SharedMedia Help

[Yutanas]

Hey there everyone!

I'm totally lost on how to use this addon! I don't really understand how it works. English, is not my first language, but i'll try to be as clear as I can. Please keep that in mind when answering the upcoming questions (p.s. text wall incoming lol )

1- What is SharedMedia? How does it work? For what I could understand, it goes through my AddOns folder using features originally from one addon onto others, i.e. like taking a texture from Quartz and making it avaiable for PitBull, or a font from SCT making it avaiable for Chatter. Is that what it really does?

2 - How do I use it? Do I have to create subfolders inside the SharedMedia folder in my AddOns folder, like fonts, sounds or textures and move these types of file into their respective folder or do I have to create those folders in my AddOns folder? Or can I just to throw those types of files into my AddOns folder or into the SharedMedia folder?

3 - What is the difference between SharedMedia, SharedMedia-2.0, SharedMediaAdditionalFonts, SharedMediaAdditionalFonts-2.0, SharedMedia-Blizzard, LibSharedMedia 3.0 and SharedMedia_MyMedia? When I was looking at some ui packs on the site, and I looked at the pic of their addon folder, some of them had SharedMedia and SharedMedia-2.0, others had those two plus SharedMediaAdditionalFonts and SharedMediaAdditionalFonts-2.0, and some others had only SharedMedia.

4 - I found some background textures, statusbar textures, border textures for bars, minimap textures, as well as lots of fonts around the internet, and some compilations in packs here at the site. I copied them all into the SharedMedia folder; into subfolders (textures, fonts, sounds, etc) inside the SharedMedia folder, but they are not avaiable when I log on. So, all I gotta do is to copy the files into a folder, log on and they are supposed to be avaiable, or do I have to edit something - as I've seen some comments that I have to edit something in the SharedMedia.lua? If so, how do I do it?

5 - Lets suppose that I liked a specific feature in someone's UI, like a background artwork (like this smoke artwork http://s.wowinterface.com/preview/pvw30366.jpg ), or a cool minimap (like http://s.wowinterface.com/preview/pvw27901.jpg) or a unitframe (like http://s.wowinterface.com/preview/pvw24689.jpg). What do I have to do to use only the specific feature I liked? Of course, first I’ll have to download the UI pack but, what next?

I’m really really sorry for the wall of text, but as I said before, I’m completely lost on how to use SharedMedia. Hope you guys have the time and patience to clear this up for me!

Thanks!

[MidgetMage55]

Shared Media is a collection of textures. Addons "talk" to shared media and have access to those textures. Think of it like a master list of textures. Not all addons have shared media support. It's something that has to be programmed in. It does not pull from one addon to another like in your example but instead has all those textures within its own folders.

To use it you simply install it and it just works. Providing that the other addons you use have support for it coded in.

So lets use an example like pitbull (a unit frame addon) ill elaborate on the first section to show how it works. With pitbull installed by it self you have only the fonts, textures and backgrounds pitbull provides within its configuration options. Installing shared media and the options will increase. Adding something like quartz after that will not change the options available as shared media is what is providing the additional textures options.

Each version generally has different texture packs. The libsharedmedia is mainly used for coding purposes.

To use Mymedia you take your textures you wish to use and place them in the Mymedia folder in the appropriate sub folders. Then you open the Mymedia.lua file and add the name of the texture and its path to the file otherwise the addon does not know its there. Simply look at the examples in the file on how to do it. I personaly just go to each section (you'll see this in the file) copy a line, paste it at the bottom of that list and just change the names of the file locations. Here's an example from the file. Ill show which you need to change in the example.

SharedMedia:Register("font","Roadway", [[Interface\Addons\SharedMedia\MyMedia\Font\Roadway_.ttf]])

The highlighted section is generally all you have to change if you use the provided Mymedia folders for you various textures and fonts. So lets say i wanted to add a font called BigUglyFont to my Mymedia folder. I would copy the font file in to the font folder within the mymedia folder, open the Mymedia.lua file and scroll down to the fonts section and copy/paste one of the lines of code like in my example then change the highlighted sections to the name of the font in question. Same applies for status bars and so on.

