Destroying hiding a frame

[BlueSixty]

Hi, just started learning how to write an addon for WOW and I have a question about frames.

I have setup a keybinding for my addon. I've assigned F1 to the key. When I press F1 a function in my lua will be called, showbar().

In the showbar() function I create a frame and create some other frames in it. I want one of the internal frames to allow you to click and the frame will disappear.

I have everything working but I'm not sure how to make the frame disappear. Do I just hide it? Is there some way to destroy it?

Thanks for the help

Bluesixty

[Seerah]

You cannot destroy frames. You will need to hide it and then reuse/recycle the same frame the next time you want to show it (instead of creating a new one each time, which is poor coding practice).

[BlueSixty]

Ah I see. that makes sense. thanks

Is there a simple way to determine if a frame exists? Or should I just maintain my own flag to know if I created it already?

[Akkorian]

Hi Bluesixty,

If the frame has a global name, you can look for that:

CreateFrame( "Frame", "MyGlobalFrame", UIParent )

if MyGlobalFrame then
     print( "Frame exists!" )
end

But, if you only need the frame inside your own code, and don’t need it to be accessible from outside, it’s better not to add it to the global namespace. Something like this would be a good solution:

local frame
local function InitializeFrame()
     if not frame then
          frame = CreateFrame( "Frame", nil, UIParent )
          -- set up the frame here
     end
     return frame
end

And then when you want to do something with the frame:

     frame = frame or InitializeFrame()
     frame:Show()

[BlueSixty]

Thanks Akkorian,

That really helps and does just what I need