#1 - July 5, 2012, 5:22 p.m.
- Frame Template System – The frame templates that were created several patches ago have been rolled into many UI frames. This was done to reduce the amount of different textures used, and to make it easier to change frame sizes, if needed.
- Party/Raid – There were many changes to party/raid to convert them into a new group system. The server system of party & raid changed several patches ago, and this is to get the UI and client in-line with the new system.
- HOME and INSTANCE groups – There are new concepts of groups (example: party/raid) called “HOME” and “INSTANCE”. The basic idea is that a player can group with a couple of friends (HOME), and then go into LFD and join two more people (INSTANCE). After the dungeon run, the player can leave LFD and will drop back to the original group (HOME). Currently the UI only displays one group at a time.
- parentKey and relativeKey - We brought the “parentKey” concept into many frames. To support this, we also created “relativeKey” to match “relativeTo”. This is to minimize the pollution of the global namespace, and make reading sub-objects easier on the eyes.
- “C_” function tables – There are new “C_<system>” tables used to wrap common functions. This was done to reduce global namespace pollution and to make reading and naming functions easier.
- UIPanelButtonTemplate2 is now UIPanelButtonTemplate. The old one was removed.
Stretchy buttons are dead! Long live Tile buttons!
- Lua Enums - There have been more & more cases of lua constants that need to match our internal client constants. The Lua Enum system auto creates these constants to make sure that the client & UI are always matching. One small problem is that the sytem automatically puts an ‘S‘ at the end of the “LE_NUM…” value which can make for some odd spelling. Sorry about that.
- Limited lua execution time - In order to keep the game client running smoothly, the lua runtime will break if it is executing a single lua call for too long. This also applies to macros, and will mark the macro as disabled until you reload the UI. Currently this only applies in combat (example: Taint is active).