Execution: Custom Alert Mod (GUI now available)

[moduspwnens]

I see version 0.19 as being the latest on wowinterface... is that still right? I think I'm going to have some time this week to test it.

It is, but it won't contain what is in those screenshots. That hasn't yet been uploaded, I thought I'd put it off til I get the whole thing working.

[_Chloe]

@Sab - See I told you it was easy.

Speaking of which I need to update T2's images. They are way back from Beta revisions.

[moduspwnens]

@Sab - See I told you it was easy.

Speaking of which I need to update T2's images. They are way back from Beta revisions.

Well, for me it seemed to be mostly just learning how the different layers and functions work and how things are attached to other things. After that, it seems fairly simple. Still though, there should probably be some more in-depth help on WoWWiki. I won't have time to contribute to that for a while, though. It's not too bad with motivation, time, and good working examples (like your Tankadin GUI code).

[_Chloe]

Well you can thank Mik who does MSBT for that. He helped me a ton in the WotLK Beta with questions along with the others from WoWI. Its a great experience to even be in the same chat channel as them as they are throwing ideas around. Tekkub even helped with work arounds for the RF module, albeit I had to think up a few more, but he got me on the right path. I owe those two in particular a good amount. Remember WoWWiki is nice, but seriously if you can drop the cash on the WoW Progamming book. It's amazing what you can learn from that and it's a lot better reference than WoWWiki for function calls and Widget functions.

Edit: Hey, guess I can add you to the list of MT people who are guaranteed to get Cataclysm Beta Keys huh? lol go go WoWI.

[Sabindeus]

@Sab - See I told you it was easy. :roll:

What can I say, I'm a wuss. Back when I was first working on the GUI for Turn In, there didn't exist examples of doing it any way other than in XML. And I haven't really worked on a GUI for a WoW addon since then, so I'm sort of stuck in my ways. I'm considering putting some time into turning Combat Log Search into an actual releaseable addon with a GUI and all so maybe I will try it out using your code as examples if and when I actually get back to work on that.

[Sabindeus]

Edit: Hey, guess I can add you to the list of MT people who are guaranteed to get Cataclysm Beta Keys huh? lol go go WoWI.

Are we just talking about the promo keys for add-on developers here or something I don't know about? Curse had the same thing for WotLK Beta, which is how I got my beta key.

[_Chloe]

Edit: Hey, guess I can add you to the list of MT people who are guaranteed to get Cataclysm Beta Keys huh? lol go go WoWI.

Are we just talking about the promo keys for add-on developers here or something I don't know about? Curse had the same thing for WotLK Beta, which is how I got my beta key.

Yes, except I got 3. One through WoWI, one through Curse, and one through inc.gamers formerly worldofwar.

[Arees]

I keep meaning to download it and help out with testing... I've just been really busy. Me and my wife have been looking at houses to buy. Between that, work, and WoW I don't have much time to test an addon.

I've got a quick question/suggestion for you with your addon. Can you add to a rule, a parameter to mark a person/mob with a certain icon? For example, if the person gets a snobold on his head, mark it with a square, and /yell *target has a snobold on his head! If not, then its a suggestion.

[moduspwnens]

I keep meaning to download it and help out with testing... I've just been really busy. Me and my wife have been looking at houses to buy. Between that, work, and WoW I don't have much time to test an addon.

I've got a quick question/suggestion for you with your addon. Can you add to a rule, a parameter to mark a person/mob with a certain icon? For example, if the person gets a snobold on his head, mark it with a square, and /yell *target has a snobold on his head! If not, then its a suggestion.

Something like that is definitely on the list. I'm with you on the busy thing, though. I recently bought a house myself and with school starting and everything, I just haven't had much time recently. I do plan to get back into it, though.

[moduspwnens]

Small bump here to note that the newest version's GUI now works, so it's much less of a pain to use. It also works for all events rather than just combat log events.

[moduspwnens]

At this point, aside from a few minor bug fixes, my major wall is GUI design. While making the current one, I found myself consistently re-doing things to make things more extendable or more clear. Even now, I consistently get new ideas of ways to make it easier that would require even more re-writing. I suppose it's like any other code project, though. I should have just thought it through completely, probably drawn pictures and flow charts, and that would have made for it to be much more effective.

For example, right now, the extra filters GUI assumes binary extra filters (in combat or not, in an arena or not, in a raid group or not), but I probably need these to accept inputs... more similar to the reactions GUI. Things like "have a certain debuff or not" are critical for making good rules but would not extend well in a UI that doesn't accept inputs (mainly, the debuff's name or ID).

