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  colossalvoids

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  No.

  #2

  May 4

  Answer ✓

  1
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  Baertram

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  No, addons cannot change animations or effects or anything else that is not related to the UI.
  
  Here is a list of what addons cannot and must not do:
  https://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?p=44541
  

  What addons cannot do
  
  Change anything prior to or at the character selection screen, pre-ingame code, character creation or at/during loading screens, or in the crown store/market, at the scrying UI, at the Tribute game
  Read the current position (x, y, z) of non-grouped players, or even enemies/NPCs
  Change any visual textures/effects/highlights of characters/players, skills, weapons, armor, procs, pets, mounts, houses, characters, NPCs, and other non-UI related things
  Change sounds of skills, weapons, armor, procs, pets, mounts, houses, music, NPCs and other non-UI related things
  Play custom sounds or videos or animations or include other 3d objects from external sources.
  Include any external files in the addons that are not lua, xml or dds (texture files).
  Load files which are outside of the live/AddOns folder (SavedVariablse are stored in live/SavedVariables but we do not have access to the files directly, only via the ZO_SavedVars wrapper class), or which are in a depth > 3 subfolders of your addon (where "your addon" = addOns' txt manifest file's depth).
  Change the visual indicators like the "selected enemy" frame or "AOE ground rings/fields"
  Change the name plates (only the font might be changed "globally" which would affect all text that is using the same font)
  3d markers in the world cannot be drawn inside dungeons (or only via hacky ways that ZOs officially does not support. ZOs clearly said they explicitly did not want to have 3d markers in dungeons and thus the API blocks that. If your addon found a way to do it though, you might work against ZOs will!).
  So no, there won't be any easy way (first due to the lack of position information about enemies/NPCs and secondary due to this lack here) to draw any selected enemy OR group markers above the heads.
  -> ZOs added the target markers meanwhile which can be used to draw icons aove the enemy heads (manually, by keybind).
  Group markers are provided by the game already and can be changed via addons e.g. "Votans Group Pins" and there is a way to highlight grouped players (in overland areas) with a light beam effect e.g. "Lights of Meridia"
  Change the camera x/y/z axis position to anything that is not changable via the official settings menu.
  Hide pets, players, mounts, NPCs from the game. There is a setting to hide them by the game if you are near crafting tables/inside towns, so use that one please. But it won't hide them in dungeons or overland afaik
  Move, jump, crouch, swim, block, or call any other movement or fighting related controls/actions of the player in any way
  Cast skills in any way
  Use items from the quickslot (you cannot e.g. auto-drink a potion, but you could try to cast a companion or banker via API functions, or eat some food)
  Automatically start interactions that you usually need to do via a keybind (companion, banks, scrying, scribing, ...)
  Any other "botting related" automations
  Send messages to chat (which others can see) directly. They are only allowed to add text to the chat message box and you manually need to press the return key to send.
  Modify ingame mail's gold
  Change behaviours/restrictions of the game like "change slotted skill on the actionbar during combat", "teleport/mount if in combat", etc.
  Change tooltip's textures or texts. Some texts might be changed if they use constants, like a trait uses a constant ingame. One could change the constant text and the tooltip text (as well as ANY other position in the game these constants are used!) will change then too. But the surrounding tooltip texts, around the constant in there, cannot be changed!
  Directly communicate with files on your PC on-the-fly/live. Means: Data can only be stored into SavedVariables (SavedVariables cannot be altered on the disk and read into the game! They are copied in internal game memory and only read from that memory, saved to the disk on a reloadui or zone change with a loading screen. Any altered data on the disk file will be overwritten from internal game memory at that point! ). These can only update as the game does a reloadUI/zone change ingame, and not live every n milliseconds. Exchanging data with other players via save to disk, send to server, read from server at other player, transfer to his/her ESO won't work!
  Exchange data between websites or use web services in real time. External clients, like TTC does, writing and reading SavedVariables, is the only non- realtime way to exchange data between addons and external sources
  Share data between players.
  Only for grouped players: There exist workarounds via MapPings but ZOs told us it's a backdoor and we MUST not use it anymore (to prevent the server's performance decreasing). ZOs will change this API so it cannot be used to transfer data between group members anymore. A new API might be added which all addons can use, given the same restrictions as before: Not much data (all addons share the same maximum in total!), not more often than e.g. once a second.
  2024-12: If you want to create addons sharing data between grouped members you should NOT use LibGroupSocket, or LibDataShare anymore!
  Read this forum thread for the most up2date information rrgarding data shared in a group:
  https://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?p=51017
  
  Do not try to circumvent any restrictions by ZOs and/or by the new library!
  All addons will be handled the same, there won't be any priorizing. Compress your data as much as possible so all addons can properly use it.
  Warning: If your addon is recognized as not respecting this, your addons might get removed from ESOUI without further warning!
  
  
  
  What addons MUST not do
  Please read what addons must not do at all and strickly follow these rules!
  
  
  What addons could do
  
  Change (or disable -> See addon "FCO ChangeStuff e.g.") the sounds of UI related things like click, book open, book page change, menu open, etc.
  Add additional controls to the UI. From simple buttons over textures (needs to be ingame texures or provided supported .dds files -> read here for more information about the supported width/height and properties: )
  They can move with the player's position but you need to invest a decent amount of effort and performance loss (espeically if you want to do that for group members as well).
  Draw 3d markers in overland areas (e.g. "Harvest Map")
  Show/hide UI controls (not all controls can be hidden properly/in time/Accordingly to your needs though. It depends on the use-case)
  Consume some items from your inventory, like eat/drink food/drinks. Not all will work though (potions e.g. might not be automatically consumable, one would need to test it).
  Add tooltip texts by adding to the bottom of the tooltip.
  Use API functions defined here (https://wiki.esoui.com/APIVersion#live_API_version -> APIVersion number of live -> Linked "API TXT Documentation" file) to get information.
  

  Edited by Baertram on May 4, 2025 4:22PM

  #3

  May 4

  Answer ✓

  2