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New Comment on "SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0"

a9bian — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:28:43 GMT

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Updated Wiki: Home

RGabo — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:36:41 GMT

AddOn Studio FAQ

Last updated Feb: 15th

What is AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft?

AddOn Studio (AOS) is an open source development environment designed to bring a Visual Studio-like experience to building World of Warcraft AddOns. For more information on exactly what AOS does, check out the list of features below.

Where can I download it?

A new Beta build of AddOn Studio is now available (Feb 15) and has been updated to work with Wrath of the Lich King. You can Download it here

Does AddOn Studio require Visual Studio to be installed?

No, AddOn Studio works independently of Visual Studio. If you do have Visual Studio installed, AddOn Studio will work just fine.

I'm having problems installing AddOn Studio, what should I do?

First try installing the Visual Studio Shell link in the release notes. If that doesn't work, please file a bug and include 1) Operating System, 2).NET Framework version installed, 3)installation log.

What features are included in AddOn Studio?

Visual Design Surface
AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

FrameXML Tree View
Visualize the hierarchy of nested controls in your FrameXML file including virtual controls

Visually Browse Warcraft Resources (MPQ files)
You can now browse and add Warcraft resources directly into your addons including class ability icons (Druid, Rogue, Priest, etc), common frames (Bank, Calendar, Chat, Guild, etc), and Common Buttons (close, scrolling, main menu, etc)

Visually Design Frame Backdrops
AddOn Studio includes a Backdrop editor tool to easily design and visualize an XML Frame.

Default to XML View for Advanced Developers
For advanced developers that want to hand-code FrameXML files, AddOn Studio now includes the option to turn off the Visual Designer and just use the XML editing tools.

WowProgramming-powered IntelliSense
The IntelliSense engine has been updated using the Wow Programming API Reference. It includes detailed parameters and return types.

FrameXML IntelliSense
AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup (see readme for setup notes).

Auto-Generate AddOn Table of Contents (TOC)
AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project. You can easily change the order of files in the TOC.

Visually add Table of Contents (TOC) Metadata
AddOn Studio also makes it easy to add metadata to your Tables of Contents (TOC) file including Title, Author, version, and a number of other common metadata attributes as well as custom attributes.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a buttonOnClick event.

Other Features - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

How was AddOn Studio created? How can I build my own Visual Studio like IDE?
AddOn Studio is built using the free Visual Studio Shell. is build developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit .

Can I Build/Compile AddOn Studio?
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit Download it here and follow the Build Notes described there.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

What are some recommended resources for learning how to build Warcraft AddOns?

Start by downloading and installing the World of Warcraft Interface AddOn Kit and following the included tutorial

WowWiki's UI Beginner's Guide

WowWiki AddOn Programming Tutorial

WowWiki How To Articles

Lua Language Reference

Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons - A complete reference for building AddOns

Book: Coding4Fun: 10 .NET Programming Projects for Wiimote, YouTube, World of Warcraft, and More - Chapter 3 is a .NET developer's guide to building AddOns and shows how an in-game RSS Reader is built

Wow Programming Tools & Utilities

Who has worked on or contributed to AddOn Studio?
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Tamas Herner, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash! Custom artwork created by Lisa Jones, Game Artist.

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is not created or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:31:42 GMT

AddOn Studio FAQ
Last updated Feb: 15th

What is AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft?
AddOn Studio (AOS) is an open source development environment designed to bring a Visual Studio-like experience to building World of Warcraft AddOns. For more information on exactly what AOS does, check out the list of features below.

Where can I download it?
A new Beta build of AddOn Studio is now available (Feb 15) and has been updated to work with Wrath of the Lich King. You can Download it here

Does AddOn Studio require Visual Studio to be installed?
No, AddOn Studio works independently of Visual Studio. If you do have Visual Studio installed, AddOn Studio will work just fine.

I'm having problems installing AddOn Studio, what should I do?
First try installing the Visual Studio Shell link in the release notes. If that doesn't work, please file a bug and include 1) Operating System, 2).NET Framework version installed, 3)installation log.

What features are included in AddOn Studio?

Visual Design Surface
AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

FrameXML Tree View
Visualize the hierarchy of nested controls in your FrameXML file including virtual controls

Visually Browse Warcraft Resources (MPQ files)
You can now browse and add Warcraft resources directly into your addons including class ability icons (Druid, Rogue, Priest, etc), common frames (Bank, Calendar, Chat, Guild, etc), and Common Buttons (close, scrolling, main menu, etc)

Visually Design Frame Backdrops
AddOn Studio includes a Backdrop editor tool to easily design and visualize an XML Frame.

Default to XML View for Advanced Developers
For advanced developers that want to hand-code FrameXML files, AddOn Studio now includes the option to turn off the Visual Designer and just use the XML editing tools.

WowProgramming-powered IntelliSense
The IntelliSense engine has been updated using the Wow Programming API Reference. It includes detailed parameters and return types.

FrameXML IntelliSense
AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup (see readme for setup notes).
image:xmlintellisense.png]

*Auto-Generate AddOn Table of Contents (TOC) *
AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project. You can easily change the order of files in the TOC.

Visually add Table of Contents (TOC) Metadata
AddOn Studio also makes it easy to add metadata to your Tables of Contents (TOC) file including Title, Author, version, and a number of other common metadata attributes as well as custom attributes.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Features - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

How was AddOn Studio created? How can I build my own Visual Studio like IDE?
AddOn Studio is built using the free Visual Studio Shell . is build developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit .

Can I Build/Compile AddOn Studio?
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit Download it here and follow the Build Notes described there.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

What are some recommended resources for learning how to build Warcraft AddOns?

Start by downloading and installing the World of Warcraft Interface AddOn Kit and following the included tutorial
WowWiki's UI Beginner's Guide
WowWiki AddOn Programming Tutorial
WowWiki How To Articles
Lua Language Reference
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons - A complete reference for building AddOns
Book: Coding4Fun: 10 .NET Programming Projects for Wiimote, YouTube, World of Warcraft, and More - Chapter 3 is a .NET developer's guide to building AddOns and shows how an in-game RSS Reader is built
Wow Programming Tools & Utilities

Who has worked on or contributed to AddOn Studio?
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash! Custom artwork created by Lisa Jones, Game Artist.

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is not created or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:23:39 GMT

AddOn Studio FAQ
Last updated Feb: 15th

What is AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft?
AddOn Studio (AOS) is an open source development environment designed to bring a Visual Studio-like experience to building World of Warcraft AddOns. For more information on exactly what AOS does, check out the list of features below.

