It's been a while since I posted to the blog but I haven't been as dormant as that might lead you to believe. I've begun working on a few different projects as well as some needed self education. My reading list began with a series of game programming books published by Course Technology, starting with a C++ refresher Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, as well as a book that I'm currently reading through Beginning Game Programming. Also, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, I had been playing around with TorchED but in the last month Blizzard has released StarCraft 2, which comes with a fully functional map creation tool called Galaxy Editor. I've been experimenting and working with it over the last two to three weeks, starting work a 1v1 multi-player map along with a fellow I've met on the SC2 custom map forums. Additionally, I've also started designing a new World of Warcraft AddOn that I've given the working title of WoWTargetCaster.

Version 1.0 of WoWPUGBuilder has been uploaded to Curse.com. I'm also working on a WoWPUGBuilder Archive page that should mirror what's available through CurseForge, ya know, just in case they drop off the face of the earth. ;) Version 1.0 is essentially the same as version 0.9b except i cleaned up my documentation (read on for some details) as well as tweaked a the code a bit to improve readability and logic flow. Overall, working on WPB has been a great experience and I am looking forward to continuing it's development.

This week I updated WoWPUGBuilder to version 0.9b on Curse.com. In 0.9b I've added a feature that allows the player to indicate what interval, in seconds, they would like the auto-advertise feature to advertise their message to the selected chat channels. I also fixed a bug that was preventing the player from selecting the "Looking for Group" chat channel in the "Choose Channel" drop down menu.

Version 0.8b of WoWPUGBuilder has been uploaded to Curse.com. This new version of the beta adds a LFG/LFM toggle checkbox at the top of the AddOn's window. This allows the player to switch between auto generated messages Looking for Group or Looking for More. By checking the box the AddOn will generate a message with LFM and by leaving it unchecked it will generate a LFG message. If the player has quantities entered in the role edit boxes, these will be omitted from the auto generated message until the toggle box has been checked. I also fixed a bug where if the player customized the generated message and then hit enter, the custom text would be replaced by the auto generated message.

I've finished v0.7b of WoWPUGBuilder last night. The new version fixes some of the issues I was having with choosing the desired roles as well as adds a new feature. The latest version of WoWPUGBuilder can be found at curse.com.

A quick note about v0.6b, which I uploaded to curse a few weeks ago. Version 0.6b implemented the ability of the player to select multiple chat channels to which to send their desired message. This was done by reverting to an earlier format for drop down menus. To select multiple chat channels the player simply pulls down the Channel menu and select the desired chat channel. The player will do this for each channel they wish the message to be displayed. For a look at the function, read on...

Well I'm almost there. The 0.5 version of the WoWPUGBuilder Beta has been uploaded to Curse. Version 0.5 Beta is a fully functional version of WPB and those that download it should be able to use it as intended. There are still some features that I am intending to implement before the final release, most of which should be implemented in the near future releases.

I've finally finished the redesign of the user interface for WPB. Unfortunately, I was unable to figure out how to get a multidimensional drop down menu to work so I settled for multiple drop down menus rather then waste any more time trying to figure it out. You can see the final UI design in the following screen shot...