Beginning Lua with World of Warcraft Add-ons
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Product Description
Product Description
If you play World of Warcraft, chances are you know what Deadly Boss Mods is: it's the most widely downloaded modification available for World of Warcraft, considered required software for many professional raid guilds, and arguably the most popular modern video game mod in history.
Paul Emmerich, the author of Deadly Boss Mods, will take you from novice to elite with his approachable, up-to-date guide to building addons for the most popular video game in history. Using the powerful Lua scripting language and XML, you'll learn how to build and update powerful mods that can fundamentally remake your World of Warcraft experience and introduce you to the field of professional software development.
Beginning Lua with World of Warcraft Add-ons teaches you the essentials of Lua and XML using exciting code examples that you can run and apply immediately. You'll gain competence in Lua specifics like tables and metatables and the imperative nature of Lua as a scripting language. More advanced techniques like file persistence, error handling, and script debugging are made clear as you learn everything within the familiar, exciting context of making tools that work in Azeroth.
You'll not only learn all about the World of Warcraft application programming interface and programming, and gain coding skills that will make all your online friends think you're a coding god, but also gain hands-on Lua scripting experience that could translate into an exciting job in the video game industry!
What you’ll learn
- See how to program Lua using basic and advanced techniques applicable to WoW and video game coding.
- Explore the unique design, modeling, and workflow constraints of video game mod makers from one of its most successful practitioners.
- Become the coolest character on your server–with tools and scripts that will make your friends gasp.
Who this book is for
This book is for World of Warcraft players, developers, and mod makers who want to learn how to program addons in Lua and XML, either to learn Lua or to improve their game experience. Working coders who don't know Lua and want to learn about this exciting, popular scripting language will also benefit.
The advanced material in this book will also be useful to those with World of Warcraft addon programming experience, so prior programming experience is an advantage, but not a requirement.
Table of Contents
- Getting Started
- Lua Basics
- Using the WoW API to Create a "Hello, World" Mod
- Working with Game Events
- Using XML and Frames
- Advanced Lua
- Using Advanced Lua to Extend the Texas Hold’em Poker Addon
- Building a Poker Game Client with Addon Communication
- Using the Combat Log to Build a Cooldown Monitor
- Using Libraries
- Working with Secure Templates
- Macros
- Tips, Tricks, and Optimization
- Other Uses for Lua
Inside This Book
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10 reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
A solid introduction but...
1 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback
First a disclaimer, I'm a Professional Software Engineer with a Masters degree and many languages in my toolkit so my qualms with this book are a little nitpicky and I'm looking at it from a "get you up to speed fast" perspective. Your mileage may vary.
This book is a really good introduction, not only to Lua but to programming in general. So far, the information has been spot-on and the author makes a very thoughtful effort at presenting a broad, balanced, and easy to follow take on building Lua/XML addons for WoW. I found it an enjoyable read and am now actively using it
Now with all that said, there are a few deficiencies:
- There are a lot of copy-and-paste mistakes in the API documentation (identical descriptions for very different methods/types)
- There are editing mistakes and typos littered throughout the book
- If you don't like poker or are new to WoW a lot of the examples and project sections are hard to follow. (The book used Texas Hold-em as a recurring and pervasive example of how to use most of the WoW constructs. Many of the other examples depend on the reader being a relatively experienced WoW player and rely on Jargon and advanced situations to explain the usages of some tools).
- I found the treatment of the display capabilities of the API somewhat lacking. I would have loved an example of rendering 3D models in a frame.
- One extremely useful addition would have been a description of each part of the native interface including class descriptions beyond the advice to read the native UI source code. (Several specific objects are referenced, but not in one place or in any complete way)
- Almost all of the tools suggested in the early chapters are Windows-specific (and as I have a Mac, they weren't as useful). Most gamers won't be bothered by this
Again, I'll reiterate that this is a very good book and I will recommend it to anyone who asks. I just hope for a second edition with some more content.
This book is a really good introduction, not only to Lua but to programming in general. So far, the information has been spot-on and the author makes a very thoughtful effort at presenting a broad, balanced, and easy to follow take on building Lua/XML addons for WoW. I found it an enjoyable read and am now actively using it
Now with all that said, there are a few deficiencies:
- There are a lot of copy-and-paste mistakes in the API documentation (identical descriptions for very different methods/types)
- There are editing mistakes and typos littered throughout the book
- If you don't like poker or are new to WoW a lot of the examples and project sections are hard to follow. (The book used Texas Hold-em as a recurring and pervasive example of how to use most of the WoW constructs. Many of the other examples depend on the reader being a relatively experienced WoW player and rely on Jargon and advanced situations to explain the usages of some tools).
- I found the treatment of the display capabilities of the API somewhat lacking. I would have loved an example of rendering 3D models in a frame.
