Abstract
Begining with The Burning Crusade, the user interface may bind keys directly to spells, abilities, macros and usable inventory items; however, the game does not provide a gui for making such key assignments. UserKey scans you spellbook, your macros, your inventory (including your bank) and provides a gui for assigning keys to those actions/items.
Also includes a mini-API to allow other Add-On authors to add entries to the UserKey table, allowing custom bindings to their own buttons built using the new secure templates.
Updated for WoW 3.0.2 patch; added options panel in Game Menu | Interface | AddOns.
MAJOR FEATURE ADDITION: In 3.0.2, all pets and mounts are converted to spells stored on the Companions interface and are no longer inventory items. Unfortunately, the companions don't honor the normal function for binding keys. As a (hopefully temporary) workaround, qUserKey has the ability to scan your mounts/pets, create macros to call each of them, and let you bind keys to those macros. On the upside, this is nice and simple. On the downside, it can potentially consume a ton of macro slots. This macro generation is disabled by default. You may enable it via the aforementioned options panel.
Usage
UserKey adds a new entry to the main game menu called "User Key Bindings" directly below the original "Key Bindings" button. Click the button and scroll through the available items. Items from the spellbook are displayed first (with tabs/schools indicated), then macros, then usable items. Then click the item you want to bind, press the key you want (including CTRL, ALT, and/or SHFT) just like the official Key Binding interface.
AddOn Authors:
To add your own buttons to the UserKey table, simply call:
UserKey_AddButton(addon, section_name, button_table);
where:
addon = "your addon name";
section_name = "My Clever Title for My buttons";
button_table = { { " name button1", "mybutton1" }, {"name button2","mybutton2"} };
This will add entries to a section titled "My Clever Title for My buttons". When you bind a eky to "name button1," UserKey will perform a SetBindingClick(key,"mybutton1"). Subsequently pressing the key will "click" your button.
If your addon fails to load, the binding will no longer be displayed.
To remove a binding button from the list dynamically, call UserKey_RemoveButton(addon, section_name, button_table). Notes Regarding Inventory Changes The inventory scan checks your bags anytime your inventory is updated. It also checks your bank whenever you open the bank interface. It then labels which bag/bank slot contains the item to make it a little easier to find in your bags. If you consume an item, sell an item or destroy an item, UserKey can't readily tell why the item left your inventory. So, it assumes that any
items that suddenly go "missing" must have been stored in your bank slot. They will be displayed with the tag (bank?) indicating the UserKey isn't really sure where the item is. The next time you open your bank, UserKey will have access to your full inventory. Any (bank?) items that aren't truly in your bank will be removed.
Technically, UserKey could assume that any item that goes "missing" must have been sold/destroyed/lost if you don't have your bank frame open. it's a little safer, though, for UserKey to assume it missed some event firing and therefore assume your item is in the bank. As soon as you open your bank again, UserKey will be able to resynch.
The "reset data" button ONLY clears the text displayed by UserKey. It does NOT undo all of your keybinds. This is primarily a debugging tool that I've left in the mod to facilitate future additions.
The "scan" button rescans your spellbook, macros and inventory. UserKey triggers off many events and should automatically detect any changes to bindable actions. If, however, you find an item doesn't automatically appear in your list, try clicking the Scan button. You can reclick scan as often as you want, it will not create duplicate entries in the display.
Substantially reduced the number of events that prompted UserKey to rescan your inventory. As it turns out, several of the events were redundant and unnecessary. This version is fine tuned to the bare minimum number of events to monitor. This should improve performance, especially on slower machines, especially when looting.
Installation Guide
- Exit "World of Warcraft" completely
- Download the mod you want to install
- Make a folder on your desktop called "My Mods"
- Save the .zip/.rar files to this folder.
- If, when you try to download the file, it automatically "opens" it... you need to RIGHT click on the link and "save as..." or "Save Target As".
- Extract the file - commonly known as 'unzipping'
Do this ONE FILE AT A TIME!
- Windows
- Windows XP has a built in ZIP extractor. Double click on the file to open it, inside should be the file or folders needed. Copy these outside to the "My Mods" folder.
- WinRAR: Right click the file, select "Extract Here"
- WinZip: You MUST make sure the option to "Use Folder Names" is CHECKED or it will just extract the files and not make the proper folders how the Authors designed
- Mac Users
- StuffitExpander: Double click the archive to extract it to a folder in the current directory.
- Verify your WoW Installation Path
That is where you are running WoW from and THAT is where you need to install your mods.
- Move to the Addon folder
- Open your World of Warcraft folder. (default is C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\)
- Go into the "Interface" folder.
- Go into the "AddOns" folder.
- In a new window, open the "My Mods" folder.
- The "My Mods" folder should have the "Addonname" folder in it.
- Move the "Addonname" folder into the "AddOns" folder
- Start World of Warcraft
- Make sure AddOns are installed
- Log in
- At the Character Select screen, look in lower left corner for the "addons" button.
- If button is there: make sure all the mods you installed are listed and make sure "load out of date addons" is checked.
- If the button is NOT there: means you did not install the addons properly. Look at the above screenshots. Try repeating the steps or getting someone who knows more about computers than you do to help.
Translations
When you download a mod, please be sure that the mod is compatible with your translation of wow. Some mods only work on the US versions, while some only work on some of the various European versions. These variations are called "Localizations".
TOC Numbers (Out of Date Mods)
When Blizzard patches WoW, they change the Interface number. This means that all mods will be "out of date" unless or until the author releases a new version for that interface. Some people go into the .toc files and update the numbers themselves, but this is STRONGLY advised against as it will cause problems locating possible incompatibilities addons. When you log into WoW after a patch, you DO NOT have to delete your interface directory. All you have to do is simply tell WoW to ignore the interface numbers and load all the mods anyway. All you have to do is, while at the "character select" screen, look in the lower left corner and click on the "addons" button. A window will pop up listing all your installed mods.
If you look in the upper left corner of that window there should be a box that says "Load Out of Date AddOns". You want to CHECK this box. Now simply go into WoW normally and all your mods should load. As of the 1.9 patch, you will have to do this after EVERY patch/update that Blizzard posts! If you encounter any problems with a mod after a patch, please be sure to let the author of the mod know so they can fix it.
See also: About "Out Of Date AddOns"
Mac Support
WoW addons are not platformed based. As such, they can be used on either Mac or PC. You can extract both .zip and .rar files on a Mac using StuffitExpander.
Directory Structure
World of Warcraft
|_ Interface
|_AddOns
|_*AddonName*
|_ *AddonName*.toc
|_ *AddonName*.xml
|_ *AddonName*.lua
|_ (possibly others as well)...