As for the last part taking a bit from another UI will depend highly on what part you want to use. With the exceptions of backgrounds you can easily addons your fonts and textures to mymedia. It also supports backgrounds but in many cases if your after a large piece of art its better to use a panel mod like kgPanels or Litepanels. For example the smoke art you linked you would use a panel mod for.

Hope that helps some.

[Seerah]

1. LibSharedMedia-3.0 is the library that addons use in order to access textures, etc. outside of the addon itself (in other addons, texture packs, etc.) In order for an addon to have access to this pool of media, it must request it from the library. In order for an addon to add media to LibSharedMedia-3.0, it must register it with the library. SharedMedia is an addon which stores extra textures, etc. SharedMedia then registers all of its media with LibSharedMedia-3.0 so that addons may access it.

2. Read "Instructions for MyMedia.txt" inside of the SharedMedia folder.

3. SharedMedia is an addon which houses extra media to add to LibSharedMedia-3.0. SharedMedia-2.0 is an outdated version of SharedMedia (despite it having 2.0 at the end - long story). SharedMediaAdditionalFonts are extra fonts to add to LibSharedMedia. SharedMediaAdditionalFonts-2.0 is another version of SharedMediaAdditionalFonts, left over from when SharedMedia and LibSharedMedia were going through changes. Actually, I'm not sure which is the current/correct one to use... SharedMedia-Blizzard takes textures from inside the game and adds them to LibSharedMedia-3.0 for addons to be able to use. LibSharedMedia 3.0 is the actual library (see #1) that addons use (you don't need to install this). SharedMedia_MyMedia is what is created when you actually read "Instructions for MyMedia.txt" in the SharedMedia folder.

4. See #2

5. The smoke artwork can be added by any addon that adds art to the game. kgPanels uses LibSharedMedia, or you may import the art directly into the addon via it's in-game options (there are in-game instructions also). Or you may use something like BTex or Sunn Viewport Art (which don't use LibSharedMedia) to place the artwork at the bottom. The minimap is SexyMap - that texture is one of its skins. The unitframes can be recreated using a flexible unit frame addon like Stuf or PitBull4 and using kgPanels for the artwork.


/edit: MM55 beat me!
/edit2: I blame my cold medicine

[BWarner]

Too many people helping at once. What a terrible place this is. ^.^

[Yutanas]

So, I'm not sure if i got that right. As for what ya'll said, I only need SharedMedia, not all those SharedMedia 2.0, LibSharedMedia, SharedMediaAdditionalFonts, and etc?

I'll be more streight foward this time. What I want is more font options avaiable ingame, to use on SCT, UnitFrame addons, chat, etc, in a way that they show up as options on those addons when i'm setting them up. Lets say, when I open SCT to set it up, I have 10 types of fonts avaiable on the list. I look up on the internet and find, 50 new cool looking fonts (all .ttf). How do I add those 50 new fonts in the game so they will show up as options on the SCT config menu as well as any other addon that I have installed?

As for the art textures, I don't have that much of trouble with. I use kgpanels. Create a new layout, create a new panel, import the artwork (.tga) from a folder and so on (feel free to let me know if I'm doing something wrong). The problem is when i try to make my minimap look cool. I do have sexymap, But I don't like the standard options that I can choose from. All I want is a round map, with some fancy artwork around its board. Lets say I find a cool looking artwork. how do I apply this artwork on my minimap?

You know those demons and angels art that people use on their action bars (like this one http://s.wowinterface.com/preview/pvw24045.jpg). Can I add it using kgpanels, or do I have to download that rBottomTexture thing to use it?

As for last, how can I add new textures to powerauras?

I'm sorry for sucking so much at this. And thanks very much for ya'll support.

[MidgetMage55]

The basic download of sharedmedia will do what you need. then you can use the Mymedia stuff to add your fonts as i detailed above. As fot eh demons and angels you can use kgpanels if you choose. Just import the art as usual.