But that brings up another point. I still haven't implemented filtering based on things determined by a unit's GUID, and I know that the entire "flags" concept must be confusing to new users. I should probably set up a "unit" selection GUI in the same fashion as the reactions GUI, too. Rather than having separate boxes for "source name", "source flags", and "source GUID", I'd just have a "unit" selection GUI. It would let you set parameters like you set reactions in the current GUI. The drop-down would have things like:

• Name
• Reaction
• Relation in Group
• Controller
• Controller's Relation in Group
• Raid Icon
• Raid Position (Assist, Leader, MT, MA)
• Unit's Unique ID (probably to match against a saved variable)
• Unit's NPC ID (for perfect matching to an NPC)
• Unit's Type (player, pet, NPC, vehicle, world object)

I've color-coded them by where they'd show up in the combat log event, which makes it a little confusing for a normal user. If I consolidated them in the GUI as "Unit", it might be easier. Likewise, I could do something similar with spell representation.

• Spell Name
• Spell ID
• Spell School
• Aura Type (buff or debuff)
• Amount (stacks, or amount drained)

Combine those into one thing "Spell", and now it's that much simpler for the user. Right now, to make a rule for someone gaining a buff, the user needs to see

• sourceName
• sourceFlags
• sourceGUID (NYI)
• destName
• destFlags
• destGUID (NYI)
• spellID
• spellName
• spellSchool
• auraType

With some consolidation, I could knock that down to what a typical user expects.

• Source
• Target
• Spell

It's kind of taking what Blizzard has split into a bunch of different things and combining them into an object-oriented structure. I've built this add-on from the very beginning with the intent that everything be stored as Strings, but I'm starting to think it might be better to store everything in tables (object-oriented) and then just convert them to Strings for exporting. The only tricky part (that I immediately see) would be managing what is or isn't retrievable based on what Blizzard allows, but that is do-able.

Anyway, the main reason I'm posting such a big development update is to announce that I'll be taking a small break in development. I'm still absolutely thrilled by the potential of this add-on and can't wait to get back to it, but I'm a senior in college and need to "switch gears" to my senior project for now. I'll still do bug fixes for what is already there, but I couldn't stomach taking a break on this mod until it's at least a useful improvement over TJH. I believe it's there.

I don't know for how long it will be, but I expect (and hope) it won't be too long. If you'd like to help, feel free to offer any ideas or feedback you have. I'll still be playing WoW and surfing the forums, so it's not like I'm "going" anywhere. Just working on something else for now.

[_Chloe]

As usual, I'm here if you need someone to bounce ideas off of. PM me or you can get me on Skype.

[Kelaan]

One thing I notice I do a lot recently (now that I am Ret for about a third of our fights) is forgetting to re-apply Righteous Fury when I change talent specs. Would this be able to monitor something like the presence of a talent (HotR?) and the absence of RF, and whisper me with a marginally polite reminder? (I'm not sure what auras or othre effects we get via talents, so maybe this isn't possible.)

In any case, thanks for building this -- I will need to install this this weekend and play

[RedAces]

hey,

I'm trying to convert all rules from TJH to Execution, but it's not that simple.. ^^

First, I've tracked down a bug, where your GUI hangs up, and throws errors. I've tried to use a ":" in my rule-reactions. Without it, it's goes without error.
Error:

Code: Select all

1x Execution-0.24\Ex_gui.lua:1576: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)
Execution-0.24\Ex_gui.lua:1499: in function <Execution\Ex_gui.lua:1486>
Locals:
formattedReaction = "chat(SELF:*source: AD geprocct!)"
i = 2
reactionName = "chat"

Second, after manually inputting some rules I've noticed that everything seems out of sync. e.g.: I've got a rule for HoSalv outputting: "HoSalv on *target!" and a rule outputting: "*target down!". I've tried it the first time and it went flawlessly. But after inputting some rules, the reaction of the rule triggered ("*target down!"). /reload fixed it.

Third, after the first rule (of each /reload) that I'm inputting, the labels "Source:", "Source Flags:", "Target:", "Target Flags:", "Spell ID:", "Spell Name:" are missing. The tooltips of the edit boxes are there, so it's just a minor problem

And one last thing is there a dynamic var named *stacks or so ? Because I'd love to have a rule outputting:

Code: Select all

2 x Phase Punch on <xy>
3 x Phase Punch on <xy>
4 x Phase Punch on <xy>

Thanks so far for this great mod!
Liyandra on EU-Aman'Thul (ger)

[moduspwnens]

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I can't test everything so user reports are very beneficial. I'll be looking into those issues.

I've been working on the iPhone SDK recently and it has been much more pleasant to work with... especially for GUI elements. When I get back to working on this mod, I'll likely rewrite many of the methods to work similarly. That should lead to fewer unexpected errors... hopefully.