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TAO

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  • 0 Likes
  • World of Warcraft
  • 348 Monthly Downloads
  • Supports: 4.2
  • 8,866 Total Downloads
  • Updated 07/12/2011
  • Created 01/06/2010
  • 4 Favorites
  • Project Site
  • Comments
  • Release Type: Release
  • License: Public Domain
  • Newest File: TAO 8.0
or

About TAO

TAO stands for Tricks of the Trade Add On. It basically is used to manage your Tricks of the Trade macro(s). It supports any number of languages but I have only included English US. I have created a user guide to discuss the main topics and commands, I recommend you read this as it not only tells you how to use it, but how to customize it to your needs.

Release 8.0

Changed the TOC version to what is needed so that it comes up without being out-of-date.

This basically supports 4.2, but again, nothing was changed in the code as I didn't find an API specifying it had changed, so if you run into a
problem PLEASE post it on the site so I know to look into it.

Have fun.
-------------------------
Release 7.0

Changed the TOC version to what is needed so that it comes up without being out-of-date.

I'll look into it when I get more time, although my first pass of the UI/Macro official forums didn't show any changes that affect TAO.
-------------------------
Release 6.0
This is to update the toc file for the new build number of Wow and to fix a problem with getting the role of a party member. Before that API call was returning a boolean, now it returns a string (TANK, DAMAGER, HEALER). This means that for NON-enUs clients, if that API call returns a different string it still won't fix it. I thought I had kept up-to-date on what was coming out for the API in 4.0.1, but I guess I missed that.

As for raids, the old fashion main tank and main assist still worked, but there is a new thing, namely, if you right click in the new raid frames you can set a role of tank. TAO does not make use of that role, it still uses the main tank and main assist set in the old raid window.
-------------------------
Release 5.0
I created 5.0 because I was jumping into BGs more frequently and finding that I was just spending a lot of time typing out /taotarget. Since TAO won’t access your “local” raid/party, I made it check to see if you were in a battlefield, which means arena too, and if so, redirect /tao to /taotarget instead of /taotank. This basically allows you to do a /taotarget in a battlefield with the /tao command. NOTE: It will only work if going to the default macro, either factory version or your variable override.

Since I was creating 5.0, I removed getglobal and setglobal which are in the process of being deprecated. They have been replaced by _G accesses.

ASIDE:
If you haven’t already heard, there has been some debate over BattleNet api calls and obtaining player real name lists. If you’re a little worried you might want to check your addons for any of the battlenet api functions. They pretty much start with BN.

release 4.0

WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING     BEGIN     WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING

Saved variables have changed.
taomacroprefix and taomacrosuffix are no longer used, and therefore no longer persist. They will be lost, and you should get their values before
installing the new version so you can set them in the new metaphor. Worst case be able to recreate their functionality in the new metaphor.

WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING       END     WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING

I updated the default macro icon to 378 which is the Swiss Army Knife. If you were using the taomacroicon override I suggested in the comments you can remove that and go with the default.

This version is more geared towards generic tricks of the trade macros which require multiple substitutions of the player's name, for whispering them, or indicating in message they are the target. This is done by using a new variable taomacrobody which follows the same \ escape sequence translations but also uses the character # as a place holder for the substitution spot for the player's name. Each time a # is found it is replaced by the player's name when the macro is updated/created. This also means the method for determining the target used by /taoshow internals has changed. It now uses a meta command #taotarget to determine this. This is inserted as the second line of your macro (takes up space but I couldn't think of any other way). There is also a variable taomacrotooltip for setting what bubble help you want to appear when you mouse over the hotbutton. This has the side effect of allowing other locales to specify the correct skill if it was language dependent. Hopefully character limit restrictions will not be hit with this new format as it requires more characters. To help, I went to the new @ format for targets. The macro now looks like this:
#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
#taotarget <SomePlayersNameHere>
/cast [@<SomePlayersNameHere>,help] Tricks of the Trade

But this macro is created from three parts:
tooltip part (controlable by you with taomacrotooltip, default supplied, will be the first line of your macro)
target part (not controlable by you, always the second line and always, #taotarget PlayersName)
body part (controlable by you with taomacrobody, default supplied, can be multiple lines but # is a token which will be replaced by PlayersName)

I have tested this, and believe this is solid enough to be called a release.
------------------
release 3.0

This release is to take advantage of the new "add on local" table variable for storing the api abstraction layer object and the localization library object. The main guts of TAO have not changed, except to obtain the new references. In doing this version I changed the "reference names" of the three libraries, so if you've written some extra functionality of your own that obtains references to the libraries make sure you update that (especially augmenting/overriding the localization lua file).

