help making an addon

[TyrannisNorg]

ok i cann't find the addon i want and i have a few ideas on what i want it to do, only problem i have no idea how to create an addon or mod i've looked at a few sites like ace2 but yet again have no idea how to create or make a .TOC file, any help?

[JaedxRapture]

Well, Ace2 specifically is an addon library to help with addon creation. It makes nice features available for use by authors, and makes for very clean, logical coding in my opinion, like how it handles events and such over the standard method.

What you need is a little Lua knowledge, and optionally XML. The game uses Lua 5.1 for its coding and either Lua or XML for frame creation and management. And the TOC file is merely to package it all together.

Lua 5.1 is a scripting language that's pretty simple to learn. You may need prior experience in coding, but some people can get the hang of it well without that once they spend a little time working with it. You can find the Lua reference manual here: < http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/ >.

A good source for API and various misc addon creation info is WoWWiki (http://wowwiki.com/). See the right column on the main page for things like "events" and "API".

Edit: You'll probably find a little of what you need if you Google "lua tutorial" and/or "programming tutorial". And if you'd like to program in Ace, which as I said makes features available to you that allow for cleaner, neater and more rapid coding, check out WoWAce's tutorial section (http://wowace.com/wiki/Category:Tutorials) after you've looked into Lua and the general WoW tutorials on WoWWiki.

Edit: Things I found useful (read after you've read into Lua and WoWWiki's pages): Ace Tutorial (http://wowace.com/wiki/WelcomeHome_-_Your_first_Ace2_Addon), Coding Tips (http://wowace.com/wiki/Coding_Tips).

[TyrannisNorg]

thianks will be looking into that. want to make a raid healing addon that adds buttons to the blizzard raid layout.

[Jumpy]

Get out of here philipgreen, this is a forum for addon authoring. Someone please delete this guy's post.

[Tunga]

I love the way he even put China in as his location! Banned now anyway.

[Telic]

ok i cann't find the addon i want and i have a few ideas on what i want it to do, only problem i have no idea how to create an addon or mod i've looked at a few sites like ace2 but yet again have no idea how to create or make a .TOC file, any help?

I will second WoWWiki as an excellent web site with information on Blizzard functions, and some good general information and FAQs about AddOns.

You only need a text editor to write the LUA and XML files.
First I would google for "WoW AddOn Tutorial" and you should find a few that will get you started.

Also I'd just suggest that you find some simple AddOns yourself, and experiment with them to see how they work by just changing one or two things, or changing how the UI Frames look by changing small things in the XML files and examining the results.
Basically, the XML files are used to define how the AddOn looks, what frames it uses, and how and where they display, and how big they are, etc.
The LUA files are used for processing logic.
This is just a guideline, as you will find exceptions to this rule, and find some program code in the XML files, and some code in the LUA file that changes the XML components...


Its worth mentioning that much of the WoW User Interface has been written in LUA and XML by Blizzard themselves - so some of the best examples of how to write AddOns using LUA and XML is to look at the large set of files that Blizzard themselves provide with the game.
These files are also an EXCELLENT place to look for functions and information when you are trying to find out if some special feature of your AddOn is possible or not.
These files are all packed up inside '.mpq' files in your game libraries, so you should Google for programs that will let you explore and unpack '.mpq' files.
Blizzard provide a Tool that unpacks these files itself called the UI Toolkit available at :

http://www.blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aww01669p


I would do all of the above before even looking at the WoW Ace stuff - ACE is a set of libraries that other players have written, so its like another AddOn that your AddOn will become dependant upon, plus its another API to learn. Some people will use its functions rather than writing their own, but I would learn about LUA and XML before you decide whether you need ACE or not.
Basically you will absolutely 100% need to know about LUA and XML to write AddOns, but you don't need to know about ACE - most AddOns don't use it; So learn some LUA and XML first, and decide for yourself whether or not you think its worth learning about ACE later on.