Addon Authors! ^_^

[Jeania]

Not sure if this is the right "area" to post this in, if it's not, please move it to it's appropos area lol. I posted this (a moment ago hah) at Curse.com, which seems to have more blanks of what I'm mentioning here, by a long shot. So please excuse me, since this doesn't apply to most authors, although the thanks sure does! So without further ado, here's a paste of my topic! ^_^ lol

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Hey! ^_^

For years you have all been so extremely awesome, making things to share with all of us, and putting up with our tarting when we have problems, or just general tarting. lol not everyone's nice, as we've seen. Anyways, I wanted to say a couple things, one of which, is thank you! Most of us appreciate what you do, even if we don't always reply, and we love the addons that you work so hard on. We appreciate the time you put into them, and appreciate your putting up with all of us. ^_^

Okay for my "tart" (lol not really, just a request) is Screenshots lol. Most of you do, and it's quite helpful. I personally look at screenshots before I download aaaanything. Strangely, looks are important to me in an addon, not only size, but also, I ask myself: "hey can I truly use this? Will this be beneficial amongst my zillion of current addons, and will it replace or work beside, my other addons well?" You put a lot of work into your addons, and truly I'm positive that if you know how to create addons, you also know how to take screenshots ^_~ (no, this isn't a "shot" at any addon author, more of a teasing jib, meant in good humour).

True, it's difficult at times to find a good hosting site. I personally was lucky to create a Homestead account before it went pay, so I'm able to host my crap there, yay!. A lot of guild websites also allow hosting of pictures, so maybe put them there and link from those, if your the guildmaster. If not, I'm sure most would be quite okay with allocating you a spot for them. If this isn't an option, let me know, as I'd be more then happy to help find a good host spot for you...I personally love scouraging the net finding the perfect "this or that" that pleases my requirements: appearance, functionality, and use.

If you need someone to take additional screenshots and host them (there has to be one at least, for original), as long as they might be something I could use, or won't conflict with my personal array of zillion of addons, I'd be more then willing to consider hosting and/or creating a few pictures for you. I will tell you, if the addon is something I consider unsafe, or has bad current reviews, I won't be able to help you...I'm not foolish enough to download dangerous products lol.

If anyone is needing this, let me know in PM.

Just to let you know a few things:

I'm a vista user, WOTLK installed. I don't test UI's ^_~. I have a widescreen so I'll have to cut or modify images or they will be huge (or scale them down lol). I'll let you see the original first, of course, before that'd be done.

Also, if you don't need me to do it, and you can take your own, just need an upload site, consider photobucket, or one of my favs: Imageshack.

But please, add screenshots to your addons. I, and others from comments I've seen, would absolutely love to try or use your addons...Some of them sound sooo amazing...but we need screenshots lol.

Plus keep in mind, for us who are addon tarts (lol) we only have so much space on our "wow" screen lol. We got stuff here...and there....and it's lucky that we can see to do anything in the game lol (okay that's an exageration lol, but you know what I mean).

Sorry for this extremely lengthy topic, just wanted to give you thanks, and this paticular thought lol. Please, if anyone disagrees with me, or whatever, I'm completely happy to read, and consider what you are saying. Thanks guys and gals!

Jeania/Litharra ~Dalaran

[joeba18]

I agree that all addons should have screen shots.
And also WoWI requires you to have a screen shot or it will be denied,

Now there is some still with out screen shots most but not all are old addons.
Most likely before the screen shot policy was added.

Also here at WoWI you dont need a image host since WoWI has a section when your adding a addon that you can upload images to WoWI and will be displayed on the addon page.

[shkm]

Originally Posted by joeba18 I agree that all addons should have screen shots. And also WoWI requires you to have a screen shot or it will be denied, [...]

I disagree, there are some addons with functionality that has absolutely nothing to do with graphics (imagine a Lua config based click-casting addon, for example).

[Ackis]

This is something that I always forget to do... get updated screenshots. :P

[Jeania]

Originally Posted by shkm I disagree, there are some addons with functionality that has absolutely nothing to do with graphics (imagine a Lua config based click-casting addon, for example).

Aye, but there's a lot of addons that could have, but don't have, which makes it tough to know whether to try it out. I'm glad to know WoWI tends to though, very glad lol. It makes it a heck of a lot easier, specially if some addons are a bit confusing via just words. Sort of a picture = 1000 words lol. For me at least, it helps to see them, so that the explainations make more sense, sort of a "ohh i see what you mean, if you do this in config, or that..." that sort of thing. Okay done babbling lol *exits stage left*

[Tuhljin]

I agree that when having a screenshot of the addon "makes sense," there really should be one there. I've even done more than simply cropping images to give a clearer picture when I think it seems worthwhile. There are too many filler images here on WoWI used for addons that make significant visual changes or additions to the UI. Like you said, a picture is worth a thousand words.

[twobits]

I think you are right that the screenshots help 'sell' the addon. It also probably not a bad idea that the site requires them. I have found though for some reason I have an aversion to making them. If anyone wants to make some screen shots of my addons so I can upload them here I would not complain though.

[Recluse]

Someone mentioned it, but I also remember wowinterface hosting the screenshots themselves of addons, so the host thing shouldn't be an issue on this website. As far as curse goes, I'm not much of a fan at all, but not very many addons have screenshots there.

I must say, though - unless the addon does nothing at all visually (not even slash command output), there should be a screenshot. There are a few out there which have no in-game input/output that can be screenshotted, but I've never encountered more than one or two in all the years I've been using addons.

I too am one of those who doesn't download an addon unless I can either see it before hand, or if it were recommended by a close friend.

@twobits: All you have to do is hit the printscreen button at some point during development, it shouldn't be much of a chore at all.

[Cralor]

I agree pics are always nice

Oh and I can confirm that when you upload an image for your addon(s), WoWInterface does host the image for you.