This version SHOULD NOT IMPACT your saved settings. They should be available and function as if nothing has changed.
------------------
release 2.2

Forgot to add the two new functions tao_MacroPrefix and tao_MacroSuffix into the documentation of release 2.1

release 2.2 is purely a documentation update.
------------------
release 2.1

This is a release to fix a bug with the get macro player name logic (tao_GetTricksMacroPlayerName).

It did not take into account the variables taomacroprefix and taomacrosuffix, it strictly used the default values.
What this means is, everything works fine EXCEPT for /taoshow and the tooltip line which shows the target's name
IF you are using customized settings for the macro prefix or macro suffix or both.

This release fixes that issue.

NOTE: This is a logic error only. TAO would still allow you to set a target and Tricks of the Trade them normally, it
just wouldn't let you see who the target was so you may not have run into this bug and found things working fine.
-------------------------
release 2.0

There are new commands. The documentation has been updated to explain them all, and has a table of contents so you can quickly see what's in
it.
Some of the new commands are:
/taolang to change the locales used by the localization routines. Probably not very necessary.
/taovar to set variables, which is the way you customize the add on now. These can be changed on the fly and the last value is saved.
/taotarget to set the macro to the current target, so long as they are in your party/raid.
/taoname to set it to a typed in name.
to name a few (if not all)

I sort of redid a lot of it as the number of routines growing meant there was a number of replicated lines of code. It sits at 50K on my machine which seems rather large. When it initially loads up it spikes for a bit. I saw 119K or 149K or something, then drops back to 50K where it seems to remain. I'd like it to be lighter in the future. I think my initial non-distributed version was very small possibly under 20K (pre-localization, persistence etc...)

Comments

First Previous Page 1 of 2 Next Last
  • #21
    Hey guys, this mod isnt working for me with patch 4.1
    will you guys point to a similar option if there is any ?

    or a fan update of this on that matter, thanks in advance
  • #16
    Love the addon. It makes my day much less tedious. I have but one question. Could you tell me what I could add to the tao.lua to announce that TotT has been placed on the tank. Right now I'm having to add it manually to the macro each time it is generated. I'm not familiar with the code but I follow instructions great.

    Thanx for a great mod.
  • #18
    Okay,

    I decided today I wanted to do a tiny bit of coding so I took your request and implemented it. It's still in testing, but the initial test shows it will work.

    Basically you specify a macro body (instead of prefix/suffix) and there is a token character which is replaced by the player's name. This will allow you to have a macro with multiple substitution spots, and allow you to do what you want, I believe.

    Sharptouch
  • #17
    Good day,

    I think what you want to do is mention their name in the announcement right, or whisper directly to that person? In which case the way TAO works, it won't do what you want. This is because I didn't write it so that it would add the player's name everywhere in the macro that it's required, but only in one spot. You require it to go in more than one spot if what I assume is true (can you clarify this?).

    Question, if you're out of range, when you hit your button, do you still issue the announcement (in which case it's misleading as the Tricks wouldn't really take place).

    Sharptouch
  • #19
    .

    So with the change you just made, can I modify the lua to add the /P Tricks of the Trade on PlayersName.?

    I understand this will announce even if TotT didn't actually go off, but I'm okay with that. it does it anyway with the way I made it.
  • #20
    Hey,

    The latest version will let you do that with no modifications to the lua files through the variables. I believe you could use this line for what you want to do:

    /taovar taomacrobody /cast\s[@#,help]\sTricks\sof\sthe\sTrade\n/P\sTricks\sof\sthe\sTrade\son\s#

    it's all one line it got wrapped. I hate the way it's done but it means not having to worry about too much parameter parsing. When you get it setup, you'll probably never change it.

    NOTE: I didn't test this out as I had to log, but it's the general idea. The /p wouldn't be the greatest for raids/BGs. I've seen people use yell and emote.

    Let me know if it worked for you.
  • #13
    Good day,

    I noticed this morning that the macro icon is no longer what was originally intended. It appears that it needs to be 378. I would prefer not to do a full blown release for that, but wait until I release other changes as well. What this means is, if you want the default macro icon, and you want it to be the swiss army knife of the default Tricks of the Trade icon, then you can set the macro icon variable to 378 with the following line (make sure it's all lower case):