Where can I download it?
A new Beta build of AddOn Studio is now available (Feb 15) and has been updated to work with Wrath of the Lich King. You can Download it here

Does AddOn Studio require Visual Studio to be installed?
No, AddOn Studio works independently of Visual Studio. If you do have Visual Studio installed, AddOn Studio will work just fine.

I'm having problems installing AddOn Studio, what should I do?
First try installing the Visual Studio Shell link in the release notes. If that doesn't work, please file a bug and include 1) Operating System, 2).NET Framework version installed, 3)installation log.

What features are included in AddOn Studio?

Visual Design Surface
AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

FrameXML Tree View
Visualize the hierarchy of nested controls in your FrameXML file including virtual controls

Visually Browse Warcraft Resources (MPQ files)
You can now browse and add Warcraft resources directly into your addons including class ability icons (Druid, Rogue, Priest, etc), common frames (Bank, Calendar, Chat, Guild, etc), and Common Buttons (close, scrolling, main menu, etc)

Visually Design Frame Backdrops
AddOn Studio includes a Backdrop editor tool to easily design and visualize an XML Frame.

Default to XML View for Advanced Developers
For advanced developers that want to hand-code FrameXML files, AddOn Studio now includes the option to turn off the Visual Designer and just use the XML editing tools.

WowProgramming-powered IntelliSense
The IntelliSense engine has been updated using the Wow Programming API Reference. It includes detailed parameters and return types.

FrameXML IntelliSense
AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup (see readme for setup notes).
image:xmlintellisense.png]

*Auto-Generate AddOn Table of Contents (TOC) *
AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project. You can easily change the order of files in the TOC.

Visually add Table of Contents (TOC) Metadata
AddOn Studio also makes it easy to add metadata to your Tables of Contents (TOC) file including Title, Author, version, and a number of other common metadata attributes as well as custom attributes.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Features - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

How was AddOn Studio created? How can I build my own Visual Studio like IDE?
AddOn Studio is built using the free Visual Studio Shell . is build developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit .

Can I Build/Compile AddOn Studio?
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit Download it here and follow the Build Notes described there.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

What are some recommended resources for learning how to build Warcraft AddOns?

Start by downloading and installing the World of Warcraft Interface AddOn Kit and following the included tutorial
WowWiki's UI Beginner's Guide
WowWiki AddOn Programming Tutorial
Lua Language Reference
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons - A complete reference for building AddOns
Book: Coding4Fun: 10 .NET Programming Projects for Wiimote, YouTube, World of Warcraft, and More - Chapter 3 is a .NET developer's guide to building AddOns and shows how an in-game RSS Reader is built
Wow Programming Tools & Utilities

Who has worked on or contributed to AddOn Studio?
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash! Custom artwork created by Lisa Jones, Game Artist.

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is not created or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:22:04 GMT

AddOn Studio FAQ

What is AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft?
AddOn Studio (AOS) is an open source development environment designed to bring a Visual Studio-like experience to building World of Warcraft AddOns. For more information on exactly what AOS does, check out the list of features below.

Where can I download it?
A new Beta build of AddOn Studio is now available and has been updated to work with Wrath of the Lich King. You can Download it here

Does AddOn Studio require Visual Studio to be installed?
No, AddOn Studio works independently of Visual Studio. If you do have Visual Studio installed, AddOn Studio will work just fine.

I'm having problems installing AddOn Studio, what should I do?
First try installing the Visual Studio Shell link in the release notes. If that doesn't work, please file a bug and include 1) Operating System, 2).NET Framework version installed, 3)installation log.

What features are included in AddOn Studio?

Visual Design Surface
AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

FrameXML Tree View
Visualize the hierarchy of nested controls in your FrameXML file including virtual controls

Visually Browse Warcraft Resources (MPQ files)
You can now browse and add Warcraft resources directly into your addons including class ability icons (Druid, Rogue, Priest, etc), common frames (Bank, Calendar, Chat, Guild, etc), and Common Buttons (close, scrolling, main menu, etc)

Visually Design Frame Backdrops
AddOn Studio includes a Backdrop editor tool to easily design and visualize an XML Frame.

Default to XML View for Advanced Developers
For advanced developers that want to hand-code FrameXML files, AddOn Studio now includes the option to turn off the Visual Designer and just use the XML editing tools.

WowProgramming-powered IntelliSense
The IntelliSense engine has been updated using the Wow Programming API Reference. It includes detailed parameters and return types.

FrameXML IntelliSense
AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup (see readme for setup notes).
image:xmlintellisense.png]

*Auto-Generate AddOn Table of Contents (TOC) *
AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project. You can easily change the order of files in the TOC.

Visually add Table of Contents (TOC) Metadata
AddOn Studio also makes it easy to add metadata to your Tables of Contents (TOC) file including Title, Author, version, and a number of other common metadata attributes as well as custom attributes.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Features - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

How was AddOn Studio created? How can I build my own Visual Studio like IDE?
AddOn Studio is built using the free Visual Studio Shell . is build developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit .

Can I Build/Compile AddOn Studio?
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit Download it here and follow the Build Notes described there.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

What are some recommended resources for learning how to build Warcraft AddOns?

Start by downloading and installing the World of Warcraft Interface AddOn Kit and following the included tutorial
WowWiki's UI Beginner's Guide
WowWiki AddOn Programming Tutorial
Lua Language Reference
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons - A complete reference for building AddOns
Book: Coding4Fun: 10 .NET Programming Projects for Wiimote, YouTube, World of Warcraft, and More - Chapter 3 is a .NET developer's guide to building AddOns and shows how an in-game RSS Reader is built
Wow Programming Tools & Utilities

Who has worked on or contributed to AddOn Studio?
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash! Custom artwork created by Lisa Jones, Game Artist.

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is not created or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

New Comment on "BuildNotes"

RGabo — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:38:06 GMT
We'll be publishing updated Build Notes along with a newer v2 source drop but for those who can't wait, when building from Visual Studio, WowAddonStudio.exe needs to be run with the command argument '/ranu'. This instructs it to Run As Normal User, which is where AddOnStudio registers itself as part of the build process. We'll make this more apparent in subsequent code drops and here on Codeplex. Hope this helps, Gabor

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:37:27 GMT

Latest News - Updated Feb 5, 2009

AddOn Studio For World of Warcraft is being updated, we should hopefully have a version uploaded in a week that will solve the installation problems and has been tested to work with Wrath of the Lich King.
v2 BETA Now Available! AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft v2 BETA
SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons now available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Programming-Reference-Creating/dp/0470229810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210717792&sr=8-1

Getting Started
If you're new to World of Warcraft development, go to AddOn Studio 1.0.1 Download and click install. Depending on your system configuration, installation can take over 30 minutes, please be patient! After installing, select Help>>Tutorials >> Creating your first World of Warcraft addon to get started.

