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05-03-12, 12:16 PM   #1
venoabyss
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Question Simplish Guild Roster Replacement

I'm just learning LUA but have been progamming for many years in C and VB, however I find myself getting agrivated with the default guild frame, after spending the last week trying to find a addon that had what I needed and failing I decided it was time to learn lua and give it a shot.

Basicly I want to rewrite the entire guild roster page so at a glance I can see all the basic information currently provided in the (6ish) tabs of the guild roster.

Example:

Guild name (xp bar on right)
Roster
85 LeaderName 25k/25.1M Guild Leader Herb(525) | Mine (525)
...
...
...

Rep <--------------------------------> [Info button (for a second page)]

and use the guild tabard icon thingy as a transparent background for the whole thing (if it looks good)

I realize this is jumping right into the fire, and V1 will probably have virtually no options just a display but I think given a little time it could be a fun project.

However I haven't found a LUA or XML editor to make the transition easier, I'm used to using Visual C++ or VB Studio Suite, is there a lua/xml tool that approximates that type of environment that I should look into?

Also look forward to feedback on any libraries I might need to include to make this work.

Thanks in advance,
V

Ps I've been trying the list of programs listed in the tutorials and helpful info but most of the links seem to be down
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05-03-12, 05:44 PM   #2
Phanx
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Originally Posted by venoabyss View Post
However I haven't found a LUA or XML editor to make the transition easier, I'm used to using Visual C++ or VB Studio Suite, is there a lua/xml tool that approximates that type of environment that I should look into?
Not really. Most of us do our coding in a simple text editor like Notepad2 or Notepad++. There have been a few "studio" projects written for WoW Lua, but pretty much every single one of them was released and then immediately abandoned (so it's not useful today), and/or never finished in the first place, and/or produced the worst, most bloated, most garbage-producing code imaginable.

Originally Posted by venoabyss View Post
Also look forward to feedback on any libraries I might need to include to make this work.
I can't think of any libraries that will really make what you're trying to do easier. There are very few libraries that have anything to do with creating GUIs; all of them are more complicated to use than the basic Blizzard UI widget API, and most (if not all) of them are geared towards configuration UIs, so they will not be of much use in creating a window like the one you want to build.

Fortunately, the Blizzard API is pretty straightforward and extensively documented, with many working examples. Your best bet is to find an addon that produces a similar GUI, and look at its code to see how it works.

Finally, asking specific questions here is your best bet once you get started. For your project, you should just build a new guild UI window, rather than trying to modify the existing one. Once you come across something you can't figure out, or get to a point where you don't know what to do, describe what you need help with, what you already tried (if anything), which resources you checked (eg. if you already read the API docs on Wowpedia, we can skip linking them to you and telling you to read them), and - most importantly - include a complete copy of your actual code.

Originally Posted by venoabyss View Post
Ps I've been trying the list of programs listed in the tutorials and helpful info but most of the links seem to be down
Which tutorials? Which programs? There are dozens, if not hundreds, of tutorials for WoW addon programming on the web...
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07-05-12, 11:27 PM   #3
Gregity
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AddOn Studio

I'm using AddOn Studio. It's not all it's cracked up to be, does have some flaws (the Graphics part of it is near useless) and isn't supported. But as a VB programmer I find the interface comfortable. Works pretty well all in all and I have been able to get it to co-exist with tortoiseSVN pretty well.
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07-15-12, 07:24 AM   #4
kaels
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Originally Posted by venoabyss View Post
Ps I've been trying the list of programs listed in the tutorials and helpful info but most of the links seem to be down
wowprogramming.com is a godsend. The API is almost fully documented with an excellent structure showing the relationships among widgets. That's probably the best starting point; the API changes fast enough that virtually any tutorial you'll find will be out of date.

If you want some example code, check out any of the addons by Phanx, Cladhaire, Roth, or haste. (Lots of other great addon authors here, but those four have particularly nice styles and clean code.)
Originally Posted by venoabyss View Post
However I haven't found a LUA or XML editor to make the transition easier, I'm used to using Visual C++ or VB Studio Suite, is there a lua/xml tool that approximates that type of environment that I should look into?
As Phanx said, most addon devs are using something like Notepad++. I just switched from Notepad++ to Sublime Text 2 after seeing it mentioned here; it's about halfway between an IDE and a text editor. I find it just about perfect.

If you want a true IDE, there's technically a Lua extension available for Eclipse, but I really don't know what good it would do you. Most IDE features just won't work for addons - can't compile them, can't run them, can't debug them. I don't even think you can lint them effectively. Version control integration is helpful, but you don't need a full-on IDE for that.
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07-15-12, 05:44 PM   #5
Othgar
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Originally Posted by venoabyss View Post
However I haven't found a LUA or XML editor to make the transition easier, I'm used to using Visual C++ or VB Studio Suite, is there a lua/xml tool that approximates that type of environment that I should look into?
I actually use dreamweaver it has a lua plug-in available for it, and I was already using it for html css so it was an easy enough transition.
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WoWInterface » Developer Discussions » General Authoring Discussion » Simplish Guild Roster Replacement

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