AddOn dymanic loading whoes :(

guice · 09-13-05, 04:50 PM

You can no longer manage your AddOns by simplely adding/removing their folder from the AddOn folder.

Found this out today as I was trying to trouble shoot a few things and WoW wouldn't even *SEE* the addons until I completely quit and restarted WoW (just logging out or going to login screen did not work).

This is a HUGE problem and a massive oversight if this is was intentional. How is one suppose to work on AddOns now? I very well refuse to restart my entire game just so I can load a single new AddOn cause now WoW cannot load AddOns like it once did.

Kasheen · 09-13-05, 05:17 PM

Its intentional, while I was working on getting my mod compliant with 1.7 though I was able to just take the files inside the folder and dump them into the folder in the addons direction, reloadui and it was fine. . . .

njordin · 09-13-05, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by guice

This is a HUGE problem and a massive oversight if this is was intentional. How is one suppose to work on AddOns now? I very well refuse to restart my entire game just so I can load a single new AddOn cause now WoW cannot load AddOns like it once did.

There's little doubt that this was intentional. The betas didn't have it, and I refuse to believe Blizzard would allow a regression this huge to fall back into the release candidate if it wasn't in the betas. Which also begs the question if Blizz intentionally left it out of the beta versions to stem the tide of protests of us AddOn coders...

For me, this is a deal breaker. I've long stopped playing actively and more or less started to code for the public and my guild most of the time. Debugging an app isn't possible unless I have a chance to do so quickly, and I refuse to wait as long as I'd have to, simply to find out that I forgot to initialize some helper var.

There's more to this move, though. If this was intentional, it's one more proof of Blizzard's anti-UI-mod stance, and let's face it, most classes are almost unplayable without some creative modding to make things a bit more obvious (cooldown timers come to mind, or totem lists for Shaman).

**Iriel** · 09-13-05, 10:00 PM

Come on people, stop being such dramatic whiners -- Why not read the existing forum sticky threads and understand the issue before complaining about it.

1.7 introduced a lot of dynamic addon support -- on-demand loading being the main one. This meant that WoW needed to hang onto the .toc information more, and (probably to avoid data import exploits) this information is scanned at client launch, and cached until client shutdown.

Beyond the .toc file, everything is loaded as needed, and re-loads as needed, as a developer you're not really affected, you just have to log out and in when you start off, and from that point on you can do what you've always done unless you have a big .toc change -- in which case yes, you do have to restart the client, and it's mildly annoying.

STOP THE INSANITY - THE SKY IS NOT FALLING

***Cairenn*** · 09-13-05, 10:53 PM

Easy sweetie, deep breath now.

*hugs Iriel*

guice · 09-13-05, 10:55 PM

No whining (much) here. I wouldn't go and say it's a deal breaker, you can still use /console reloadui to reload your currently loaded files with no problem.

The problem I have is that you can no longer Add an AddOn while in game, which *seriously* blows. That's something they seriously need to fix.

guice · 09-13-05, 11:05 PM

Oh yeah, let me add I've tried UIParentLoadAddOn("NameOfFOlder") with error saying AddOn missing.

They also don't appear to have an UnLoadAddOn function, which would also be quite bad...They add 'LoadAddOn' but don't add an 'UnLoadAddOn'. /boggle UI's full of oversights.

**Iriel** · 09-14-05, 12:55 AM

Originally Posted by guice

They also don't appear to have an UnLoadAddOn function, which would also be quite bad...They add 'LoadAddOn' but don't add an 'UnLoadAddOn'. /boggle UI's full of oversights.

Unloading an addon is logically infeasible given the environment in which addons are developed - you cannot necessarily undo whatever an addon has done. It's not that they 'forgot', it's that it's not possible.

You CAN however Disable an addon using the API then /script ReloadUI() to get rid of it.

**Iriel** · 09-14-05, 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by guice

No whining (much) here. I wouldn't go and say it's a deal breaker, you can still use /console reloadui to reload your currently loaded files with no problem.

The problem I have is that you can no longer Add an AddOn while in game, which *seriously* blows. That's something they seriously need to fix.

You can, but it needs to have been installed BEFORE you start the game..

Install addon - but leave it disabled.

When in game, use the API to enable then load it (NOTE: Not all addons will work if you do this, depending on what assumptions they make/resources they use).. Or you can use the API to enable the addon then just do a /script ReloadUI().