Key Features

Visual Design Surface - AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

Lua Code Editor - AddOn Studio includes a powerful Lua code editing environment including syntax highlighting, colorization, collapsible functions, built-in IntelliSense support for Warcraft functions and events, IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Lua language constructs, code navigation features like bookmarks and Go To Declaration, and all IDE settings are customizable.

FrameXML IntelliSense - AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

Auto-Generate Table of Contents - AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Goodies - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including project templates for creating Ace2 addons, automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Visual Studio Shell Extensibility
AddOn Studio is also a great project for developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit http://msdn.com/vsx/.

Building AddOn Studio
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit BuildNotes and follow the steps described there.

Kudos and Thanks
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash! Custom artwork created by Lisa Jones, Game Artist.

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:46:33 GMT

Latest News - Updated Feb 5, 2009

AddOn Studio For World of Warcraft is being updated, we should hopefully have a version uploaded in a week that will solve the installation problems and has been tested to work with Wrath of the Lich King.
v2 BETA Now Available! AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft v2 BETA
SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons now available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Programming-Reference-Creating/dp/0470229810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210717792&sr=8-1

Getting Started
If you're new to World of Warcraft development, go to AddOn Studio 1.0.1 Download and click install. Depending on your system configuration, installation can take over 30 minutes, please be patient! After installing, select Help>>Tutorials >> Creating your first World of Warcraft addon to get started.

Key Features

Visual Design Surface - AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

Lua Code Editor - AddOn Studio includes a powerful Lua code editing environment including syntax highlighting, colorization, collapsible functions, built-in IntelliSense support for Warcraft functions and events, IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Lua language constructs, code navigation features like bookmarks and Go To Declaration, and all IDE settings are customizable.

FrameXML IntelliSense - AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

Auto-Generate Table of Contents - AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Goodies - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including project templates for creating Ace2 addons, automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Visual Studio Shell Extensibility
AddOn Studio is also a great project for developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit http://msdn.com/vsx/.

Building AddOn Studio
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit BuildNotes and follow the steps described there.

Kudos and Thanks
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash! Custom artwork created by Lisa Jones, Game Artist.

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:25:39 GMT

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Latest News

v2 BETA Now Available! AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft v2 BETA
SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons now available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Programming-Reference-Creating/dp/0470229810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210717792&sr=8-1

Getting Started
If you're new to World of Warcraft development, go to AddOn Studio 1.0.1 Download and click install. Depending on your system configuration, installation can take over 30 minutes, please be patient! After installing, select Help>>Tutorials >> Creating your first World of Warcraft addon to get started.

Key Features

Visual Design Surface - AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

Lua Code Editor - AddOn Studio includes a powerful Lua code editing environment including syntax highlighting, colorization, collapsible functions, built-in IntelliSense support for Warcraft functions and events, IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Lua language constructs, code navigation features like bookmarks and Go To Declaration, and all IDE settings are customizable.

FrameXML IntelliSense - AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

Auto-Generate Table of Contents - AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Goodies - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including project templates for creating Ace2 addons, automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Visual Studio Shell Extensibility
AddOn Studio is also a great project for developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit http://msdn.com/vsx/.

Building AddOn Studio
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit BuildNotes and follow the steps described there.

Kudos and Thanks
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash!

Updated Wiki: SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0

danielfe — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:18:47 GMT

Version 2.0: AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Note: all features subject to change

1. Overview

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is a tool that enables World of Warcraft developers to easily build add-ons and serves as an example implementation of the Visual Studio Shell. Version 2.0 of AddOn Studio adds improvements in four key areas:

Improve support for existing addon developers
Improve WYSIWYG Visual Designers
Improve code editing and debugging experience
Greatly improve documentation and enable “live demo”

2. Requirements

2.1 Goals

The goals of the release are to address direct customer feedback on CodePlex.
To ensure code quality for community members to modify the IDE

2.2 Non-goals

Side-by-Side support with previous version of AddOn Studio.

3. Dependencies

SVN parsing/integration libraries (AnkhSVN)
Updated IntelliSense files from Warcraft programming book

4. Design

There are no major changes to the “core” of AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft, unless required for feature implementation

4.1 Add Unit Testing
Add unit testing to major existing features as well as to all new features in the application to ensure code quality. The primary reason for this is to avoid feature regressions as community members add or modify AddOn Studio.

4.2 Better support for existing AddOns

4.2.1 Import From File Wizard
As the name implies, the goal of this feature is to simplify the experience for customers who already have existing addons built on their hard drive.

Import From File Wizard Features and Steps

Select the directory for where the addon currently exists (folderbrowser control). The default should be to the \AddOns\ directory

Make a copy of all files and the folder structure to import. The existing folder should not be affected

Build a new project using the default AddOn name from the imported TOC file. If no TOC file exists, default to the NewProject name. Copy all files into the new project folder.

Work Item: Add: Import Existing AddOn

4.2.2 Import from Ace Wizard
As the name implies, this import wizard simplifies creating a project from the Ace2 SVN.

Import from Ace SVN Wizard: Features/Steps

Provide input boxes to point to SVN wizard (smart default location) and the user name/password combination
Show a treeview of projects available from the SVN root for them to select. I’m thinking this should copy all files (and file folders) in the projects

The state of the project will be copied locally, not officially a checkout, following the same conventions with Visual Studio.

Work Item: Add: Add Subversion check-in/check-out Window

4.2.3 Improve TOC Editor and Auto-generated TOC

Improve discovery of TOC Editor (New button, publish step?)
Enable users to manually control TOC editing
Enable visual reordering of items in load order and removing of items from TOC list. Need to think of how to do this visually as you want a master list of all possible files and be able to select items
Add an Auto-preview view that will show what the TOC file will look like
P3 - Add highlighting to show add/update/deletes to TOC file

Work Item: Add: Improve the auto-generated TOC experience/check-out Window

4.2.4 Ace2 SVN Checkout
Similar to other source control systems, SVN will be integrated into Visual Studio to enable basic source control operations on files in the Solution Explorer. At its most basic, a user should be able to

Connect to a SVN system
Copy all files from the SVN
Check in new or updated files to SVN
Checkout files for projects with multiple developers

More advanced features like diffs, merges, etc will not be supported (note: unless we can get them for free from AnkhSVN)

Work Item: Add Subversion check-in/check-out Window

4.3 Improve the FrameXML Visual Designer

4.3.1 Core Designer Improvements
Improve the core WYSIWYG designer. The designer should look as close to the real-time view as possible. There are a number of ways to improve this, not limited to the list below.

