LotROInterface is ready for your Lua Scripts!

[Cairenn]

Since today is the launch of the Head Start of The Lord of the Rings Online™ Volume III: Allies of The King, Book 2: The Ride of the Grey Company (which includes Lua scripting! Yay!), and the new LOTRO Free-to-Play option it means we can finally open up the new forum and download categories for your use.

The new forum is under the Developer Discussions section of the forums, entitled Lua Programming Help. We have added download categories for Bags, Bank & Inventory, each of the Individual Classes, Crafting, Creep Play, Maps, coordinates & compasses and RolePlay & Music, as well as a new category for all of the existing Graphical Modifications (Skins). We are more than happy to add other download categories as necessary, we just felt that those would be a good start along with the previously existing categories.

As well we have setup a wiki to help share & document the plugin system. Please add any API information you have gathered, guides and any other info that would help new and experienced plugin authors.

We are really really excited to see Lua scripting going live and can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

[MrsAngelD]

Cairenn,

As a longtime user of of wowinterface I'm sure you guys will provide an excellent home for new lotro LUA plugins I look forward to seeing what lua developers come up with

Angel

[Brickle]

Good to have you guys up and running.

Start posting guys We need more mods to make videos of.

[Nidavellas]

Cairenn, do you know if there is a Lotro module for MMOUI minion in the works?

[Cairenn]

Hey Nidavellas. Not yet, but hopefully we'll be able to start on one soon.

[Digital_Utopia]

I would like to suggest that you rethink the decision to group skins and plugins in the same forum, as despite both being 3rd party addons that affect the look of the UI, there's nothing else they share. No whether you're a developer or a user, there's a huge difference between them. From the user's perspective - you get a skin if you want to change the appearance of an existing UI element and get a plugin if you want to add additional UI elements.

[Mael5trom]

I would like to suggest that you rethink the decision to group skins and plugins in the same forum, as despite both being 3rd party addons that affect the look of the UI, there's nothing else they share. No whether you're a developer or a user, there's a huge difference between them. From the user's perspective - you get a skin if you want to change the appearance of an existing UI element and get a plugin if you want to add additional UI elements.

I agree with this, LUA should have it's own subsection, not be grouped into the UI skins.

[Cairenn]

We have separated it out so that the Scripts and the Skins have different download sections. Skins have their own sub-category under the stand-alone section. Or were you meaning something else?

[Digital_Utopia]

We have separated it out so that the Scripts and the Skins have different download sections. Skins have their own sub-category under the stand-alone section. Or were you meaning something else?

Basically what I'm saying is take the way LotroInterface's LotRO downloads section was, and duplicate it. In other words, instead of just having the two main categories, one for LotRO and one for DDO, it should now be three. One for LotRO Skinning (i.e. .xml file with images) one for LotRO Plugins, and then one for DDO Skinning. Currently your Download page doesn't seem lend itself well to such categorizations, but ideally, clicking on the download page would give three boxes:

LotRO Skinning, LotRO Plugins, DDO Skinning.

Then, clicking on the first would basically give you what left-hand column was, the third would give you what you have on the right-hand column, and the 2nd would give you something similar to the left-hand column, but with categories more closely pertaining to Plugins instead. Such categories would be Classes, Libraries (multiple classes), Plugins, Developer Tools, etc.

Right now it's essentially a mess, because you have individual UI element skins in a subcategory of "Stand-Alone Plugins" and you also have a sections called "LotRO Complete Sets" and "LotRO Compliations" which also contain skins, but all the categories have "Lua Scripts" shoehorned into the description.

I can understand if you don't want to devote so much space to Plugins at this time, but at the very least, the Stand-Alone skins section should be changed back to how it was, with Plugins having their own category, named something like LotRO Plugins. Subcategories such as "Classes", "Libraries" should be added, as well as one called something like "Combat Displays". Having BuffBars languishing in the "Other" category is just a shame.

[Cairenn]

The way we currently have it set up is the same way we have WoWInterface set up, which also has both lua programming and graphical modifications. If it doesn't work well for LotRO due to differences in how they are implemented, we will make adjustments as necessary. This was just a starting point. We've already said (in our news post) that we will add new categories and adjust things as necessary as we go along. We appreciate the feedback, it helps make our site better.

[Digital_Utopia]

The way we currently have it set up is the same way we have WoWInterface set up, which also has both lua programming and graphical modifications. If it doesn't work well for LotRO due to differences in how they are implemented, we will make adjustments as necessary. This was just a starting point. We've already said (in our news post) that we will add new categories and adjust things as necessary as we go along. We appreciate the feedback, it helps make our site better.

Fair enough. it is worth noting that WoW's entire interface is done with Lua, so there's very little difference in that regard between an addon and a skin. With LotRO on the other hand (obviously) there's a big difference. So I'm just saying it might relieve some confusion on the part of users if the difference was explicitly stated. Just something to think about

[Cairenn]

Aye, and we're looking at ways we can do that, while still keeping the ease of use on the site that you guys are used to from us. We're thinking maybe some tabs in the download area or some such. We are listening though.