- One extremely useful addition would have been a description of each part of the native interface including class descriptions beyond the advice to read the native UI source code. (Several specific objects are referenced, but not in one place or in any complete way)
- Almost all of the tools suggested in the early chapters are Windows-specific (and as I have a Mac, they weren't as useful). Most gamers won't be bothered by this
Again, I'll reiterate that this is a very good book and I will recommend it to anyone who asks. I just hope for a second edition with some more content.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
"Beginning" definitely doesn't mean "Beginner"
9 Nov 2009
Format:Paperback
I'm not quite sure where to start on a review like this, so I'll just skip to the end: if you are seriously thinking of writing WoW add-ons, then make sure you read this book! Now that I've got that out of the way, let me go back and explain why.
There are three primary reasons why I would recommend this book to someone. First, the author of this book created Deadly Boss Mods, one of the most popular (and indispensable) add-ons available, which means that the knowledge he shares comes from experience. That experience comes in handy for navigating around those "gotchas" that have crept into the API over time. Second, the technical information he provides is both thorough and presented in an way that helps you understand the "why" and "how" of add-on development. For instance, the author waits until the end of the book to explain macros. This might seem a bit backwards until you read the rest of the book and realize just how much you need to know to make the most of the macro system. Third, this book is an excellent introduction to Lua, the scripting language used in WoW add-ons. The book provides a thorough understanding of Lua, meaning that the information you learn for writing WoW add-ons will be just as useful when you decide to write Lua-based add-ons for other applications (or when you just want to use Lua on its own).
Now, there were a few things about the book that I initially didn't like. First, the book is written in an informal, somewhat conversational style. As a result, I thought this was going to be a "For Dummies" type of book. After a few chapters, it becomes clear that this book is definitely not for dummies and the relaxed style ends up making the information very accessible. Second, one of the larger add-ons that the author builds is a "Texas Hold-Em" client/server. Since I had no intention of writing this kind of add-on (and Texas Hold-Em is a little dated), I thought I was in for several chapters of useless information. Again, after reading just a small way into that section, it became clear that the internal workings of the add-on apply to all large, multi-user add-ons. The "hold-em" part of the add-on ends up being entirely secondary. Do not skip over this add-on!
So if, after all of this, you are still thinking to yourself that you can just read some online resources, dissect a few existing mods, then sit down and write your own, think again. Source code will not provide the knowledge you need to write high-quality, professional mods. This book provides that knowledge.
There are three primary reasons why I would recommend this book to someone. First, the author of this book created Deadly Boss Mods, one of the most popular (and indispensable) add-ons available, which means that the knowledge he shares comes from experience. That experience comes in handy for navigating around those "gotchas" that have crept into the API over time. Second, the technical information he provides is both thorough and presented in an way that helps you understand the "why" and "how" of add-on development. For instance, the author waits until the end of the book to explain macros. This might seem a bit backwards until you read the rest of the book and realize just how much you need to know to make the most of the macro system. Third, this book is an excellent introduction to Lua, the scripting language used in WoW add-ons. The book provides a thorough understanding of Lua, meaning that the information you learn for writing WoW add-ons will be just as useful when you decide to write Lua-based add-ons for other applications (or when you just want to use Lua on its own).
Now, there were a few things about the book that I initially didn't like. First, the book is written in an informal, somewhat conversational style. As a result, I thought this was going to be a "For Dummies" type of book. After a few chapters, it becomes clear that this book is definitely not for dummies and the relaxed style ends up making the information very accessible. Second, one of the larger add-ons that the author builds is a "Texas Hold-Em" client/server. Since I had no intention of writing this kind of add-on (and Texas Hold-Em is a little dated), I thought I was in for several chapters of useless information. Again, after reading just a small way into that section, it became clear that the internal workings of the add-on apply to all large, multi-user add-ons. The "hold-em" part of the add-on ends up being entirely secondary. Do not skip over this add-on!
So if, after all of this, you are still thinking to yourself that you can just read some online resources, dissect a few existing mods, then sit down and write your own, think again. Source code will not provide the knowledge you need to write high-quality, professional mods. This book provides that knowledge.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Excellent reference resource and great examples
18 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback
Finding any type of LUA information for World of Warcraft is difficult to say the least. This author has several examples with line by line explanations for the code through the book. I have found it to be invaluable to have as a quick reference for various tasks.
On the same note, I was stuck on a problem with my own mod, trying to model it around some code that is exampled in the book, and after struggling with it for a while I finally broke down and e-mailed the author a question, and not only did he respond lightning fast to my question, but he even included several code snipits he wrote on the fly to show me ways to solve my problem.
I continually refer back to this book whenever I have questions about how to accomplish something in WoW LUA Mods.
On the same note, I was stuck on a problem with my own mod, trying to model it around some code that is exampled in the book, and after struggling with it for a while I finally broke down and e-mailed the author a question, and not only did he respond lightning fast to my question, but he even included several code snipits he wrote on the fly to show me ways to solve my problem.
I continually refer back to this book whenever I have questions about how to accomplish something in WoW LUA Mods.
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