GWDash plugin for GWToolbox++

In-game overlay for the three prices GWDash tracks: Ectoplasm, Armbrace of Truth and Black Dye. Freely movable, updates itself, installs with one line.

irm https://gwdash.com/install.ps1 | iex

Then start Guild Wars. If the overlay does not appear, enable it once under Toolbox → Settings → Plugins → GWDash.dll → Load.

Toggle with /gwdash. Also: /gwdash refresh, /gwdash prices, /gwdash update, /gwdash version, /gwdash presets, /gwdash send <name>.

What you get

• Three price rows matching the dashboard: Ecto 5.6k, Arms 27e / 27.4e, Black Dye 18.4k
• Compact single-line mode, adjustable font scale and background
• Position and size remembered by Toolbox (drag the window)
• Trade presets: save WTB / WTS / WTT lines locally and send one message to trade chat via the overlay, Settings, or /gwdash send <name> (manual only — no auto-repost)
• Auto-update: a new release is downloaded in the background and activates the next time you start Guild Wars

Requirements

• Windows, 32-bit Guild Wars (the only kind that exists)
• GWToolbox++ with the Plugins module enabled (Settings → Enable the following features)
• Built and tested against Toolbox 8.32_Release

Manual install

1. Download GWDash.dll and GWDash.core.dll from the latest release.

2. Put them here:

   %USERPROFILE%\Documents\GWToolboxpp\<COMPUTERNAME>\plugins\GWDash.dll
   %USERPROFILE%\Documents\GWToolboxpp\<COMPUTERNAME>\plugins\GWDash\GWDash.core.dll
   

   scripts/open-plugins-folder.bat opens that folder for you.

3. Close Guild Wars first if it is running — Windows locks a loaded DLL.

4. Start the game, then Settings → Plugins → Load.

Uninstall:

iex "& { $(irm https://gwdash.com/install.ps1) } -Uninstall"

Where the prices come from

The plugin polls a static JSON snapshot at https://data.gwdash.com/prices.json. That file is written by the GWDash Cloudflare Worker every two minutes into a public R2 bucket and served from Cloudflare's CDN. The request never hits a Worker and never touches D1, so plugin traffic does not consume the free-tier request budget.

If the CDN is unreachable, the plugin falls back to https://gwdash.com/api/plugin/prices (edge-cached, ETag).

Trade presets

Under Toolbox → Settings → Plugins → GWDash you can add up to 12 named lines (wtb / wts / wtt). They are stored in plugins/GWDash/presets.json on your machine.

• The chat line is composed as kind + message (unless the message already starts with wtb/wts/wtt). Preview is shown in Settings.
• Send asks for confirmation from the overlay (and optional hotkey), then posts exactly one message to the in-game trade channel ($). Requires an outpost. There is a 3s cooldown; nothing is sent on a timer or while AFK.
• /gwdash send <name> sends without the confirm dialog (same cooldown / outpost rules).
• Copy puts the composed line on the clipboard.
• Import/Export JSON, reorder, duplicate, rename, and mark a default preset for the optional send hotkey (VK code in Settings; 0 = off).
• Compact overlay mode shows a Presets… menu instead of the full list.
• If presets.json fails to parse, saving is blocked until you Reset presets.

Safety notes

• ArenaNet does not permit third-party plugins. Toolbox itself prints that warning the first time any plugin is loaded. Use at your own risk.
• Trade-preset Send is a convenience for a single, user-initiated chat line — do not use it to spam or automate trade chat.
• The DLL is currently unsigned (Authenticode). Windows Defender occasionally quarantines unsigned Toolbox plugins — if Load fails with a virus error, allow the file and try again.
• While any plugin is loaded, Toolbox refuses to write a crash dump. Do not report Toolbox crashes that happen with GWDash loaded.

Auto-update

GWDash.dll is a tiny loader. The real plugin lives one directory down as GWDash.core.dll. On start the loader swaps in anything waiting in GWDash/pending/, then forwards to the payload. That is how a new version can install itself without fighting the Windows file lock on the DLL Toolbox has loaded.

The updater only talks HTTPS to an allowlisted set of hosts (api.github.com, github.com, objects.githubusercontent.com, release-assets.githubusercontent.com, plus the price CDN hosts). Redirects are followed only while the next host stays on that allowlist. ETags are sanitized before being echoed as If-None-Match. Draft/prerelease GitHub releases are ignored.

Each release ships manifest.json + manifest.sig (ed25519). The plugin verifies the signature against the public key in src/UpdatePublicKey.h, then checks the SHA-256 of GWDash.core.dll before staging. Releases also attach PDBs for crash triage.

Trust model: ed25519 proves the manifest was signed with the release key held as GitHub secret GWDASH_UPDATE_ED25519_SK. Generate a keypair with scripts/generate-update-keys.py, put the public bytes into UpdatePublicKey.h, and store the private seed hex in that secret. Treat a compromised signing key or GitHub account as full RCE in Guild Wars — keep org/2FA/CI secrets locked down.

The loader itself cannot be replaced this way. When a release also changes the loader, the overlay asks you to re-run the installer once.

Building from source

Needs Visual Studio 2022 (toolset v143+) with the Desktop development with C++ workload, CMake ≥ 3.29, and vcpkg.

$env:VCPKG_ROOT = "C:\path\to\vcpkg"
cmake --preset windows-x86 -DGWDASH_VERSION=0.1.0
cmake --build --preset relwithdebinfo
bin\RelWithDebInfo\gwdash_tests.exe

Outputs land in bin/RelWithDebInfo/:

File	Role
GWDash.dll	Loader stub Toolbox sees
GWDash.core.dll	Overlay, price client, updater
gwdash_tests.exe	Pure unit tests (no GWCA)

The build pulls GWToolbox++ at the pinned tag 8.32_Release via FetchContent and reuses its ImGui (with Toolbox's imconfig.h — required, the struct layouts differ from stock ImGui), plugin base sources and prebuilt gwca.lib. It does not build GWToolboxdll itself.

Project layout

cmake/ToolboxSdk.cmake   FetchContent + plugin_base stand-in
compat/                  stubs so we can compile Toolbox sources without linking GWToolboxdll
loader/Loader.cpp        GWDash.dll
src/                     GWDash.core.dll
tests/                   gwdash_tests
vendor/ed25519/          Orson Peters ed25519 (verify/sign)
.github/                 CI build + tagged releases

License

MIT. GWToolbox++ is MIT as well; this plugin is not affiliated with ArenaNet or the GWToolbox++ project. vendor/ed25519 is zlib (see its LICENSE).