Total beginner question about d() used in tutorial

[BoarGules]

I'm following the tutorial at http://wiki.esoui.com/Writing_your_first_addon which tells me that calling d() will send debug traces to the chat window.

Except that it doesn't. I know the game is calling my little event handler, because if I put a deliberate runtime error in the code just before the call to d(), ESO displays a popup complaining about it. I thought that maybe the function had been hijacked by another addon, but uninstalling all the other addons didn't fix the problem.

Is there a magic word like a command-line parameter or something else I need to do to get the function to behave as advertised?

[votan]

Originally Posted by BoarGules I'm following the tutorial at http://wiki.esoui.com/Writing_your_first_addon which tells me that calling d() will send debug traces to the chat window. Except that it doesn't. I know the game is calling my little event handler, because if I put a deliberate runtime error in the code just before the call to d(), ESO displays a popup complaining about it. I thought that maybe the function had been hijacked by another addon, but uninstalling all the other addons didn't fix the problem. Is there a magic word like a command-line parameter or something else I need to do to get the function to behave as advertised?

if someone's addon leaks a d, this will overwrite the function. Not good.
Disable all addons and type in the chat:
/script d("Hello")

When enable your addon and try again.

[Rhyono]

It has never worked for me if I try to put it in an addon's initialization. There are many event related times when it doesn't seem to execute it, even when the code before and after does.

[BoarGules]

Ah, that is helpful. So far, all of my calls to d() are in the main chunk, or in the EVENT_ADD_ON_LOADED event handler, or in something that it calls, because I was trying to check that the initialization was working. If I should not expect the function to work until the addon is initialized, then I will stop fretting and carry on with the tutorial.

Thank you.

[Dolgubon]

I highly suggest downloading pChat and adding it as an optional depends on. It will print anjy d() called before chat initialization.

[sirinsidiator]

d() sends messages to the chat, but there is one catch: The chat does not exist before EVENT_PLAYER_ACTIVATED fires for the first time. All messages you send before EVENT_PLAYER_ACTIVATED are simply discarded. You either have to install pChat which has a feature to collect and print those messages or write your own log function that caches them until the chat is ready.

But why is the chat not active early on? That's another thing you should know: Saved variables are not available before EVENT_ADDON_LOADED (the chat uses them to remember its position and other stuff). I can only guess why they decided to initialize it in EVENT_PLAYER_ACTIVATED instead of EVENT_ADDON_LOADED. One possible reason is that the event didn't exist when they wrote the chat code.

Maybe some day ZOS will update the chat to cache messages even before the main window exists, but until then we have to manage it ourselves.