    /taovar taomacroicon 378

  • #10
    After reading the documentation, I still have only a vague clue as to what this thing is supposed to do. I know about all the qualifiers such as how you can't be held responsible and how it should be bug free and how you can't control other addons accessing your globals. I know about the exposed methods and other API-related things. I have some hints on how I can localize TAO if I where so inclined. I know about a lot of bizarre edge-case scenarios that very advanced user might some day try. I've read all the way down to the bottom of the documentation where you deem to put some vague utterances about what the thing actually does. However, it still is not clear to me. Here's what I think: Before entering combat, you do something on the command line that sets a macro that specifies your target for TotT. That's all I know. I've looked for the macro in the Macro panel but to no avail. I think the Macro should be called TotT, but that's just a suspicion. I'm just kind of blown away by the documentation. It's written completely backwards like a novel that starts with a bibliography and then index and then table of contents but never actually tells a story. It goes into great lengths to explain things 0.00001% of your users might want and completely ignores what 99.9999% of what your users need. You recommend experimenting with it; but I type in, "/tao" and get that I'm not in a party. I type in "/tao show" and it tells me there is no macro. I have no idea how to start the process of experimenting as I'm shut down at every attempt with no clues on where to go. So I peruse your code to see if I can figure out basic questions I have like, "Do I have to make a macro with a special name that it will then fill out?" or "Does the macro appear on the General macros area or the Toon-specific macros area." or "What if there is already a macro with the name the addon expects?" (though I can see you allow naming the macro) and finally, "Do I really need to be in a raid or full party to 'experiment' with this thing... what are the other four member of the party doing while I'm experimenting? I can see that if I could ever figure out how to set up the addon, it might be helpful since you're doing clever things like UnitGroupRolesAssigned to find a tank automatically. But unfortunately it's taking too long to hunt down things like MacroText and APICreateMacroLocal. Is there any way you could give an example like, "Get into a random, look at your macros, there should be one named, "TotT" in the general tab, drag that to your action button and press it."
  • #11
    Take right out of the documentation that you read:

    TAO is basically something that lets you set/create macro(s) so that you don't have to target a player to cast Tricks
    of the Trade, or set your focus to cast Tricks of the Trade. TAO creates a macro for you and you then put that hot
    button on your action bar, somewhere, and use that hot button when you want to cast Tricks of the Trade.

    If you know how to use the macro interface, get into an LFD random group, type /tao after you are in the group and on the character specific tab of the macro interface there will be a macro called TotT. That is the thing you need to put on your action bar. If your macros are full or you changed some saved variables this may not be the case.
  • #12
    In fact you say in your post that it is on the general tab where as the documentation says:

    on the player specific tab page, you will find
    the newly created hot button in the entries there.
  • #14
    Okay, so here's the very first thing you should put in your documentation:

    Initial setup: Get in a random and type, '/tao' in the chat window. That should automatically find the tank in the group and build a 'Tricks of the Trade' macro to place your threat on the tank. Simply open your character-specific macros and find the one named, 'TotT.' Put that in an action bar and try it out. Every new random or raid you run you'll need to enter the '/tao' command at the start to make the macro point to the new tank. There are many more options and configurations as the tool is very flexible. Read on once you're familiar with the basics and want to learn more about how to configure it to suit your playing style.
  • #15
    I agree that it may be a little disorganized as far as documentation goes.

    Part of the problem is I just want to play WoW, not write my add on, even though I like my add on and it helps me.
    It is also the reason I put in the documentation:
    "It is easy for me to maintain, and it does what I want, and that was the initial desired effect."
    I wanted to let people know that I wrote this more for me than for them. I made it public domain so that people could take it and make it what they wanted. That's why there's all that filler stuff explaining all the functions I use, because I want them to know what to use when they make it their own.

    Good ways to test out the add on are:
    /taovar (can be tested anywhere by itself, but the results require you use the rest of the commands to see the effects)
    /taolang (probably won't want to play with this if you don't plan on localizing or customizing the messages)

    Go into a BG, test out
    /taotank (to see what happens when there is none)
    /taoquery
    /taoparty
    /taoraid (don't forget taoquery tells you the numbers for taoraid)
    /taoname
    /taotarget
    /taoshow (after you set one, this is sort of obsolete since you can mouse over the hot button)
    /tao ? (to get a list of commands that start with /tao, which should only be commands for this add on supposedly)

    That leaves /taotank and /tao (with no parameters at all). For these you need either an LFD created group so they have the roles OR a raid with main tanks and main assists set.
    Basically, for a raid, I pay someone gold when I get impatient, and test it out. There is another way though. If you hover over the PVP window, or sit in WG when it's about to happen, then click accept first, and get added to the raid first, you'll be the raid leader and you can set main tanks and main assists as if you were a regular raid leader and that will allow you to test /tao and /taotank in a raid.
  • #8
    Dein add-on ist wunderbar, aber es arbeitet nicht auf Deutsch.

    Norbert
  • #9
    Good day,

    As I mentioned below, I believe it is because macro skills/spells etc... have to be specified in the language of the client. Unfortunately I don't have a German Wow client to test on, and would probably struggle through the UI to test it, and I've also had a hard time finding out the translation for Tricks of the Trade. Perhaps you could post in here what it is then I could give you a customized macro to try out to see if it works?
  • #4
    Great addon, just what I needed, altough would it be possible to modify it so that it writes your current targets name (if friendly and in raid/grp), I find it hard to use by raid ID since those change quite often
    Would be alot easier to just target a player, click a macro and go on with it
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