Just one fricking link

Wella · 06-07-10, 05:42 PM

Greetings dawgs, I am planning on learning LUA to start making my own addons (my ultimate goal is to make an entirely self-coded UI but hey, step by step), but there are so many links to different guides, tutorials, etc, which also have links and lists and blah blah in them.

What I'm looking for a single guide which will cover everything I need to know. I can't seem to make sense of the various things which go on in the WoWWiki pages, for a start. All help will of course be appreciated.

Cralor · 06-07-10, 05:50 PM

Unfortunately, there is no "one stop shop" on the internet.

I'm sure through searching on the WoWI forums you can find people who asked for help on Lua beginner resources. You'll see that the usual list consists of:

WoWWiki.com
wowprogramming.com
lua.org
other AddOns.. etc.

Start small and grow - just like you say - step by step. Come up with an AddOn idea that seems easy and will not involve much coding. Then, look at other AddOns that have similar features (if applicable) to see how things work, etc. Also use the above resources (and you can probably find some others by searching hopefully) to get your intended result. There is also people you can ask through the forums and IRC. (irc.freenode.net #wowuidev).

I hope this helps.
Feel free to look at my AddOn, LazyAFK, which was my first WoW AddOn project - it might be useful to look at!

Wella · 06-07-10, 05:56 PM

I kinda knew inside me that this would be the case, but I had hope. Oh well!

Thanks for the fast response, I'll hunt around and dive in to my first baby step.

Edit: But do you happen to have a link which only teaches me the very basics from the beginning? Which acts as if I'm a retard? Like, what folders/files to make, the first few lines to type, blah blah. At least a beginner's tutorial or very short guide would be great. I'll keep looking though.

acapela · 06-07-10, 07:04 PM

Originally Posted by Wella

Thanks for the fast response, I'll hunt around and dive in to my first baby step.

another suggestion on a way to start: take over and update an existing addon. something that no longer works, but is worth fixing. there are quite a few of these laying around at this point.

Wella · 06-07-10, 07:42 PM

Thanks for the suggestion, may try it at some point, though I don't have the time or botherance right now to do such a thing. I am currently reading through and carrying out Blizzard's two small tutorials which have been extremely helpful, I've now learnt the very basics and I can start making those little steps.

I suppose this topic can be locked as I'll be chilling in #wowuidev a lot from now on. (To connect, can i just use mibbit.com and type "#wowuidev"?) Thanks you guys.

Cralor · 06-07-10, 07:52 PM

Unfortunately, you cannot use Mibbit because irc.freenode.net has blocked Mibbit access. Instead, use XChat (standalone program) or ChatZilla (Firefox plugin).

Torhal · 06-07-10, 08:18 PM

Freenode has their own WebChat service since they blocked Mibbit.

**Seerah** · 06-07-10, 08:39 PM

http://www.wowwiki.com/Getting_start...writing_addons
http://lua-users.org/wiki/TutorialDirectory

Xrystal · 06-08-10, 12:04 AM

oh cool seerah, that lua tutorial page Ive not come across yet not that Ive done the right key words I gather rofl.

Wella · 06-08-10, 05:12 AM

I'm currently using Blizz's two tutorials in their UI development pack - really helpful stuff to someone like me who's never done any scripting. (I have worked with HTML, CSS and GML before though.) Thanks for all your continuous replies, much appreciated.

Xrystal · 06-08-10, 06:13 AM

I did the same thing Wella. First addon was that little gold display bar. Then I didn't do anything for ages until I started using nUI and people were asking for extras so it gave me a reason to get back into things so between fixing problems that I cam across and writing addons that people asked for I have been learning more and more.

I am sure I still have a lot more to learn but I'll get there.

Fodaro · 06-08-10, 07:47 AM

If you're prepared to pay, there's a book called World of Warcraft Programming that will take you right through the possibilities. It's quite expensive, but really tells you almost everything you need to know.

Wella · 06-08-10, 09:19 AM

Thanks for the input Xrystal!

Fodaro, I have indeed heard of that book. It's not overly expensive but I think I'll wait on it for now, might look back into it when I get my summer job.