WoW Link
Intro
WoWLink is an addon that records Items, Quests, and Patterns (enchanting/profession links) into a database for later searching and linking. It allows viewing of the whole list, as well as searching by keyword or filtering by quality or profession.
I mostly made this addon to learn lua, but that doesn't mean it's not useful, in fact I've found it very useful myself.
Basic Usage
Database building tip.
You can easily build up your database of equippable items by standing in a capital city and ctrl-tabbing through the players.
To start using this addon, you must first gather the information. Items can be picked up from the chat window, your inventory and bank, the Auction House, a vendor, the trade window, any trade skill window (either one of yours or from a link in the chat) and even by just selecting another player. Same goes for Quests and Patterns. Quests are picked up through the chat or your quest log, and Patterns are picked up through the chat or your tradeskill window.
Once you have picked up some information, open the main window, either by typing "/wowlink", making a macro with "/wowlink" in it, or assigning a key binding in the bindings interface. This is the main window, and will be your source for viewing the information you have gathered.
Viewing all of the information is easily done by selecting an information type from the drop-down menu, right above the search box. WoWlink will then build you a list of everything you have gathered. You can use the scroll bar to navigate this list.
When you're done, hit the "X" at the upper right to close the window and continue about your buisness.
Finding and Linking items
Item Links
Items are stored directly by the links, so if an item isn't cached, that's no problem, it will appear fine when moused over.
Finding a specific item can be easy. If you want, you can just find it with the scroll bar after selecting a data type, but that may take too long. To search for an item by name, simply type in the name into the Search Box, and click the Search button. If you have a data type selected, it will resort the list and only show items that contain your criteria in their name.
If you're looking at items, you can select a Rarity in the Qualities drop down menu, from Poor to Heirloom, to show only the items of that quality. If you're browsing through patterns, you can select a profession in the Professions drop down menu, to only display the patterns from that profession.
Linking items couldn't be easier. Once you've found the item, mouse over it to display it, click it to keep it's tooltip open, and shift click on it to add it to your chat.
Compatability and Localization
AuctionMaster
If you use AuctionMaster, you can check any item's price with WoWLink, and scanning the auction house adds to your item database.
Currently this addon is only localized in English, and no plans are made for addition localizations. However, if you happen to make or find one, please feel free to send it to me! It would be much appriciated by me and the users!
As for compatability, WoWLink can work well with some other addons.
AuctionMaster is one to point out in perticular. AuctionMaster records prices from the Auction House and stores them in the item tooltips. Not only does WoWLink provide searching for items to look up price data without having the item link, but scanning the Auction House with AuctionMaster also builds up your database of items in WoWLink.
Credits
WoW UI Designer
WoW UI Designer is a great IDE, but I still had to learn lua coding. It doesn't do everything for you, just makes it easier.
I, Derrekk, made this AddOn from scratch using WoW UI Designer. It is my first addon, so it may not be well coded yet, but I try. I used no libraries, though I did start out learning from Ace3, but then later scrapped it and started over without it, so I guess Ace3 deserves some credit.
WoW UI Designer does deserve a lot of credit, it is a great IDE, and made making the windows much easier. Though I still had to learn lua AddOn Coding, it provided a useful environment for me to create my first AddOn. NOTE that WoW UI Designer will be useless to you unless you learn to code basic AddOns.
I would also like to thank ShadowDrakken for suggestions. I couldn't have made a good AddOn without adding what the people want. Also I thank Drundia on WoWInterface.com for the trick to remove unnecessary rendering and generate the list almost instantly, and Xinhuan from our own CurseForge forums for a tun of help with my questions.
I would also like to thank Telo, for the original inspiration from Lootlink to make this addon, to store more then just items. And all praise World of Warcraft, MMO god!
Updated to 0.9.8
-WoWLink will now gather equipped items from any other player just by selecting them.
-A few other changes to the look.
Updated to 0.9.7
-Fixed a but that caused the tooltips to sometimes not display on mouseover.
-You can now filter patterns by profession.
-The filtering drop down box will now only appear with the filters for the data type you have selected.
Updated to 0.9.6
Whew, it's been a while. Sorry about the wait. Here's 0.9.6
-Updates to 3.1 TOC
-You can now filter items by rarity, from Poor (gray) to Legendary (Orange) plus Heirloom (light orange)
-The window will no longer show some components above other windows while leaving others underneath.
-Some cosmetic changes to the look of the main window.
Updated to 0.9.4
-BREAKING NEWS: The list will now generate instantly with NO WAIT!*
-Added tooltips instead of a help menu
-Resized the window to a scale similar to the normal UI windows.
*I've found a trick to bypass the unneeded rendering that makes the list take so long to generate. There's no such thing in computers as "NO WAIT". There may be a half a second depending on the size of the list, but no more. Thanks to Drundia on WoWInterface.com
Updated to 0.9.3
Fixed the list so it links properly on a shift-click.
Item tooltips now disappear when you move your mouse out.
An item's tooltip will now lock in if you click it, allowing you to keep the tooltip up and move your mouse away.
Updated to 0.9.2
-Aligned the list to the left.
-Added a scroll bar that can be used to scroll through the list.
-The tooltips now appear on hover instead of click.
Thanks to ShadowDrakken for the suggestions!
Initial Release 0.9.1
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)...
