Resources:
Chat with other developers and UI enthusiasts on
Discord.
https://discord.gg/87BDFhEc
Blizzard's UI Add-On Development Policy
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1021053914
Wowpedia is the wiki dedicated to everything World of Warcraft, including its API.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Portal:Interface_customization
The companion site to
World of Warcraft Programming,
wowprogramming.com is a great resource on the game's API. It includes function lists, widget handlers, listings of CVars and events, etc. It also is home to a FrameXML browser to view the game's Lua and XML code, an artwork browser, a web-based Lua interpreter and a BLP converter.
http://wowprogramming.com/
The official manual for Lua,
Programming in Lua is available online at this site.
http://www.lua.org/pil/
Lua-users is a reference site created by and for Lua programmers. In addition to the wiki, there is a great tutorial reference.
http://lua-users.org/
You can
extract the interface files and art yourself by following these instructions.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Viewing_Bliz...interface_code
To view 3D models outside of the game,
WoW Model Viewer is a tool used by many Michinima artists.
http://www.wowmodelviewer.org/
To view 3D models inside of the game, the addon
rIngameModelViewer will allow you to browse through them.
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...delViewer.html
To find the path to a specific sound, Bluspacecow has compiled a list titled
Sound commands for every sound from searching through the MPQ files.
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...verysound.html
BLP2PNG will allow you to convert images from BLP/BMP/TGA -> PNG and from PNG -> BLP format.
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...7-BLP2PNG.html
BLPView (Windows) and
BLPLook (Mac) will allow you to preview BLP files right in the file browser of your OS - Windows Explorer folders or Quick Look on Macs.
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...0-BLPView.html
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...1-BLPLook.html
Vladinator created a
web-tool to turn Lua scripts you may find on the internet into a downloadable addon, complete with TOC file.
http://addon.ziuo.net/
Lua Editors:
Basically, any text editor can be used - even Notepad or MS Word. But here are some editors/IDEs that other authors have used.
Notepad++ is a free editor which supports syntax highlighting in many programming languages, including Lua and XML.
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
Edit+ is free for 30 days on a shareware license. Lua syntax highlighting may be downloaded in the User Files section.
http://editplus.com/
LuaEclipse is a plugin for the free Eclipse IDE platform.
http://luaeclipse.luaforge.net/
UltraEdit has a free trial. You can get Lua syntax highlighting by downloading a Wordfile from their "Extras" section.
http://www.ultraedit.com
SciTE is a free editor that supports Lua and XML highlighting.
http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
Smultron is available on the Mac App Store and offers support for both Lua and XML.
http://www.peterborgapps.com/smultron/
BBEdit and
TextWrangler are both from Bare Bones Software. BBEdit is full-featured and has a free-trial, while TextWrangler is its "little brother" and is free to use.
http://www.barebones.com/products/
For an in-game editor and interpreter, there are a few choices.
WowLua has the benefit of a command line, while
_DevPad can auto-run scripts to serve as mini-addons.
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...66-WowLua.html
http://www.wowinterface.com/download...3-_DevPad.html
Tutorials:
The article
Getting started with writing addons on Wowpedia is a good place to get an idea of how to begin.
http://www.wowpedia.org/Getting_star...writing_addons
For specific tutorials on wowpedia, see the
HOWTOs section.
http://www.wowpedia.org/HOWTOs
I found the tutorials on
lua-users to be quite helpful.
http://lua-users.org/wiki/TutorialDirectory
Please feel free to add your own resources to the thread!