Fitzcairn's Macro Explain-o-maticBETA

Updates Coming Soon!

After a long time away, I've come back to play WoW actively again.  And of course, that means needing to write macros again as well!

The site has entirely decayed due to back-compat breaking updates to Google App Engine, Google Apps--even Blogger (thanks, Google), but I am in the progress of updating everything to work again.

Unfortunately, all of the saved macros folks have made throughout the past 5 years of operation are--as far as I know--irretrievable.  I will work on attempting to restore this, but in the meantime am focused mostly on getting things functional.

What I hope to get done over the coming weeks (in priority order):

1. Site back up at http://macroexplain.com.  A bonus would be restoring saved macros.

2. All macro parsing logic, spell data, etc updated to the current version of WoW.

3. A complete facelift to the site.  This thing has kind of looked like crap for a long time, and the code powering it is... well, let's call it "creative" and leave it at that.  In my defense, IE6 was a thing back when I wrote this, and Bootstrap/jQuery didn't really exist... so, time to use the latest hotness!

4. Rewrite of backend functionality to scale better.  I've actually released the current code powering this site (cringe) to my github, and will be updating that as I go.

So, stay tuned--and my apologies for the lack of updates for so long!

~Fitz
Anonymous Kemanorel said...

What a remarkable coincidence! I have used this site for years, but I was just starting my initial research for an addon for use in-game. Would you be at all interested in collaborating since I would much appreciate the benefit of your experience and expertise with macros!

August 14, 2016 at 9:46 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Pretty nice site..great tool.

Although the site has a problem with the following macro line

/castsequence Ring of the Kirin Tor

It does NOT like the "Ring of the Kirin Tor" text item.

August 18, 2016 at 2:15 PM  
Blogger Fitz said...

Thanks guys! I've essentially let this site rot for a bit since I've moved on from playing WoW. :) However, its great to see folks use it. No promises, but I'll see if I can free up some time to update it for Legion in the near future.

~Fitz

August 21, 2016 at 8:58 PM  
Blogger M. L. Middleton said...

Honestly this was the only site that helped me to understand the logic in macro programing. And I still need help sometimes. I do hope you can get this thing up and running again.

January 23, 2017 at 4:12 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I use some fairly complex macros on my Druid & I've noticed that the Explain-o-matic doesn't understand/recognize the "talent" parameter {added in 6.0, I believe}

I was wondering if there are any plans to update the explain-o-matic to account for this, & newer, macro parameter(s)?

June 26, 2017 at 5:49 PM  
Blogger Briandris said...

WoW! This is amazing stuff. So many years copy/pasting other ppl's macro's because my brain just couldn't grasp them. Thanks for this:)

April 23, 2020 at 11:53 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hey seems like things are still on the low-and-low, out&out. I'm glad to see you've moved on from WoW, as did I.

If I can parse out some active links from your database, maybe I'll be able to mend my addiction to gaming, programming, and keeping pace with the modern world. Thanks, for everything!

'Tis an old, but useful gol' mine. My friend..

September 28, 2020 at 4:10 AM  
Blogger Jahirah said...

The "Explain-o-matic" is probably the best third party tool developed and I've been a keen user until recently where a "500 server error" has made it unavailable.
I haven't been able to find any announcements or information on status of the technical problems or if it's deliberate takedown due to a discontinuation of the project.
For what it's worth - I really hope the Explain-o-matic will come back up!

September 3, 2021 at 7:02 AM  
Blogger Fitz said...

Replied via email, but for anyone else running into this -- Google recently changed their backend hosting for App Engine projects, which unfortunately nuked the Explain-o-matic. I'm not able to develop a fix at this time, but I've released the source code at https://github.com/fitzcairn/Macro-Explain-o-Matic in case anyone would like to take this project forward.

Thanks for using this tool -- it's been live for 10 years. :) Really glad folks found it useful.

September 5, 2021 at 7:45 PM  

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