Show designer support for frame borders, styles, (edgefile and bgFile) and backdrop files including a browser to show the different files.

Work Item: Add designer support for different frames and Designer support for texture browsing

Add WYSIWYG support for font styles

Work Item: Add WYSIWYG for different fontstring sizes

Improve WYSIWYG support for Toolbox controls

StatusBar
Slider
Model
GameToolTip

Fix so that manual changes to the FrameXML file are not changed.

Work Item: Designer should not replace XML

Automatically rename script file when it’s associated FrameXML file is renamed

Work Item: Renaming Frame.xml file does not rename <script> tag

4.3.2 Blizzard AddOn Visualization Support
Improve the existing WYSIWYG designer by implementing a much more realistic real-time preview. Items should not be malformed, images should all load and it should provide a realistic-as-possible preview of the AddOn, including frame inheritance and blizzard frame styles.

Work Item: AddOn Studio not rendering Blizzard FrameXML files

4.3.3 Hidden/Visible Layers and panes

Enable a way to display UI visibility toggling
A “poor man’s” version of PhotoShop layers with the eye that turns on and off as many addons enable visible/non-visible frames.

4.3.4 Basic control binding WYSIWYG

Enable a developer to, at design time, see a list of tables they’ve declared and to bind values to list controls like the dropdown control

4.4 Improve Code Editing and Debugging experience

4.4.1 WowBench Function Emulator
Import the WowBench open source project, update the list of Wow functions and provide a GUI tool for testing functions (current tool is a console).

Work Item: Add GUI for WowBench function emulator

4.4.2 Lua Immediate Window
Add an Immediate Window for Lua functions by embedding the WowLua 5.1.1 compiler. A user will invoke this either by showing the immediate window, or by right clicking a selection of text and selecting “run” to send the currently selected code to the immediate window for execution.

Work Item: Add Immediate Window for lua functions

4.4.3 Rename Refactoring
Enable the ability to rename variables, functions, and files. In terms of implementation, Search-and-Replace may be the easiest way to implement (note: if DOM loading not possible)

4.4.4 Update IntelliSense Service

Update service to include statement completion for Lua 5.1.1 Wow-supported functions.

Work Item: IntelliSense support missing for Lua functions

The team developing the World of Warcraft Programming book has promised to provide an update for Warcraft functions and parameters.

Work Item: Add IntelliSense support for Wow Globals

Add IntelliSense support for locals and custom functions

Work Item: IntelliSense doesn't show up for locals or custom functions

Correct IntelliSense to show variables in the correct scope.

Work Item: Intellisense shows local declarations out of their scope

Fix “self:” IntelliSense to show the correct variable context when using Lua OO concepts

4.4.5 Code Outline View
The Code Outline view is an implementation of the open source Code Outline Tool window that enables you to easily navigate source code by members (fields, functions, etc)

4.4.6 Add Ace3 File support
This is TBD based on when the schedule for Ace3 will release, but the work item would be to build a project template and documentation.

4.5 Documentation

4.5.1 Getting Started Page
To help beginners know how and where to start, the Getting Started page shows the tutorials and documentation available. Exact details

4.5.2 In-Game Samples Browser
The goal of the samples browser is to build a “meta” sample browser to showcase specific application building features. The application itself will be playable inside World of Warcraft with a simple list of all the sample available and the ability to load that sample.

Note: Many of these examples, in particular under the Wow functions section could simply use Ace3 libraries

4.5.2.1 Controls

Using default control templates

Ex: Inputbox template

Using an editbox control
Using a checkbutton control
Using a dropdown control
Using a FontString control
Using a GameTooltip control
Using a model control
Using a radiobutton control
Using a SimpleHtml control
Using a Slider control
Using a statusbar control
Using a ScrollingMessageFrame control

Working with items and item links

Using a texture control

4.5.2.2 Designing Frames

Different anchors, backdrops, edgefiles, layers
Inheriting different frame styles
Customizing Blizzard Frames

4.5.2.3 Lua basics
Ideally these examples would all work in the Immediate window (feature 5.3.2) as well

Working with strings (parsing/regex)
Working with tables
Logic constructs (if, while, looping)
Building and using multiple return value functions
Working with events

4.5.2.4 Wow Functions

Parsing combat log
Parsing slash commands
Using per user and per character saved variables
Building a timer
Exchanging information between AddOns
Exchanging information between other players
Designing for localization

4.5.2.5 Debugging Wow apps

Capturing Blizzard errors

Ex: Stack, error, line number, etc

Tracking memory usage/performance

5. Feature Decisions / Q&A

CodeDOM – Several of these features likely involve adding a full code DOM for navigation or code editing.
SVN Integration is being provided using an existing open source project. Due to the nature of the license (GPL), SVN integration will be in compiled library (DLL) form instead of in source code form.

X. Miscellaneous

X.1 Full list of work items addressed in this release

Work Item: Add: Import Existing AddOn
Work Item: Add: Add Subversion check-in/check-out Window
Work Item: Add: Improve the auto-generated TOC experience/check-out Window
Work Item: Add designer support for different frames
Work Item: Designer support for texture browsing
Work Item: Add WYSIWYG for different fontstring sizes
Work Item: Designer should not replace XML
Work Item: Renaming Frame.xml file does not rename <script> tag
Work Item: AddOn Studio not rendering Blizzard FrameXML files
Work Item: Add GUI for WowBench function emulator
Work Item: Add Immediate Window for lua functions
Work Item: IntelliSense support missing for Lua functions
Work Item: Add IntelliSense support for Wow Globals
Work Item: IntelliSense doesn't show up for locals or custom functions
Work Item: Intellisense shows local declarations out of their scope

Updated Wiki: Version2readme

danielfe — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:10:25 GMT

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft Readme

System Requirements

1.1 Supported Architectures

x86
x64 (WOW)
IA64 is not supported

1.2 Supported Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (WOW)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2
Microsoft Windows XP Media Edition 2002 SP2
Microsoft Windows XP Media Edition 2004 SP2
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition SP1
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition SP1
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition SP1
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition SP1
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition SP1 (WOW)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition SP1 (WOW)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition SP1 (WOW)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Datacenter Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition (WOW)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition (WOW)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition (WOW)
Windows Vista

1.3 Hardware Requirements

Minimum: 1.6 GHz CPU, 192 MB RAM, 1024x768 display, 5400 RPM hard drive
Recommended: 2.2 GHZ or higher CPU, 384 MB or more RAM, 1280x1024 display, 7200 RPM or higher hard drive
Running on Windows Vista: 2.4 GHz CPU, 768 MB RAM
500 MB of available disk space for the full installation

2. Known Issues

2.1 Installing
2.1.1 Generic
Installation may take a long time, especially when .NET Framework 3.5 is not installed on the target computer. This is normal and please do not interrupt the installer.

