Creating a GUI, and saved variables?

[Zinc]

Well, I was wondering two things.

1) How do I save variables between games? I don't know how to do it practically, because, I want to create an array and save strings in it, and I want it to keep it between games.

2) How can I create a GUI (In Lua)? I don't use or have any desire to learn how to use XML, and I want to put a button on the mini-map that will toggle a setting when pressed.

a) What are the natives for making a button on the mini-map?
b) What are the natives for creating a slash command?

[Cralor]

Creating a slash command: http://www.wowwiki.com/Creating_a_slash_command

Saved variables: http://www.wowwiki.com/Saving_variab..._game_sessions

As for minimap buttons, the best way is to probably look at how other addons do it. Probably a simple addon will be the easiest to read and understand.

Hope this helps.

P.S.: Google, WoWWiki, WoWProgramming, and many other sources are really helpful Don't forget about them!

[ravagernl]

Originally Posted by Zinc Well, I was wondering two things. 1) How do I save variables between games? I don't know how to do it practically, because, I want to create an array and save strings in it, and I want it to keep it between games. 2) How can I create a GUI (In Lua)? I don't use or have any desire to learn how to use XML, and I want to put a button on the mini-map that will toggle a setting when pressed. a) What are the natives for making a button on the mini-map? b) What are the natives for creating a slash command?

1.) The SavedVariables field in the AddOns TOC. That you want to store it as a table is a good thing.

2.) Use something like LibDBIcon.

For your entire AddOn, you might like to try out the Ace framework. Note however, that it will probably be overkill.

http://www.wowace.com/addons/ace3/pa...tting-started/
http://www.wowace.com/addons/ace3/pages/

and AceGUI:
http://www.wowace.com/addons/ace3/pa...i/ace-gui-3-0/

[Zinc]

Thanks for the quick reply, Man.

Anyways, I didn't really get those, but I`ll give them another read.

[Waverian]

Originally Posted by Zinc 1) How do I save variables between games? I don't know how to do it practically, because, I want to create an array and save strings in it, and I want it to keep it between games.

Use the SavedVariables metadata tag in your .toc file.

## Interface: 30300
<Other stuff>
## SavedVariables: MyAddOnDB

SavedVariables are just global variables that the client writes to a file on reload/exit. The value should be available after the ADDON_LOADED event fires.

-- Using the 3.3 convenience system to get the addon name
local ADDON_NAME, namespace = ...

local defaults = {
     SomeOption = true
     SomeOtherOption = 42
}

-- It's cleaner to use an event dispatcher here if you're going to use multiple events, but this is just a bare example
local function MyAddOn_OnEvent(self, event, name)
     -- this is executed if our addon has loaded
     if name = ADDON_NAME then
          -- use the existing sv table or create a new one if it doesnt exist (first load of the addon)
          MyAddOnDB = MyAddOnDB or {}
          for option, value in pairs(defaults) do
               -- populate our sv with default values if they don't exist (first load again)
               if not MyAddOnDB[option] then MyAddOnDB[option] = value end
          end
     end
end

2) How can I create a GUI (In Lua)? I don't use or have any desire to learn how to use XML, and I want to put a button on the mini-map that will toggle a setting when pressed.

GUIs in lua are made with CreateFrame widgets: http://wowprogramming.com/docs/widgets

You can see all of the functions each widget inherits that allow you to manipulate it at the wowprogramming documentation above.

I don't know how to create a minimap button offhand but you might find this code helpful (I also haven't actually looked at it myself): http://www.wowinterface.com/download...onoptions.html

b) What are the natives for creating a slash command?

All values in the SlashCmdList table are automatically handled to create a slash command.

SlashCmdList['MYADDONSLASH'] = function()
     print('Hello world')
end
-- Format is SLASH_<VAL>N where <VAL> is the name of the key in the SlashCmdList table and N is any number.
SLASH_MYADDONSLASH1 = '/hello'
SLASH_MYADDONSLASH2 = '/hw'

You can use pattern matching to interpret multiple user commands in your slash command handler, example here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Creating_a_slash_command

[Zinc]

The most confusing thing for the slash commands is there are never nice examples.

Could you do an example for the command '/quizzer' and have it print a message? That'd be easier to read

[Waverian]

My previous example seems pretty "nice."

SlashCmdList['QUIZZER'] = function()
     print('Quizzer: A message!')
end
SLASH_QUIZZER1 = '/quizzer'

[Xrystal]

Originally Posted by Zinc The most confusing thing for the slash commands is there are never nice examples. Could you do an example for the command '/quizzer' and have it print a message? That'd be easier to read

Here's what I do...

-- Set up the Slash Commands 
SLASH_<NameOfAddon>Cmd1 = '/swf';
SlashCmdList['<NameOfAddon>Cmd'] = FunctionToValidateSlashCommands;

function FunctionToValidateSlashCommands(msg)
   local origmsg = msg;    -- I always do this in case I need the case sensitive parts such as text to display.
   msg = string.lower(msg);  -- Convert to lower case for testing purposes
   -- Now create a table to separate the msg into components
   local args = {};
   for word in string.gmatch(msg,"[^%s]+") do
      table.insert(args,word);
   end
   -- Now validate the commands and act appropriately
   if ( args[1] == "cmd" ) then
      if ( args[2] ) then
         print("Message ", msg, " contained the command ", cmd, " with an additional value of ", args[2]);
     else
         print("Message ", msg, " contained the command ", cmd, " with no additional values);
     end
  end
end

These would work so that you would type something like
/addonName cmd value
And then deal with each element as you tell it to.

[Zinc]

Woah, thanks guys, this is all so helpful!

[Xrystal]

Rofl, of course it would work better if you replace cmd in the print statement with args[1] rofl .. just noticed that part.