be able to easily fix some of the more complicated addons after a patch. Remember that even the authors who know the code often need a week or so to get it adjusted for patch changes.

[CrazyMAC]

i've done a hello world script already, thanks skjag

dissonance: yeah doesn't always work sadly

Zacker: I'm not looking todo anything to complex...well in my eyes least. =) nothing on the scale of something like ct_raid or gather just my own sort of refined version of gypsy mod and a few tiny ones put together into one cute lil druid kitty package.

Thank you for the link i'll check it out over the weekend and see what i can come up with =)

[Skjalg]

The easiest way to fix addons after a release is to use a nifty tool that basically just alters the date when they've been created so wow doesnt think they are out of date

Cant remember the name tho..

[Zacker]

Skjalg, those tools are so useless as all they do is the exact same as Disssonance mentions. Changing 1 number in a plain text .toc file with notepad is all they do.

[dissonance]

and that generally works.

however, with this patch, bliz took out a whole bunch of functions, so some addons simply won't work.

[Zacker]

Yep Blizz fucked us over totally this time. I am not sure if I will ever get Fountain to work 100% as before again. Like hello how stupid is it to disallow TargetByName() even out of combat, that function is used in half of all addons.

[Zyn]

<3 Ace2 addons : http://www.wowace.com/files/

And here is WinAceUpdater, to always keep your Ace-addons up to date : http://sourceforge.net/projects/wowaceupdater

Got an UI like this just by Ace2 addons (apart from a very few, like Super Inspect): http://www.shatteredminds.net/skit/intarfejs.jpg

[Zacker]

Eew Ace, yet another useless framework to clutter your WoW installation with.

[Zyn]

Eew Ace, yet another useless framework to clutter your WoW installation with.

How come it's useless if everyone is using it? >_>

[Thrik]

It's about as useless as all those people who waste away their days playing it...... L!OL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This clearly needs moving to gaming discussion though.

[Zacker]

Eew Ace, yet another useless framework to clutter your WoW installation with.

How come it's useless if everyone is using it? >_>

Uhm everyone are not? I got ~40 addons and none of those use it...Might just be me who is not up to date with what is happening in the WoW world. I haven't really been following it for 3-4 months.

[Taylor]

Egad, you use forty addons? That's clutter in itself! But I agree with your point, I've only ever had one addon that used Ace, and that required BigWigs too (BigWigs -> Thaddius) - I was concious how much crap I just installed for one boss.

But I try to be quite lax on the mods, I used to have twenty, thirty, maybe a thousands addons, and when patches came out I'd just sit in front of my computer and scream. With 2.0.1. I just gave my folder an enema and use only DoTimer and Autobar.

But that's veering more than slightly off-topic. Blizzard themselves have a couple of tutorials and two installers to get what you need out of the MPQ's without the War3 extracter. WoW Wiki was mentioned and has every function typed up in some shape or form (it's a wiki, after all). Other than that, there's other peoples addons.

Note that 2.0.1 completely destroyed a few things. To stop addons like Decursive, supposedly so we can have more interesting dispels rather than "DISPEL EVERYONE IN 5 SECONDS OR WE ALL DIE" (though all I've seen in TBC is AoE-debuffs). Changes like this have disabled a few functions (noted on WoW Wiki) and limited access to just the 'offical' bars. On the flipside, the new macro stuff is quite cool too, you might be able to do what you want to do with that. I did, God bless you /castsequence.

Edit: "a few lot of things"? Really, Taylor?