Gazmik Fizzwidget's

Timely information not specific to any Fizzwidget Industries product.

In collaboration with my associates at Smokywood Pastures, I’m pleased to bring you five (count ’em, five!) new gizmos and gadgets just in time for the end of this year’s feast:

• DiggerAid: Lets you spend more time digging and less time with the Archaeology UI.
• HoverTips: Makes chat links show their tooltips on mouseover instead of only when clicked, and adds new tooltips for some types of links
• ScrollMaker: Adds a button to the Enchanting window for making scrolls with one click.
• Experience Visualizer: Enhances the built-in XP bar.
• ZippyLighter: Adds a button to the Cooking window for quick access to fire.

Enjoy the new year!

The new second edition of World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons is now available. I rewrote and updated nearly the entire Reference section for this edition (which is also online and continually updated at wowprogramming.com)… but since the publisher has some silly aversion to working with goblins, I had to let my human lackey take official credit.

Anyway, if you’re looking to become a successful builder of widgets & gizmos like me (or that elf who wrote the rest of the book), good luck this is the book for you!

• Updated for compatibility with WoW Patch 3.0 and Wrath of the Lich King.
• Redesigned the menu that appears upon right-clicking the reputation watch bar to handle the new three-level faction hierarchy in WoW 3.0:
  • Replaced faction status text with Armory-style icons.
  • By default, all factions are in submenus, grouped according to the new top-level headers in WoW 3.0 (Classic, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Other).
  • Since digging into submenus all the time isn’t so great, the 10 factions you’ve most recently watched or gained/lost reputation with are shown in the top level of the menu.
  • As before, you can hide factions from the menu by moving them to the Inactive group in the Reputation pane. If 35 or fewer factions remain active, the menu will switch to a simpler layout without submenus.
• Added Burning Crusade factions & dungeons for the zone-based automatic reputation bar switch feature:
  • The outdoor Isle of Quel’Danas shows the Shattered Sun Offensive on the reputation bar.
  • All 5-man dungeons show the faction whose reputation is earned therein.
  • Karazhan and Hyjal Summit raids show their respective factions as well.
• Updated Thorium Brotherhood turnin values to reflect changes in recent WoW patches.
• Fixed a discrepancy with Sporeggar item turnin quantities.
• Fixed an issue where collapsing headers in the reputation pane would interfere with our ability to auto-switch the reputation watch bar or display factions in the menu.
• Updated French localization by Kehrsyn of Culte de la Rive Noire (EU).
• Added basic locale support for Russian and Spanish based on Wowhead’s multilingual database. (That is, enough translations for all features to work the same as in English, but no localized UI text.)

New versions of all current Fizzwidget products are now available for WoW Patch 2.1.0. (If you don’t see them on the main page, check the Products menu to the right.) However…

• I’ve spent most of the past month working on moving my workshop to a new location, so I’ve only had time for minimal testing on the 2.1 PTRs. There may be bugs; please let us know if you run into any issues!
• My ingenious machine that lets you see these postings and download my products will be moved sometime between now and May 30, which may result in an interruption of service. If you can’t reach fizzwidget.com, the latest releases can also be found at gazmik.wowinterface.com.

Updated TOC for WoW Patch 2.1.

The upcoming expansion and accompanying WoW 2.0 patch will change much in the world of Addons… but fear not for your favorite Fizzwidget Industries products! I’ve had my lackeys hard at work updating and rebuilding our gizmos to continue serving you well, in Azeroth and beyond.

To keep beta feedback nicely organized, we’re posting BC Beta versions of our products at WoWInterface as they become ready for testing. If you’re in the Burning Crusade Closed Beta, get your updates there — and please let us know if you run into any issues!

Yesterday, one of my lackeys drew the short straw and jumped into the transpolyporter with an armload of my gizmos. He sends word that they all seem to power up okay in this “Test Realm” he found himself in, but that he hasn’t tried pressing every button just yet. (Hmm, come to think of it, I’m not sure I know what all the buttons on these gadgets do.)

If you’re checking out the Test Realm, my current releases should work if you check “Load Outdated Addons”. If you encounter any issues, please leave a comment or send mail.