Macro help (The function of Aftercast...useable just in WoW?)

Post by Supremacy

Hello.

I had exceptional luck (thank you to both Miyari and Nefarion for responding) when I posted my question about a quick language changing macro, so I figured that I would try my luck again with the good folks of the Wowhead community.

I have a balance druid, and recently got the spell Force of Nature. Which is just great. There are few things I enjoy more than having minions at my beck and call. In any event, I decided to make a macro for it, since I enjoy adding a bit of flavor to things. Just a quick emote or say when you cast the spell.

However, the spell has a range, or whatever you want to call it. Specifically, there's a targeting circle, like with Blizzard or Flamestrike. While going through wowwiki.com, I found out about an add-on called Aftercast, which allows you to...well, let me just quote it:

"If you want to say something only when you actually cast the spell, check out the addon AfterCast. AfterCast schedules a slash command to run... well... after you cast a spell (within the limitations mentioned at the end of "What is a macro?"). For example:

/aftercast /p Click the portal to get %t's lazy butt over here
/cast Ritual of Summoning"

More specific information can be found on Aftercast's site.

Now, after all that build-up, here's my actual question. Is it possible to just make a macro that does that by itself? Just using the WoW interface? You know, the tools at your disposal with the /m command?

The reason I'm asking is not just because I'm a little wary about downloading add-ons and such. It's just one of those things that I like to actually see how to do, so I can learn it. It's just a personal preference. I like to do things like that until I become familiar with them, and then I can go ahead and automate it.

Any input or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Despite my vast and extensive knowledge of Lua (it's a scripting language...and thus exhausts my vast and extensive knowledge), I am unfamiliar with the more complicated matters of scripting and macros...you know, anything beyond /equipslot and /emote.

Specifically, I just want whatever I choose to say when casting that spell not to show up until after the spell is actually cast. I don't care (at the moment) about what to do if the spell doesn't work, or anything like that. I guess not actually activating the /say or /emote until after the spell is successfully cast, if that clears things up at all.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Post by pelf

The reason I'm asking is not just because I'm a little wary about downloading add-ons and such. It's just one of those things that I like to actually see how to do, so I can learn it. It's just a personal preference. I like to do things like that until I become familiar with them, and then I can go ahead and automate it.

Well, you can download Aftercast and look at the code. Are you saying you're wary of downloading stuff, and not only just that; or, are you saying it's not because you're wary at all?

Post by Corveroth

To get Aftercast-type functionality, you need to watch the combat log for an event called SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS, which is outside of the scope of a typical macro (by the time the server sends that "Hey, it worked!" event and your client picks it up, the macro has already finished running). So, you need to have some part of your interface sit around and wait for that event, which takes a fair amount of text to set up- removing it from the Realm of Practical Macros. Regardless, here's an example that makes an invisible frame named F and tells it to holler when Force of Nature is cast:
/run if not F then F=CreateFrame"Frame" F:RegisterEvent"COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED" F:SetScript("OnEvent",function(...)local a={...}if a=="SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS"and 33831==athen SendChatMessage("Hey, Force of Nature went off!","PARTY")end end)end
/use Force of Nature
(note: 33831 is the spellID of Force of Nature)

And that's entirely dry-coded (untested). No guarantees that it'll work. There's also too much scripting involved for this to fit as a macro- that above clocks in at 271 characters. If you remove the second line (/use spellname), that'll cut it down to 251, and you'd just need to hit the macro once every time you log in. Every cast after that would send the message (underlined in the code above), assuming that it does indeed work.

Anyways. Excessive scripting. That's why macros are generally not used for this purpose. An addon has no character limit and can use a single frame for every spell you want to associate this kind of behavior with, and set up different/random texts, etc.

Macro help (The function of Aftercast...useable just in WoW?)

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