AddOn Studio: Difference between revisions

;'''Where can I get it?'''

;'''Is AddOn Studio up-to-date?'''

:Yes. AddOn Studio for WoW works for all current versions of WoW including the new '<!--[[wikipedia:World of Warcraft: Shadowlands|Shadowlands]]-->[[wikipedia:World_of_Warcraft:_The_War_Within|The War Within]]' release.

<!--;'''Why different editions of AddOn Studio?'''

:Each AddOn Studio [[AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft| edition]] provides a different UI experience and range of platform support. These editions work for all current versions of WoW the same way, and with the same exact WoW features and support. Each AddOn Studio edition year numbers, [[AddOn Studio 2022 for World of Warcraft|2022]], [[AddOn Studio 2015 for World of Warcraft|2015]], [[AddOn Studio 2010 for World of Warcraft|2010]], correspond to the [[wikipedia:Visual Studio#History|Visual Studio]] shell platform versions used by that AddOn Studio edition.

::See also [[AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft]] for edition history and more details.

:If in doubt, just pick the [[AddOn Studio 2022 for World of Warcraft]] edition, with the most modern experience for the non-WoW features.

 

 

:Yes. All AddOn Studio for WoW [[AddOn Studio for WoW|editions]] work for both Retail and Classic.

;'''I'm having trouble installing or using AddOn Studio, what can I do?'''

:Visit [[AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft]], and pick the edition you installed.

:Then check out the various sections for help getting started. Also try the [[AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft documentation]], with in-depth installation and basic usage tips. These pages have links to outside help, including Discord, support sites, Twitter, and more.

''See [[#Frequently Asked Questions]] below for more questions and answers.''

: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.

: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.

:The IntelliSense engine works with the [[wo:WoW API|WoW Programming API Reference]] documentation. It includes detailed WoW parameters and return types, with real-time parameter and function level documentation.

:AddOn Studio provides built-in support for [[wo:FrameXML|FrameXML]] schema validation for addon developers who want to manually edit and customize FrameXML markup.

:AddOn Studio can intelligently see Lua names and values across files for the code you write. It can do this with an awareness for the rules of WoW, and Toc files and Xml includes, and present the correct code-completion in real-time, on even unsaved files, and based on correct load order of files as WoW and the Lua runtime would in the game.

:AddOn Studio includes project based file management, where each AddOn can be a discrete project in the IDE. The allows independent configuration, ease with SCC integration, and easy way deploy or clear projects from your WoW install, or different WoW installs, at will without losing the actual code you are working on.

:Visually use Git or SVN with your addons and with your favorite repository, including with integration with AddOn author sites like Source Forge.

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

:You can browse and add Warcraft resources directly into your addons including class ability icons, common frames (Bank, Calendar, Chat, Guild, etc...), and Common Buttons (close, scrolling, main menu, etc...)

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

:For advanced developers that want to hand-code FrameXML files, AddOn Studio includes the option to turn off the Visual Designer and just use the XML editing tools. You can switch between the Designer and the XML editor at will, and even use both at the same time and see you changes update immediate in the other. This can also be used as a great way to learn WoW UI XML or maybe even to learn XML itself.

: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.

: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.

: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.

:AddOn Studio includes features, like automatic deployment to your Warcraft directory, Task Window, Error List for FrameXML and Lua parsing errors, TGA and MP3 file format support, built-in [[wo:Lua|Lua]] console for testing code, [[WoWBench]] support, and powerful search-and-replace features.

:For [[AddOn Studio 2010 for WoW]], no; it works independently of Visual Studio. If you already have [[wo:Lua editors/Visual Studio|Visual Studio 2010]] installed, that's fine also. For [[AddOn Studio 2015 for WoW]], any edition of Visual Studio 2015 may be installed, including the free one. For <!--{{NYR-item|NYR}} -->[[AddOn Studio 2022 for WoW]], it's the same as the 2015 edition and any edition of Visual Studio 2022 may be installed.

:AddOn Studio is built using the free Visual Studio Shell, and the Extensibility features in Visual Studio. For more information on VS extensibility, please visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/extensibility or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Studio_Extensibility.

==== [[AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft|AddOn Studio for WoW]] ====

* <!--{{NYR-item|NYR}}-->[[AddOn Studio 2022 for World of Warcraft|AddOn Studio 2022 for WoW]]

* [[AddOn Studio 2015 for World of Warcraft|AddOn Studio 2015 for WoW]]

* [[AddOn Studio 2010 for World of Warcraft|AddOn Studio 2010 for WoW]]