2.2 Post Installation
2.2.1 UI.xsd Must Be Manually Extracted
The UI.xsd required for validating the Frame Xml files is not included in the installation. This file is stored inside the data files of World of Warcraft, so it must be manually extracted using the World of Warcraft AddOn Kit provided by Blizzard.

In order to enable the AddOn Studio's full functionality this step should not be skipped.

2.2.2 Enabling IntelliSense Support for Frame XML files
After the UI.xsd has been extracted from the data files, you must copy it into the following folder: %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Xml\Schemas\.

By default %ProgramFiles% points to C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) on 64 bit systems. If you are not sure where is your Program Files folder, type the following command into a Command Prompt Window (Start/All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt):

echo %ProgramFiles%

If AddOn Studio was running you will have to restart it.

Updated Wiki: SampleProjects

danielfe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:13:56 GMT

AddOn Studio Sample Projects

AnalyzeOpponent
This sample project, (which you can watch a demo at TechEd Europe at: ), shows

How to capture the PLAYERTARGETCHANGED and COMBATLOGEVENT_UNFILTERED (the new 2.4 combat log) events.
If the target changed, the code examines the level of the target and changes a Texture based on whether it's a lower, same, or higher level than me.
For the combat log events, If there are multiple kill events within 15 seconds, it'll play some Halo audio clips.

Download: AnalyzeOpponent.zip

WriteData
This sample project shows how to read and display a Lua SavedVariable and is designed to be used with the VB/C# sample here which shows how you can programmatically write data to Warcraft's SavedVariables and have an AddOn like WriteData read the newly updated data.

Download: SavedVariables.zip

Updated Wiki: Home

danielfe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:13:37 GMT

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Latest News

AddOn Studio SampleProjects: Analyze Opponent and SavedVariables
SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons now available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Programming-Reference-Creating/dp/0470229810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210717792&sr=8-1

Getting Started
If you're new to World of Warcraft development, go to AddOn Studio 1.0.1 Download and click install. Depending on your system configuration, installation can take over 30 minutes, please be patient! After installing, select Help>>Tutorials >> Creating your first World of Warcraft addon to get started.

Key Features

Visual Design Surface - AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

Lua Code Editor - AddOn Studio includes a powerful Lua code editing environment including syntax highlighting, colorization, collapsible functions, built-in IntelliSense support for Warcraft functions and events, IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Lua language constructs, code navigation features like bookmarks and Go To Declaration, and all IDE settings are customizable.

FrameXML IntelliSense - AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

Auto-Generate Table of Contents - AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Goodies - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including project templates for creating Ace2 addons, automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Visual Studio Shell Extensibility
AddOn Studio is also a great project for developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit http://msdn.com/vsx/.

Building AddOn Studio
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit BuildNotes and follow the steps described there.

Kudos and Thanks
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash!

Updated Wiki: SampleProjects

danielfe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:11:58 GMT

AddOn Studio Sample Projects

AnalyzeOpponent
This sample project, (which you can watch a demo at TechEd Europe at: ), shows

How to capture the PLAYERTARGETCHANGED and COMBATLOGEVENT_UNFILTERED (the new 2.4 combat log) events.
If the target changed, the code examines the level of the target and changes a Texture based on whether it's a lower, same, or higher level than me.
For the combat log events, If there are multiple kill events within 15 seconds, it'll play some Halo audio clips.

Download: AnalyzeOpponent.zip

WriteData
This sample project shows how to read and display a Lua SavedVariable and is designed to be used with the VB/C# sample here which shows how you can programmatically write data to Warcraft's SavedVariables and have an AddOn like WriteData read the newly updated data.
Download: SavedVariables.zip

Updated Wiki: SampleProjects

danielfe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:11:12 GMT

AddOn Studio Sample Projects

AnalyzeOpponent
This sample project, (which you can watch a demo at TechEd Europe at: ), shows

How to capture the PLAYERTARGETCHANGED and COMBATLOGEVENT_UNFILTERED (the new 2.4 combat log) events.
If the target changed, the code examines the level of the target and changes a Texture based on whether it's a lower, same, or higher level than me.
For the combat log events, If there are multiple kill events within 15 seconds, it'll play some Halo audio clips.

WriteData
This sample project shows how to read and display a Lua SavedVariable and is designed to be used with the VB/C# sample here which shows how you can programmatically write data to Warcraft's SavedVariables and have an AddOn like WriteData read the newly updated data.

Updated Wiki: SampleProjects

danielfe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:10:12 GMT

AddOn Studio Sample Projects

AnalyzeOpponent
This sample project, (which you can watch a demo at TechEd Europe at: ), shows

How to capture the PLAYERTARGETCHANGED and COMBATLOGEVENT_UNFILTERED (the new 2.4 combat log) events.
If the target changed, the code examines the level of the target and changes a Texture based on whether it's a lower, same, or higher level than me.
For the combat log events, If there are multiple kill events within 15 seconds, it'll play some Halo audio clips.

WriteData
This sample project shows how to read and display a Lua SavedVariable and is designed to be used with the VB/C# sample here which shows how you can programmatically write data to Warcraft's SavedVariables and have an AddOn like WriteData read the newly updated data.

UPDATED WIKI: SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0

danielfe — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:15:51 GMT

Version 2.0: AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Note: all features subject to change

1. Overview

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is a tool that enables World of Warcraft developers to easily build add-ons and serves as an example implementation of the Visual Studio Shell. Version 2.0 of AddOn Studio adds improvements in four key areas:

Improve support for existing addon developers
Improve WYSIWYG Visual Designers
Improve code editing and debugging experience
Greatly improve documentation and enable “live demo”

2. Requirements

2.1 Goals

The goals of the release are to address direct customer feedback on CodePlex.
To ensure code quality for community members to modify the IDE

2.2 Non-goals

Side-by-Side support with previous version of AddOn Studio.

