New to making mods

[ferocity]

I'm currently interested in making mods, I'm somewhat experienced in general scripting, and was wondering if anyone could help me start up, seeing as how confusing XML is, and the weird syntax of both XML and LUA files.

Will appreciate any help. 6):

[Stew]

yeah getting started with WoWUI can be tricky, so here's a little bit of advice and some links that hopefully you'll find useful.

General Rule: XML defines GUI Components, lua does everything else.

Your best friends:
Lua 5.1 Reference Manual - contents - no matter how well you think you know lua you'll always need to go back to the manual occasionally.
World of Warcraft API - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft - a list of (most of) the functions that WoW provides to your UI
XML basics - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft and XML user interface - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft most of what you need to know for building GUIs with XML
Events (API - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft) All you need to know about event-driven programming
Main Page - WowAce Wiki Ace is a development framework, which can make developing addons much easier. Since they moved to their new site all the old documentation is filed here.

[Darkleth]

The tutorial I learned XML Frames with:
http://fara.webeddie.com/frames/

[ferocity]

Thanks for the links guys, read up on em, still kind of confused on the XML, any other tutorials on that?

I specifically want a tutorial on how to create a minimap circle button, how to attach it to minimap, and how to make it movable, but still stay stuck on the minimap.

Also, could anyone tell me how to add the options to interface addon options?


Edit: Figured out how to make a minimap circle, and how make it stay on minimap (it's literally on it >.<), but I have no clue what to do to make it able to be dragged around.

[ferocity]

So does anyone actually make addons here?

[Saiket]

Well without using a library to make the button for you, you could make your minimap icon a button instead of a normal frame. Then, you could set the OnMouseDown script to start dragging the frame with self:StartMoving(), and set the OnMouseUp script to end dragging with self:StopMovingOrSizing().

This would let you drag the button anywhere on the screen though; that is, it wouldn't be constrained to the minimap's border. Check out an add-on like ItemRack that has it's own minimap button to see how that's coded.

[Stew]

essentially if you want it to stay on the minimap border you need to use some minor trigonometric formulae to figure out the shape of the circle, if i remember rightly i figured out how to use it by looking at atlas' minimap code, it was pretty simple and straightforward to understand, (or at least it was at the time, i don't know if its been rewritten)

A popular alternative to allowing the button to be dragged around freely is just to put a slider in the addon's options panel, allowing the user to chose its position by moving that, but its really just personal choice