SkuAddon - Installation Guide What is Sku? Sku is an addon for World of Warcraft. It makes the game playable for blind and visually impaired people through a screen reader (NVDA or JAWS). This guide is for the Anniversary version of The Burning Crusade, game version 2.5.6. Please read first: Installing Sku is NOT possible for fully blind screen reader users on their own. At a few points - login screens, the license agreement, enabling the addons - sighted help is needed. This can also be done remotely, for example via stream or TeamViewer. The affected steps are clearly marked below. A tip for the whole process: only ever do one download or one copy operation at a time. Go step by step, that avoids mistakes. The easy way: the Sku Installer (automated installation) There is now a small, screen-reader-friendly Windows program - the Sku Installer - that does the whole addon part for you: it finds your World of Warcraft folder, downloads Sku together with all required companion addons, copies everything into place, and switches on the game settings Sku needs. Download it from the Sku homepage: https://sku75.github.io/Sku-WoW-Addon-TBC/ Run it and, when Windows asks, allow it to run as administrator. The game itself must already be installed (Steps 1 and 2 below), and you still need sighted help once for the Battle.net login screens and the license agreement. If you use the installer, it replaces Step 3 completely and the "Load out of date AddOns" part of Step 4 - you then only tick the Sku addons and reload. The steps below describe the MANUAL installation, for anyone who prefers to copy the files by hand or cannot run the installer. Overview of the steps 1. Create a Battle.net account and take out a subscription. 2. Install the game and start it once (sighted help). 3. Download the Sku addons and copy them into the AddOns folder. 4. Enable the addons in the game (sighted help). 5. Make the first settings. 6. Set up the login tool - then you are ready to play. Step 1: Account and game subscription - Create a game account for World of Warcraft on battle.net and take out the monthly subscription. - Install the Battle.net app and log in. Step 2: Install the game and start it once (sighted help needed) Some of this can be done blind, but not everything. Plan for support here. - When logging in, if possible, tick the "Keep me logged in" box. It is not available on every system, but should be set. - In the Battle.net app, find the game "World of Warcraft Classic" and download the client. - Set the correct game version: Anniversary, The Burning Crusade, version 2.5.6. - Click "Play". - On start there is often a second login screen. This one cannot be used with screen readers. Log in here - and be sure to tick the box for automatic login or "do not ask again". - Choose the server. - The character creation appears. Create a character, enter a name and press Enter. - Now the license agreement comes up (help is needed again): the text must be scrolled all the way to the end - with the mouse wheel downward or with the slider on the right side. Only then does the "Accept" button become clickable; before that it is greyed out. Click "Accept" and log in once. - As soon as the game world appears and your character is standing there, log out again: press ESC and choose "Log out", or type /logout and press Enter. - When the character screen is back, the game is correctly installed. Step 3: Download the Sku addons and copy them into the AddOns folder Go to the Sku homepage and follow the instructions there. It always shows what you need and in which version: https://sku75.github.io/Sku-WoW-Addon-TBC/ You need these downloads: - Sku - the main addon. - SkuBeaconSoundsets - provides the sounds and beacons. Without this addon the sounds stay silent. So it is mandatory. - one language pack - exactly one: German, English or German fast. How to proceed: - Download the files one at a time, not all at once. Afterwards the ZIP files are in your Downloads folder. - Unzip each ZIP file. - Copy the three unzipped folders side by side into the AddOns folder of WoW, that is as three separate folders directly in the AddOns folder, not inside each other. Make sure you insert folders and not ZIP files. The default path is: C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft\_anniversary_\Interface\AddOns\ - Afterwards the AddOns folder contains, side by side: Sku, SkuBeaconSoundsets and your language pack (a SkuAudioData folder). Note on updating: in future, when updating you only need to replace the Sku addon. Step 4: Enable the addons in the game (sighted help needed) - Start the game via Battle.net: on the "World of Warcraft Classic" tab press Enter, then you land on "Play". The announcement should read: "Play, Anniversary of Burning Crusade, version 2.5.6 ...". If the version is wrong, you can find the dropdown lists with Shift+Tab and set the correct version. - After "Play" the server is usually chosen automatically. At the login screen press Enter. - When you are in the game and the character is visible: press ESC, open the menu, click "AddOns". - Tick all Sku addons. They may be marked red as "out of date" - that is fine. - At the top of the window tick the box "Load out of date AddOns". - Click "Reload UI" at the bottom. The game performs a reload. After the reload Sku is active and the speech output can be heard. Test: press Shift+F1. The Sku menu should open, "Navigation" is announced. ESC closes it again. Sighted people see the menu as a black bar at the top of the screen. Step 5: First settings and important notes Attention: during play you will get a script prompt. The first time you use an item, WoW asks: "You are about to run a script. It could cause you to lose gold or items. Run anyway, yes or no?" Confirm with Yes. This is normal and the basis of Sku: instead of clicking with the mouse, we trigger buttons via key presses (scripts). Set key bindings to default (important as a new user): Open the Sku menu with Shift+F1. Then: - Go down with the arrow keys to the Core menu and into it with arrow right. - Go down to "Game Key binds", then right to the option to reset all keys to default and confirm. - Go back into the Core menu, there to "Sku key binds", right, and likewise restore the default. That activates the Sku key bindings. Step 6: Set up the login tool The WoW login screens cannot be used with screen readers. So that you can log in yourself in future and create or delete characters, you set up the WoW login tool at the end. - Easiest way: the automated Sku Installer (see above) sets up the login tool completely if you leave its checkbox ticked - including the required textures, fonts and the AutoHotkey runtime. It also creates a "WoW Login Tool" shortcut on the desktop and in the Start menu. Nothing more to do here in that case. - Manually: install AutoHotkey version 2 from autohotkey.com, download the login tool from the Sku homepage (it is linked there: https://sku75.github.io/Sku-WoW-Addon-TBC/), unzip it and follow the included readme file. It describes step by step which folders and files you have to copy where. Then start v2\START.ahk in the login tool folder. - ALT+ESC quits the tool. ALT+F1 switches between menu and game mode - but the tool usually does this automatically. ALT+F1 also aborts a running action. - After that you can use the login tool to log in, to switch realms and to create and delete characters. It reads the real screen content out loud (character names, realm lists and messages). Now you are ready to play. Further notes Recommendation: read the key binding text files that come with the Sku addon (in the Sku folder as txt files). They contain the default key bindings. There you also find the patch notes, always up to date for the version. That is the best source for current changes. If something does not work - No speech after the reload: check that all Sku addons are really enabled and that the "Load out of date AddOns" box was ticked. - No sounds or beacons: usually SkuBeaconSoundsets is missing or not enabled. Without this addon the sounds stay silent. - Very quiet or nothing at all: check the WoW volume. Have fun!