3. Dependencies

SVN parsing/integration libraries (AnkhSVN)
Updated IntelliSense files from Warcraft programming book

4. Design

There are no major changes to the “core” of AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft, unless required for feature implementation

4.1 Add Unit Testing
Add unit testing to major existing features as well as to all new features in the application to ensure code quality. The primary reason for this is to avoid feature regressions as community members add or modify AddOn Studio.

4.2 Better support for existing AddOns

4.2.1 Import From File Wizard
As the name implies, the goal of this feature is to simplify the experience for customers who already have existing addons built on their hard drive.

Import From File Wizard Features and Steps

Select the directory for where the addon currently exists (folderbrowser control). The default should be to the \AddOns\ directory

Make a copy of all files and the folder structure to import. The existing folder should not be affected

Build a new project using the default AddOn name from the imported TOC file. If no TOC file exists, default to the NewProject name. Copy all files into the new project folder.

Work Item: Add: Import Existing AddOn

4.2.2 Import from Ace Wizard
As the name implies, this import wizard simplifies creating a project from the Ace2 SVN.

Import from Ace SVN Wizard: Features/Steps

Provide input boxes to point to SVN wizard (smart default location) and the user name/password combination
Show a treeview of projects available from the SVN root for them to select. I’m thinking this should copy all files (and file folders) in the projects

The state of the project will be copied locally, not officially a checkout, following the same conventions with Visual Studio.

Work Item: Add: Add Subversion check-in/check-out Window

4.2.3 Improve TOC Editor and Auto-generated TOC

Improve discovery of TOC Editor (New button, publish step?)
Enable users to manually control TOC editing
Enable visual reordering of items in load order and removing of items from TOC list. Need to think of how to do this visually as you want a master list of all possible files and be able to select items
Add an Auto-preview view that will show what the TOC file will look like
P3 - Add highlighting to show add/update/deletes to TOC file

Work Item: Add: Improve the auto-generated TOC experience/check-out Window

4.2.4 Ace2 SVN Checkout
Similar to other source control systems, SVN will be integrated into Visual Studio to enable basic source control operations on files in the Solution Explorer. At its most basic, a user should be able to

Connect to a SVN system
Copy all files from the SVN
Check in new or updated files to SVN
Checkout files for projects with multiple developers

More advanced features like diffs, merges, etc will not be supported (note: unless we can get them for free from AnkhSVN)

Work Item: Add Subversion check-in/check-out Window

4.3 Improve the FrameXML Visual Designer

4.3.1 Core Designer Improvements
Improve the core WYSIWYG designer. The designer should look as close to the real-time view as possible. There are a number of ways to improve this, not limited to the list below.

Show designer support for frame borders, styles, (edgefile and bgFile) and backdrop files including a browser to show the different files.

Work Item: Add designer support for different frames and Designer support for texture browsing

Add WYSIWYG support for font styles

Work Item: Add WYSIWYG for different fontstring sizes

Improve WYSIWYG support for Toolbox controls

StatusBar
Slider
Model
GameToolTip

Fix so that manual changes to the FrameXML file are not changed.

Work Item: Designer should not replace XML

Automatically rename script file when it’s associated FrameXML file is renamed

Work Item: Renaming Frame.xml file does not rename <script> tag

4.3.2 Blizzard AddOn Visualization Support
Improve the existing WYSIWYG designer by implementing a much more realistic real-time preview. Items should not be malformed, images should all load and it should provide a realistic-as-possible preview of the AddOn, including frame inheritance and blizzard frame styles.

Work Item: AddOn Studio not rendering Blizzard FrameXML files

4.3.3 Hidden/Visible Layers and panes

Enable a way to display UI visibility toggling
A “poor man’s” version of PhotoShop layers with the eye that turns on and off as many addons enable visible/non-visible frames.

4.3.4 Basic control binding WYSIWYG

Enable a developer to, at design time, see a list of tables they’ve declared and to bind values to list controls like the dropdown control

4.4 Improve Code Editing and Debugging experience

4.4.1 WowBench Function Emulator
Import the WowBench open source project, update the list of Wow functions and provide a GUI tool for testing functions (current tool is a console).

Work Item: Add GUI for WowBench function emulator

4.4.2 Lua Immediate Window
Add an Immediate Window for Lua functions by embedding the WowLua 5.1.1 compiler. A user will invoke this either by showing the immediate window, or by right clicking a selection of text and selecting “run” to send the currently selected code to the immediate window for execution.

Work Item: Add Immediate Window for lua functions

4.4.3 Rename Refactoring
Enable the ability to rename variables, functions, and files. In terms of implementation, Search-and-Replace may be the easiest way to implement (note: if DOM loading not possible)

4.4.4 Update IntelliSense Service

Update service to include statement completion for Lua 5.1.1 Wow-supported functions.

Work Item: IntelliSense support missing for Lua functions

The team developing the World of Warcraft Programming book has promised to provide an update for Warcraft functions and parameters.

Work Item: Add IntelliSense support for Wow Globals

Add IntelliSense support for locals and custom functions

Work Item: IntelliSense doesn't show up for locals or custom functions

Correct IntelliSense to show variables in the correct scope.

Work Item: Intellisense shows local declarations out of their scope

Fix “self:” IntelliSense to show the correct variable context when using Lua OO concepts

4.4.5 Code Outline View
The Code Outline view is an implementation of the open source Code Outline Tool window that enables you to easily navigate source code by members (fields, functions, etc)

4.4.6 Add Ace3 File support
This is TBD based on when the schedule for Ace3 will release, but the work item would be to build a project template and documentation.

4.5 Documentation

4.5.1 Getting Started Page
To help beginners know how and where to start, the Getting Started page shows the tutorials and documentation available. Exact details

4.5.2 In-Game Samples Browser
The goal of the samples browser is to build a “meta” sample browser to showcase specific application building features. The application itself will be playable inside World of Warcraft with a simple list of all the sample available and the ability to load that sample.

