AddOn Studio for WoW
by Marcie Knox 
Dec 17th 2007 at 4:30PM
For a big chunk of the gaming population, addons are mysterious things you download and hope will run. But for many talented people, they're an opportunity to help the community and make things easier for the rest of us.
Well, some of the tedium has been taken out of addon writing with the help of Microsoft. What?? Yep, you read that right. Microsoft loves WoW, too. Using CodePlex, their open-source project site, they have helped create an Addon Studio for WoW based on the Visual Studio package. The download contains everything you need to create addons, so don't worry if you aren't the owner of Visual Studio already.
So what does this mean exactly? The project team has converted the addon writing process from text and code to drag and drop. You get the look and feel of common programs like Visual Basic but with the command structure of WoW. By having the process be graphic, you just pick and choose what you want from the list.
Specifically, Addon Studio will provide an interface that allows addon creators to build in familiar surroundings. You'll also have the ability to auto-generate items like the table of contents or lua events. Error checking for FrameXML and Lua parsing also helps to speed the addon process up. Likewise, they have included Ace2 templates so you can still tap into one of the most commonly used addon libraries and updater systems.
Long-term, this should open up addon creation to those that enjoy dablling with programing, but don't have the time or skill to build them without a bit more structure. And that can only be a good thing.
[Thanks, Jason!]
Filed under: News items, Add-Ons, Tips, How-tos, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
draeth Dec 17th 2007 4:53PM
Can someone please tell me how to get addons??? Ive tried countless versions, dl'd them, unzipped them in the addon folder blah blah blah and every time i boot up wow their never there, i have no idea what im doing wrong.
James Dec 17th 2007 5:25PM
The blah blah blah part of your post could be where the problem is. When you start up WoW, there is a button that says 'Add Ons' at the character selection screen. You need to make sure everything in there is turned on, and see if the add on is maybe out of date.
Khanmora Dec 17th 2007 5:33PM
The UI and Macros forums can answer your question, just follow the guide stickied here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=9339C381AC8D85ADF391C422BE48D934?topicId=442927843&sid=1
Aaron Dec 17th 2007 5:01PM
I hope its done in ace2 :p
Marcie Knox Dec 17th 2007 6:10PM
It's compatable with Ace2, yes. But the user interface to write the code is different.
Corrine Dec 17th 2007 6:17PM
The UI and Macro forum's response to the addon can be found here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3466286997&sid=1
Some negative comments in there, it looks like. I still need to learn to program addons before I can make my own comments, though.
theremover Dec 17th 2007 6:39PM
it's too bad so many tools like this are platform specific. There are lots of similar development packages available that are cross platform that could have been used to create this. I hope someone will give the mac users some love in this dept. soon.
draeth Dec 17th 2007 7:05PM
the blah blah blah isnt important, the important part is that i have the folders unzipped in my addon folder and there is no ADDON button in the bottom of the character selection screen so idk whats the problem.
Locane Dec 17th 2007 7:33PM
derth, when you unzip them, you also have to make sure they aren't nested ie : you unzip "thisaddon" and it creates a folder named "thisaddon" inside it will usually be a folder named "thisaddon" and thats the one you need to move.
so unzipped to /thisaddon/thisaddon/(addone files)
James Dec 17th 2007 7:48PM
Okay, could be that your addons sense what a whiny twit you are and won't work for you. I think they added that in 2.2.
Theserene Dec 18th 2007 12:35PM
the blah blah blah isnt important?
HOW many times have I heard THAT line when working in tech support and it turns out the blahblah contains the reason why it's not working...
draeth Dec 17th 2007 10:47PM
james ur fucking hilarious, thanks for the help i forgot all about that whiny twit detector
Fizzl Dec 18th 2007 3:48AM
My first response to this is: Nice!
Time to go play, it will be especially good if i can mess around with add ons (at work :P) without having wow up.
Lucky for me my still a student status means free visual studios from MS.
Pook Dec 18th 2007 8:44AM
So in the video of Microsoft presenting this program -
http://blogs.msdn.com/vsxteam/archive/2007/12/15/AddOn-Studio-for-World-of-Warcraft-released.aspx
At 5:11s he breaches the WoW Eula by logging into his wife's account.. I also would presume there was copyright infringement issues with the Halo sounds.
Nice to know they don't think Eula's or copyright issues are of any consequence.
danielfe Dec 18th 2007 4:00PM
@14 who stated we breached the Wow EULA for Warcraft and Halo, it is not a violation of the Warcraft EULA, and, when we first decided to do this demo, we *explicitly* contacted both Blizzard and Bungie Studios (for use of the Halo sounds) to make sure everything was fine with the demos.
As for the Warcraft EULA, it is not a violation to log into another person's account assuming you are an authorized user of that account. In fact, the EULA expicitly calls out in Section 6 that "...you will be responsible for all uses of your login information, whether or not authorized by you" and I can guarantee you my wife is responsible and did authorize this use.
It would be a violation of the EULA if my wife had sold, gifted or traded her account as outlined in "8. Ownership/Selling of the Account or Virtual Items" which she would not do.
The only reason I used my wife's account is for the comedic effect of (1) A cute female Gnome Warlock named Shedevil being played by a guy and (2) Gnomes have an amusing dance.
Thanks,
Dan Fernandez
[Guy in the demo]
Microsoft
Chris Anthony Dec 19th 2007 10:10AM
Dan, that's an interesting reading of the terms of service (not the EULA; that's a different document). You're arguing that in Section 6, by including the phrase "whether or not authorized by you", Blizzard is implicitly allowing users to authorize others to use their accounts.
Section 3, however, puts the lie to that: "You may not share the Account or the Login Information with anyone other than as expressly set forth herein." I would argue that, to be frank, "implicit" and "express" are antonyms; since Section 6 does not directly say "You may authorize other users to use your account", doing so is a violation of the TOS per Section 3.
However, you also say that Blizzard gave the thumbs-up to the demo, and since that's the case there's not really a point in arguing it further in this instance.
Shae Dec 18th 2007 9:11AM
I have to admit, I've been playing the game for 2 years and I still feel like a complete add-on noob. I've tried my hand with a few on my main (priest) but always found them a pain when they would break on next patch and eventually just gave up. However now that I seem to have garnerd a nasty alt addiction, I should stop being so lazy and edumacate myself again... if anyone has any suggestions on good reading material and decent places to get started I'd certainly appreciate it.
Theserene Dec 18th 2007 12:38PM
I am of two minds.
The large part of my working day is fixing code that other people have created (inbetween writing my own) and some of that does come from dabblers who get hold of a program that makes their lives easier and think it makes for a good product.
I do think people really do need an understanding of at least good programming practice before they start writing program add-ons, no matter HOW easy it looks.
It saves a lot of time for us experts later on.
Shawn Wildermuth Dec 18th 2007 3:20PM
I played with this for a couple hours last night (I've never done anything with LUA or Addons) and it was pretty seemless. I was alble to create a simple addon that posted data to the Combat window with Pet Experience stats when the pet got XP in less than an hour. The dialog editor was cool, but it seems a little wonky (couldnt' get just an arrow cursor once I picked a tool), but was much better than hand-coding the xml file. Overall I was *very* impressed.
zushiba Dec 19th 2007 2:09PM
@Dan Fernandez, I think what you guys have done here is great and I hope it doesn't end at a tech demo. The potential for addon development with such a UI is incredible. I've made a single addon since I've started playing at release. It's just so time consuming and I work full time so I don't have time to really put what I want into an addon.
Hopefully this package will be my answer.
I look forward to seeing more development.