Editing WoW:FrameXML (section)

== History ==

Blizzard uses XML to define nearly all of their actual UI frame elements and facilities for the WoW UI. One of the historical reasons for this is that using XML avoids having to generate Lua side 'objects' or representations of elements for every single object, table, and string, that were already defined on the 'C' side and were part of the actual render and event paths. The XML could be read and discarded, and only generating the Lua side constructs necessary for running the UI.

The UIOBJECT API has grown over time to support more of the same facilites as XML loader, and now has near parity with the native XML loading. There is still a siginificant savings for the default UIs to load using the XML loader. However for AddOns following best pratices, the difference can be insignificant. Many veteran AddOn developers prefer using only the UIOBJECT APi.

Historically, the UIOBJECT API was documented in the 'Widget API', as everything that was considered 'Frame' or default UI related was lumped together. The FrameXML documentation itself is now more clearly seperated from the Lua side UIOBJECT API documentation, in order to provide more clarity and special needs for documenting XML style UI definition constructs. Base 'WoW Addon' documentation is also now provided.