Useful Information / Tools / Links
 

Hopefully someone will find this useful, it's basically just a list of tools / links / info that I have acquired while attempting to learn WoW Interface customization.


Resources

Blizzard Customization Tools - http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ui/ This is a blowout of the FrameXML in a zip file.

WoWInterface Development Network - http://wdn.wowinterface.com/

WoW UI Designer - http://wowuides.wowinterface.com/

WoWWiki - http://www.wowwiki.com - Documents almost all of the WoW API as well as in-game events that you are able to respond to.

LUA Manual - http://www.lua.org/manual/5.0/ - Official LUA Manual

LUA Wiki - http://lua-users.org/ - Wiki for LUA -- useful for more in depth descriptions of LUA syntax, etc.

WinMPQ - http://www.wowinterface.com/download...fo.php?id=3990 MPQ is Blizzard's compression format -- this program allows you to extract data from these MPQ files.

BLP2 Tools - http://www.cosmosui.org/vjeux/ - This allows you to open BLP files, which store the artwork / music for WoW.


LUA Editors:

EditPlus - http://editplus.com/ - Fairly decent editor w/ most of the options you'll need while scripting in LUA, there is a plugin for LUA syntax here. This is a trialware program -- eventually you will have to pay.

LUA Eclipse - http://www.ideais.com.br/luaeclipse/ - Another editor to use while scripting in LUA. I have not used it at all so I can't comment on it.

UltraEdit32 - http://www.ultraedit.com - My editor of choice. LUA syntax highlighting file available @ http://www.capnbry.net/wow/downloads/lua.txt courtesy of capnbry.

BLUA - http://blua.sourceforge.net/ - This is an editor being developed exclusively for Blizzard's flavor of LUA, and when complete hopes to THE complete IDE for Blizzard LUA. They are not quite finished yet but keep your eye on this one, it looks like a winner.

Dreamweaver Code Coloring for LUA - http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ad.php?id=3971 - Dreamweaver extension that adds syntax coloring for lua code, within both lua and xml files. World of Warcraft Global and Widget API are both included as native functions, up to version 1.5.0 of the game client (soon to be released).

WoW SciTe LUA - http://www.wowguru.com/ui/wow-scite-lua/ - This is a freely distributed copy of SciTe Editor with many modifications. The version of the scite editor is SciTe Version 1.63 (Modified for WoW + Lua) With the introduction of API, keywords and function calltips were made easy. I modified lua.properties to include the calltip references to the wow.api I created. What this allows you is the ability to call functions within a "saved" .lua script that you are working on to easily reference the functions, as well as help provide you help with proper syntax. WoW SciTe Lua contains full functional LUA script "inserting", "syntax checking", highlighting, and the latest 5.0 compiler. However, this is a project that is just in it's infancy, so expect a lot of great changes in the future.


XML Editors

XMLSpy - http://www.altova.com - This is probably the best XML editor out there, and there is a free version available. Unfortunatley many of the things that make it so great are not present in the free version. There is a 30 day trial of the good version. Over $1000 to purchase, so unless you want to warez it, probably not one to get too attached to.

XMLMarker - http://symbolclick.com/ - Completely free and pretty decent tree based XML Editor -- probably the best of no-cost editors out there.

Peter's XML Editor - http://www.iol.ie/~pxe/ - Another decent, completely free XML editor.


Tutorials

Nevir's Tutorials - http://wow.nevir.net/tutorial/ - Nevir has a pair of tutorials that I found very useful when starting my WoW UI modding adventure.

WoWWiki Tutorials - http://www.wowwiki.com/HOWTOs - WoWWiki has some basic howto's here to accomplish specific tasks.


More coming soon...

I hope this was useful to someone and I will continue to add / update this thread as I find / remember new resources.

Reverser

Sweet, thanks alot! Can't wait to get that B:LUA program :).

You could also look at jEdit for text editing. I have been searching for a good editor to use for interface customization and jEdit works perfectly. Just install the BufferTabs plugin and the LookAndFeel plugin and it's great.

Here's a link: jEdit Homepage

I personally use gVIM the windows port of the *nix text editor. it comes stock with lua and xml syntax colorization as well as hundreds of other languages.

http://www.vim.org/

edit: links to programs you're pimping are helpfull

Other Mod Hosting sites:

UI.WorldofWar
Curse-Gaming

The sticky thread at the top of the Official Blizz UI & Macros forum, of course.

Plus all the authors that self-host, most of which can be found by browsing through the Official Blizz UI & Macros forum.

Macro/Scripting Sites:

You can find a lot in another sticky thread at the top of the Official Blizz UI & Macros forum.

As well as at these sites:

WoWWiki
WoWMacros

I'm using SciTE, modified for WoW and Lua...from WoWGuru:WoW-SciTE-Lua

It'll open basically any text file, but has special colors and junk for lua and xml and build in code-completion stuff just for WoW and WoW's Lua...and you can keep a bunch of pages open at the same time, to steal...err...examine other AddOns' code...

I'm just starting out, and it's making the job easier...

Opensource and Freeware Editor with support for Lua-Syntax Highlighting:

Notepad++

http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net

It's possible to start the LUA exe to test Lua Scripts (without WoW Additions)

using this command:

Note: place lua.bat in a directory without spaces ,else it won't work with Notepad++

Lua.bat simply calls lua.exe with a "PAUSE" ,to see the output thereafter...

What about using Visual Studio 2003/2005 to edit the XML? Would that also highlight things properly and stuff?

some of the text is outdated in your list. Specifically the Dreamweaver Code Coloring for LUA, which is updated through 1.9, NOT 1.5, also please link to the page, not the actual download...

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...fo.php?id=3971

So does that mean in Dreamweaver 2004/2005/8 that when editing an XML or LUA file we get complete full highlighting, including those tags/api from the Blizzard set?

yes indeed (sorry for the late reply)

I've repackaged SciTE, since the one on Wowguru is a dead link, and when you finally find it it hasn't been update in a year. The API in here is up-to-date with the wiki and the widget API. Hosted by our friends at WOWInterface.

http://www.wowinterface.com/download...iTE-WoWUI.html

Blizz tut
 

i dont think i saw this tutorial in the original post so here it is a tutorial by blizzard themselves.

attached it as a zip file :)

Hi, sorry to necropost, but where did you get this page from ? I can't seem to find an original anywhere. :/

EDIT: Oh, what a noob... It comes with the Blizzard UI Tool. ^_^ Sorry to ask such a stupid question.

Great links!
 

Thanks for the links!

Just started looking into Lua and XML.

Have 0 experience in programming or XML... will be interesting to see what I can pick up. But it would be fun to tinker with.

Healious

PS"Some of the links have moved or not working"DS.

Hi, this link isnt working for me.
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...ad.php?id=3971

Its the link for the lua syntax coloring for dreamweaver.

I dont play wow or design addons for it, I just think that it would help a ton when I'm programming the lua for my application.

If anyone could help me out, that'd be great!

Thanks!

http://wowuides.wowinterface.com/ isn't working anymore :(

personnaly I use PSPad (freeware but not opensource) to edit sourcecodes.

Does anyone know where this ran off to? I'm trying to find the blps for using SetPortraitToTesxture().

Or does Ace do that? Argh. Anyhow, the default files seem lost, I've been trying to find them for an hour with no luck.

-Crissa

You can find them either here: http://wowprogramming.com/utils/artbrowser

or... for up-to-date textures/code all the time...

http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=38211

Thanks!

I also eventually found the Blizzard link on WoWwiki:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/artic...rticleId=21466

-Crissa