Note: Many of these examples, in particular under the Wow functions section could simply use Ace3 libraries

4.5.2.1 Controls

Using default control templates

Ex: Inputbox template

Using an editbox control
Using a checkbutton control
Using a dropdown control
Using a FontString control
Using a GameTooltip control
Using a model control
Using a radiobutton control
Using a SimpleHtml control
Using a Slider control
Using a statusbar control
Using a ScrollingMessageFrame control

Working with items and item links

Using a texture control

4.5.2.2 Designing Frames

Different anchors, backdrops, edgefiles, layers
Inheriting different frame styles
Customizing Blizzard Frames

4.5.2.3 Lua basics
Ideally these examples would all work in the Immediate window (feature 5.3.2) as well

Working with strings (parsing/regex)
Working with tables
Logic constructs (if, while, looping)
Building and using multiple return value functions
Working with events

4.5.2.4 Wow Functions

Parsing combat log
Parsing slash commands
Using per user and per character saved variables
Building a timer
Exchanging information between AddOns
Exchanging information between other players
Designing for localization

4.5.2.5 Debugging Wow apps

Capturing Blizzard errors

Ex: Stack, error, line number, etc

Tracking memory usage/performance

5. Feature Decisions / Q&A

CodeDOM – Several of these features likely involve adding a full code DOM for navigation or code editing.
SVN Integration is being provided using an existing open source project. Due to the nature of the license (GPL), SVN integration will be in compiled library (DLL) form instead of in source code form.

X. Miscellaneous

X.1 Full list of work items addressed in this release

Work Item: Add: Import Existing AddOn
Work Item: Add: Add Subversion check-in/check-out Window
Work Item: Add: Improve the auto-generated TOC experience/check-out Window
Work Item: Add designer support for different frames
Work Item: Designer support for texture browsing
Work Item: Add WYSIWYG for different fontstring sizes
Work Item: Designer should not replace XML
Work Item: Renaming Frame.xml file does not rename <script> tag
Work Item: AddOn Studio not rendering Blizzard FrameXML files
Work Item: Add GUI for WowBench function emulator
Work Item: Add Immediate Window for lua functions
Work Item: IntelliSense support missing for Lua functions
Work Item: Add IntelliSense support for Wow Globals
Work Item: IntelliSense doesn't show up for locals or custom functions
Work Item: Intellisense shows local declarations out of their scope

UPDATED WIKI: Home

danielfe — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:50:40 GMT

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Latest News

SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0
Book: World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons now available from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Programming-Reference-Creating/dp/0470229810/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210717792&sr=8-1

Getting Started
If you're new to World of Warcraft development, go to AddOn Studio 1.0.1 Download and click install. Depending on your system configuration, installation can take over 30 minutes, please be patient! After installing, select Help>>Tutorials >> Creating your first World of Warcraft addon to get started.

Key Features

Visual Design Surface - AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

Lua Code Editor - AddOn Studio includes a powerful Lua code editing environment including syntax highlighting, colorization, collapsible functions, built-in IntelliSense support for Warcraft functions and events, IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Lua language constructs, code navigation features like bookmarks and Go To Declaration, and all IDE settings are customizable.

FrameXML IntelliSense - AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

Auto-Generate Table of Contents - AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Goodies - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including project templates for creating Ace2 addons, automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Visual Studio Shell Extensibility
AddOn Studio is also a great project for developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit http://msdn.com/vsx/.

Building AddOn Studio
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit BuildNotes and follow the steps described there.

Kudos and Thanks
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash!

UPDATED WIKI: SneakPreviewOfVersion2.0

danielfe — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:50:31 GMT

Version 2.0: AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

all features subject to change

1. Overview

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is a tool that enables World of Warcraft developers to easily build add-ons and serves as an example implementation of the Visual Studio Shell. Version 2.0 of AddOn Studio adds improvements in four key areas:

Improve support for existing addon developers
Improve WYSIWYG Visual Designers
Improve code editing and debugging experience
Greatly improve documentation and enable “live demo”

2. Requirements

2.1 Goals

The goals of the release are to address direct customer feedback on CodePlex.
To ensure code quality for community members to modify the IDE

2.2 Non-goals

Side-by-Side support with previous version of AddOn Studio.

3. Dependencies

SVN parsing/integration libraries (AnkhSVN)
Updated IntelliSense files from Warcraft programming book

4. Design

There are no major changes to the “core” of AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft, unless required for feature implementation

4.1 Add Unit Testing
Add unit testing to major existing features as well as to all new features in the application to ensure code quality. The primary reason for this is to avoid feature regressions as community members add or modify AddOn Studio.

4.2 Better support for existing AddOns

4.2.1 Import From File Wizard
As the name implies, the goal of this feature is to simplify the experience for customers who already have existing addons built on their hard drive.

Import From File Wizard Features and Steps

Select the directory for where the addon currently exists (folderbrowser control). The default should be to the \AddOns\ directory

Make a copy of all files and the folder structure to import. The existing folder should not be affected

Build a new project using the default AddOn name from the imported TOC file. If no TOC file exists, default to the NewProject name. Copy all files into the new project folder.

Bug ID: #695

4.2.2 Import from Ace Wizard
As the name implies, this import wizard simplifies creating a project from the Ace2 SVN.

Import from Ace SVN Wizard: Features/Steps

Provide input boxes to point to SVN wizard (smart default location) and the user name/password combination
Show a treeview of projects available from the SVN root for them to select. I’m thinking this should copy all files (and file folders) in the projects

The state of the project will be copied locally, not officially a checkout, following the same conventions with Visual Studio.

Bug ID: 694

4.2.3 Improve TOC Editor and Auto-generated TOC

Improve discovery of TOC Editor (New button, publish step?)
Enable users to manually control TOC editing
Enable visual reordering of items in load order and removing of items from TOC list. Need to think of how to do this visually as you want a master list of all possible files and be able to select items
Add an Auto-preview view that will show what the TOC file will look like
P3 - Add highlighting to show add/update/deletes to TOC file

Bug ID: #696

4.2.4 Ace2 SVN Checkout
Similar to other source control systems, SVN will be integrated into Visual Studio to enable basic source control operations on files in the Solution Explorer. At its most basic, a user should be able to

Connect to a SVN system
Copy all files from the SVN
Check in new or updated files to SVN
Checkout files for projects with multiple developers

More advanced features like diffs, merges, etc will not be supported (note: unless we can get them for free from AnkhSVN)

Bug ID: #694

4.3 Improve the FrameXML Visual Designer

4.3.1 Core Designer Improvements
Improve the core WYSIWYG designer. The designer should look as close to the real-time view as possible. There are a number of ways to improve this, not limited to the list below.

Show designer support for frame borders, styles, (edgefile and bgFile) and backdrop files including a browser to show the different files.

Bug ID: #678, and 911

Add WYSIWYG support for font styles

Bug ID: #680

Improve WYSIWYG support for Toolbox controls

StatusBar
Slider
Model
GameToolTip

Fix so that manual changes to the FrameXML file are not changed.

