World of Warcraft Programming

[Cairenn]

Written by three of the WoW addon community’s superstars, WORLD OF WARCRAFT PROGRAMMING: A GUIDE AND REFERENCE FOR CREATING WoW ADDONS (Wiley Publishing, Inc.; May 2008; $39.99) is an all-in-one guide to writing addons for World of Warcraft. Addons can take various forms, from simple changes to the functionality and appearance of toolbars and hotkeys to sophisticated suites that perform statistical analysis of in-game economies and trade.

This guide is geared towards using Lua, a popular programming language used in video game development. Specifically, Lua is used for in-game scripting and creating addons for World of Warcraft. The authors cover the most relevant material, as well as a number of pitfalls and common mistakes that the reader may experience in development. No prior programming experience is assumed, although familiarity with languages such as PHP or JavaScript may be useful to the reader in picking up the Lua language. WORLD OF WARCRAFT PROGRAMMING also includes complete instructions on how to implement a number of specific addon concepts such as:

• Unit frames
• Secure templates
• Dynamic frames
• Parsing tooltips
• Dropdown menus
• Scroll frames

The final section of WORLD OF WARCRAFT PROGRAMMING is a comprehensive reference guide to the World of Warcraft API. Having a fully indexed, consistent set of reference documentation makes finding the specific function developers need much easier.

With comprehensive coverage, this book guides aspiring developers through learning Lua and XML, creating several example addons, and provides them with an indexed reference for the API. WORLD OF WARCRAFT PROGRAMMING is perfect for those users who are interested in learning how to script and write addons, and will appeal to established addon authors looking for definitive reference material for the World of Warcraft API.


You can pre-order the book at Amazon.com. They are offering an additional 5% discount on pre-orders, but that is only until they start shipping it. It is due to be available on shelves at your favourite book retailers May 5th (in the US).


About the Authors:

James Whitehead II is the author of LightHeaded, PerfectRaid, Clique, TomTom, and other addons available at WoWInterface. He is also coauthor of Hacking World of Warcraft.

Bryan McLemore joined the UI community in early 2005 and cofounded the Ace Project and WowAce.com. His "day job" is in Web development.

Matthew Orlando is the author of BuyEmAll, CogsBar, MacroTalk, and other popular WoW addons. He's a programmer and maintains Cogwheel's Complete Macro Guide.

The book’s cover art was created by Lar Desouza and it’s based on the characters of Looking for Group, a popular Word of Warcraft-based webcomic: LFGComic