Three of grom's 2026-11-05 reports about the built-in map, all measured.
**The player arrow was the one piece of 1.12's map content left outside the canvas.**
*"my player arrow goes to the wrong spot at any zoom level, this needs to be accurate all
of the time."* `WorldMapFrame_OnLoad` builds it with
`CreateWorldMapArrowFrame(WorldMapFrame)` (`WorldMapFrame.lua:19`), so its parent is the
WINDOW, while `MapCanvas.lua` reparents everything it is anchored against into the canvas.
`SetPoint`'s offsets are in the positioned frame's own units, so the offsets the stock
update computes — `playerX * GetWidth()`, times `WorldMapDetailFrame:GetScale()`, which
`SeatOnCanvas` pins at 1 because the zoom lives one level up on `ScrollContainer.Child` —
are short by exactly the canvas zoom. Measured on a 1600x900 harness with the view centred
on the player: exact at zoom 1, 250.5 x 501.0 screen px out at zoom 2.
`WorldMapPlayer` — the invisible mouseover rect for the same spot, from the same two
FrameXML lines — has always been right, because 1.12's XML nests it under `WorldMapButton`,
which IS in the canvas. That makes it the oracle the test uses rather than a recomputed
expectation. Not reparented like the detail frame and the button: the arrow is a size-less
`Model` whose rect is the file's bounding box, so inside the canvas it would grow with the
zoom, and no frame scale fixes the size without undoing the position — both read the same
effective scale. The cost of staying outside is clipping, hence an explicit bounds test,
which is a hide the stock code never needed because a map that cannot pan cannot put the
player off-screen.
That re-seat runs every frame the map is open, so nothing in it may force a layout resolve:
the art's size is read off `WorldMapButton` (explicitly sized) rather than the detail frame
(`SetAllPoints`, so derived), and the bounds test is arithmetic on the controller's own
normalized scroll rather than a rect comparison — `GetLeft` on a dirty tree measures
30-370 us against 0.42 us settled, and a pan writes the scroll every frame.
While in there: `InstantPanAndZoom` set `Child:SetScale` from its raw argument while
`GetCanvasScale` clamps to the zoom ladder, so a scale past the ceiling drew the art at one
scale with every extent, pan clamp and pin placement computed for another. It clamps first
now, as the ease path already did by construction.
**The window fell out of its own stratum every time it opened.** *"the map needs to be on a
higher level as I can see my unitframe over it."* `WorldMapFrame.xml:5` declares
`frameStrata="FULLSCREEN"`; measured FULLSCREEN with no addons and MEDIUM at level 0 with
his, which is the bottom of the bucket pfUI's unit frames live in
(`pfUI/api/unitframes.lua:413`). Five visible frames drew over the map rect.
No addon does it. The new `$WOW_WATCH_STRATA=<FrameName>` instrument — every
`SetFrameStrata` AND every `SetParent` on a named frame, with the Lua caller site — found
one FULLSCREEN from the XML loader and then `WorldMapFrame:SetParent(UIParent)`, from the
realm's own `WorldMapFrame_Minimize` (`WorldMapFrame.lua:183`) by way of
`WorldMapFrame_OnEvent`, on the open path. A reparent forces the moved frame into its new
parent's stratum (`0x76ab5a`, pinned off the binary by `script::tests::setparent`), and
`UIParent` is MEDIUM. The reparent is right and stays; the window's own declared stratum is
re-asserted on `SeatLevels` instead, which already re-seats the frame levels on every show
for a cousin reason, plus hooks on Minimize/Maximize since the minimize runs while the
window is up. After: FULLSCREEN, 0 frames over the map.
**And the fade.** *"It would also be nice if the whole map window went to 80%
transparentcy when the player is moving."* `mapFadeWhileMoving`, percent, 0 off, default 80,
with a slider on the Options window's Interface page. Written as a FACTOR of whatever alpha
the window already has, because that alpha belongs to somebody else — pfUI sets it from its
own config and offers shift-wheel over the map — so the base is re-read whenever the live
alpha is not the one this last wrote, which is another writer's signature; their setting is
what gets faded, and closing the map restores it. `GetSpeed()` is the movement test: ours,
always present, and 0 standing still by construction, off the same move flags the engine
answers `IsSwimming` and `IsMounted` from.
Also `$WOW_CAPTURE_EVAL`/`_SETUP` take a path ending in `.lua` as the chunk. A probe worth
writing is longer than a shell argument survives, and a quoting error in a probe reads
exactly like the thing being measured not being there.
Verified: `the_player_arrow_tracks_the_hit_area_at_every_canvas_zoom` walks zoom 1, 1.5,
2.5 and 4 asserting the arrow and the hit area agree within a screen pixel, and that the
canvas applied the zoom asked for. In a real session with his addons: FULLSCREEN and 0
visible frames over the map (was MEDIUM/0 and 5). Options census 140 -> 141 on both counts.
benilla-app at its recorded baseline, benilla-ui 2128/0, clippy and the two lints clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01SgstFWtn1RxEJ5kVrpgYwn
gromandClaude Opus 5
082dd2ed0f