Bug ID: 679

Automatically rename script file when it’s associated FrameXML file is renamed

Bug ID: 841

4.3.2 Blizzard AddOn Visualization Support
Improve the existing WYSIWYG designer by implementing a much more realistic real-time preview. Items should not be malformed, images should all load and it should provide a realistic-as-possible preview of the AddOn, including frame inheritance and blizzard frame styles.

Bug ID: #707

4.3.3 Hidden/Visible Layers and panes

Enable a way to display UI visibility toggling
A “poor man’s” version of PhotoShop layers with the eye that turns on and off as many addons enable visible/non-visible frames.

4.3.4 Basic control binding WYSIWYG

Enable a developer to, at design time, see a list of tables they’ve declared and to bind values to list controls like the dropdown control

4.4 Improve Code Editing and Debugging experience

4.4.1 WowBench Function Emulator
Import the WowBench open source project, update the list of Wow functions and provide a GUI tool for testing functions (current tool is a console).

Bug ID: #700

4.4.2 Lua Immediate Window
Add an Immediate Window for Lua functions by embedding the WowLua 5.1.1 compiler. A user will invoke this either by showing the immediate window, or by right clicking a selection of text and selecting “run” to send the currently selected code to the immediate window for execution.

Bug ID: #702

4.4.3 Rename Refactoring
Enable the ability to rename variables, functions, and files. In terms of implementation, Search-and-Replace may be the easiest way to implement (note: if DOM loading not possible)

4.4.4 Update IntelliSense Service

Update service to include statement completion for Lua 5.1.1 Wow-supported functions.

Bug ID: #684

The team developing the World of Warcraft Programming book has promised to provide an update for Warcraft functions and parameters.

Bug ID: #690

Add IntelliSense support for locals and custom functions

Bug ID #686

Correct IntelliSense to show variables in the correct scope.

Bug ID: #643

Fix “self:” IntelliSense to show the correct variable context when using Lua OO concepts

Bug ID:

4.4.5 Code Outline View
The Code Outline view is an implementation of the open source Code Outline Tool window that enables you to easily navigate source code by members (fields, functions, etc)

4.4.6 Add Ace3 File support
This is TBD based on when the schedule for Ace3 will release, but the work item would be to build a project template and documentation.

4.5 Documentation

4.5.1 Getting Started Page
To help beginners know how and where to start, the Getting Started page shows the tutorials and documentation available. Exact details

4.5.2 In-Game Samples Browser
The goal of the samples browser is to build a “meta” sample browser to showcase specific application building features. The application itself will be playable inside World of Warcraft with a simple list of all the sample available and the ability to load that sample.

Note: Many of these examples, in particular under the Wow functions section could simply use Ace3 libraries

4.5.2.1 Controls

Using default control templates

Ex: Inputbox template

Using an editbox control
Using a checkbutton control
Using a dropdown control
Using a FontString control
Using a GameTooltip control
Using a model control
Using a radiobutton control
Using a SimpleHtml control
Using a Slider control
Using a statusbar control
Using a ScrollingMessageFrame control

Working with items and item links

Using a texture control

4.5.2.2 Designing Frames

Different anchors, backdrops, edgefiles, layers
Inheriting different frame styles
Customizing Blizzard Frames

4.5.2.3 Lua basics
Ideally these examples would all work in the Immediate window (feature 5.3.2) as well

Working with strings (parsing/regex)
Working with tables
Logic constructs (if, while, looping)
Building and using multiple return value functions
Working with events

4.5.2.4 Wow Functions

Parsing combat log
Parsing slash commands
Using per user and per character saved variables
Building a timer
Exchanging information between AddOns
Exchanging information between other players
Designing for localization

4.5.2.5 Debugging Wow apps

Capturing Blizzard errors

Ex: Stack, error, line number, etc

Tracking memory usage/performance

5. Feature Decisions / Q&A

CodeDOM – Several of these features likely involve adding a full code DOM for navigation or code editing.
SVN Integration is being provided using an existing open source project. Due to the nature of the license (GPL), SVN integration will be in compiled library (DLL) form instead of in source code form.

UPDATED WIKI: Home

danielfe — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:23:39 GMT

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

Update: Jan 10, 2008
AddOn Studio 1.0.1 for World of Warcraft is now available for download at http://www.codeplex.com/warcraftaddonstudio/. This version is a maintenance release that fixes issues found in version 1.0.

Getting Started
If you're new to World of Warcraft development, go to http://www.codeplex.com/WarcraftAddOnStudio/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx and click install. Depending on your system configuration, installation can take over 30 minutes, please be patient! After installing, select Help>>Tutorials >> Creating your first World of Warcraft addon to get started.

Key Features

Visual Design Surface - AddOn Studio includes a set of toolbox controls that you can drag-and-drop onto the designer to visually design the layout of your addon including popular Visual Studio features like Snap lines which enable you to visually align controls.

Lua Code Editor - AddOn Studio includes a powerful Lua code editing environment including syntax highlighting, colorization, collapsible functions, built-in IntelliSense support for Warcraft functions and events, IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Lua language constructs, code navigation features like bookmarks and Go To Declaration, and all IDE settings are customizable.

FrameXML IntelliSense - AddOn Studio provides built-in support for FrameXML schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

Auto-Generate Table of Contents - AddOn Studio also takes the hassle out of building the Table of Contents (TOC) file by automatically building it based on what files are in your project.

Auto-Generate Lua Events - The Addon Studio property window shows all of the properties and events available for a Lua control or frame and enables one-click creation of event handlers like a button_OnClick event.

Other Goodies - AddOn Studio includes lots more features including project templates for creating Ace2 addons, automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, powerful search-and-replace features, and its fully extensible so that developers can build additional tools and editors to improve addon development.

Add-ins for AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft
AddOn Studio itself is extensibile the same way Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and other Visual Studio Shell products are. See the Add-ins page for add-ins developed for AddOn Studio by the authors and the community. To build your own add-in for AddOn Studio, refer to Build your own add-in for AddOn Studio and the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

Visual Studio Shell Extensibility
AddOn Studio is also a great project for developers looking for examples of how to build their own IDE. For more information on extensibility or the Visual Studio Shell, please visit http://msdn.com/vsx/.

Building AddOn Studio
If you would like to contribute to AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft or you just want to build it yourself, visit BuildNotes and follow the steps described there.

Kudos and Thanks
This project wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for: Catherine Crim, Shawn Nandi, Anson Horton, James Lau, and the amazing team at EPAM including Attila Szucs, Gabor Ratky and Attila Kisko. Special thanks also to the Microsoft World of Warcraft alias for helping us with the bug bash!