Creating a guide

Every user guide needs to be registered with the Guide Viewer for it to display. This can be done in two ways:

  1. Creating a stand-alone "guide addon".
    1. If you have written addons before, just skip the basics here :)
    2. Create a new directory under \Interface\Addons, naming it - for example - MyGuide.
    3. Create a file in there, naming it MyGuide.toc, containing - basically - this: ## Interface: 30300
      ## Title: My Guide For Something
      ## Dependencies: ZygorGuidesViewer

      MyGuide.lua
    4. Create another file, name it MyGuide.lua, and paste this into it: 
      ZygorGuidesViewer:RegisterGuide("My Leet Guides\\My First Guide",[[
	author me@myself.com
	step
		Do some very secret unspecified something :)
	step
		Keep playing...
]])
    5. Edit this to your likings.
    6. Start WoW, open the ZygorGuidesViewer window, hover at the title and click the guide selection button - your guide should be visible in the drop-down list.

    Now all you need is keep writing the guide, and reloading the game's UI to reload the guide.

    This method is by far the easiest and best way to create and distribute your guides - it has one major drawback, however. According to Blizzard's policies, you are not allowed to sell addons of any kind. Distribution of a commercial guide in this form could probably be considered violating their terms. Stay safe.

  2. Including data in the addon's folder
    1. Prepare a guide according to the syntax described above and below.
    2. Save it as Guide01.lua (through Guide40.lua) in the ZygorGuidesViewer\Guides folder.
    3. Re-launch the game. Your guides should be available for selection.

Guide format

A guide consists of a series of steps, being displayed one at a time, often having step options assigned.
Each step may contain up to 20 lines, consisting of various tags separated with a pipe character (|).
Additionally, some global options may be set.

Spaces/tabs at beginnings and ends of lines are ignored. Whole empty lines are ignored as well. You can include comments, starting with // until the end of line (C-style).

The resulting structure looks like this:

global option
global option
step  // comment
  step option
  step option
  tag|tag|tag
  tag|tag|tag
step
  step option
  step option
  tag|tag|tag
  tag|tag|tag

Global options:

defaultfor race
Makes this guide loaded by default when starting a character of a specific race. Death Knights are considered a race, for convenience. Examples: defaultfor Human, defaultfor DeathKnight.
author email, name...
Sets the author's credentials. Used in generated bug reports.
description text
Sets the description used in the guide's details in the addon's main settings screen.
startlevel level
Use this level as default for the first steps of the guide. Steps use levels to determine what's obsolete; set to 80 to never obsolete your steps.
next guide title
Designates guide title to follow this guide. Note: full title needed, multi-folder path and all.
daily
Marks the guide as a "dailies" guide, enabling periodic resetting of daily-marked quests.

Steps:

Each step starts with a step word, alone in a line. This marker is followed by step options and lines.

Step options:

These pertain to one step, setting its properties.

Option Description Example
map name Sets a default map for this (and subsequent) step's waypoints. Use it if you prefer your waypoint markers to have only coordinates. map Elwynn Forest
level level Indicates that the step should be completed at level level. Optional. If no level is set for a step, the previous step's level is used, or the guide's startlevel setting. Note: the ding tag sets the level as well. level 12
title text Sets the title of the waypoint pertaining to the step. May be overridden by a line-specific title tag. Optional. title Entrance to the mine
only race/class... Designates the step as being valid only for a specific race/class.
Any combination of races/classes, separated with commas. A race starting with ! means 'NOT'. As the races are OR-ed together, multiple NOTs don't make sense.
Note: the last line in the example restricts the step to Gnomes of any class, Dwarven Paladins, and Mages of any race - not to Gnomish-or-Dwarven Paladins-or-Mages. 		only Human Warrior
only Warrior,Priest,Warlock
only !Human
only Gnome,Dwarf Paladin,Mage
only if condition Sets a raw scripted condition for the step's availability.
Condition is a simple Lua expression. Available shorthands:
  • rep("Faction") -- returns standing with a faction (locale-safe). Compare using >,<,==,>=,<=,~= with one of the predefined values named after standings: Neutral,Honored,Exalted... Case-sensitive.
  • skill("Profession") -- returns skill in profession.
  • any other Lua expression -- evaluates and if it returns non-nil, the step is available.
 only Human Warrior
only if rep("Stormwind")==Exalted
only if skill('Herbalism')>0
only if UnitName("player")=="Tinkywinky"

Step lines:

Completable lines. Each step line is intended to either require the player to perform some action, or just provide advice. If a line contains one of the "completable" tags, it becomes a completable line. A line containing only "descriptive" actions or tags, or forced into incompletability (using the |n tag), will just be displayed for the player to read.

Completion condition. The first completable tag on a line decides its completion condition. Other tags in the line can only enhance the completable tag's behaviour. Or, they can make no sense at all. Tags are separated using the '|' pipe character. Example:
'Hearth to Ironforge|goto Ironforge,12.3,45.6|use Hearthstone##6948|noway This would read as: "Display a descriptive instruction; then, use goto completion upon reaching Ironforge; add a usable item icon with Hearthstone on it; finally, make this line not show a waypoint arrow.

Waypoints. A goto tag, or a ' ("text") tag with a coordinate pair in its contents, will automatically create a mapnote and a waypoint for it. The mapnote's title can be set using the title step option, or individually for the line using the title line tag. A line with coordinates can be clicked to force a waypoint to this location to be displayed.

Indentation. Step lines can be prepended with multiple '.'s (periods) to indent them visually. Example: goto 12,34
.talk Mountain King
..accept Into the Hall Result: Go to 12,34
   Talk to Mountain King
      Accept `Into the Hall'

Tags

Simple actions:

Clickable icons:

Modifiers:

Other tags:

Advanced examples: ' Kill Smelly Joe that wanders around|kill Smelly Joe kill Smelly Joe|' Kill Smelly Joe that wanders around kill Smelly Joe|Kill Smelly Joe that wanders around Kill Smelly Joe that wanders around Create a descriptive line that completes upon killing a mob. All are equivalent - the third line as well, as „Kill” (capitalized) is not a valid tag, and thus is treated as „text”, again overriding normal display for the kill command. ' Go outside of the house|goto 34.5,12.8,0.1|c Go outside of the house (has waypoint) A descriptive, completeable, „go to” line with a precise destination. ' Climb to 12.8,34.3|c A descriptive, completeable, „go to” line with a precise destination. goto Elwynn Forest,12.3,45.6|c kill 6 Stalker 'Chop 5 trees|goal 5 Trees chopped|goto 22,34 only Draenei Warrior,Human Paladin Just a bunch of different options.