Authors CurseForge

Quote from sylvanaar »

I was thinking it might be a good idea to adopt some common conventions/standards for updater applications.

An example. WAU 1.x stores the rss feed data for each addon in a file ".source" which it places in each addon's directory.

WAU also uses ".nounpack" (and ".nopack") directories

To the other updater authors, would it be possible to agree on some sort of standard for the format and naming of these types of things.

Well, could you explain what these things do? (I've never used WAU :P)

The .source is the "RSS fragment" relating to that addon? Something like:

  <item>
   <title>BigWigs</title>
   <link>[url]http://wowace.com/wiki/BigWigs</link>[/url]
   <description>Modular, lightweight, non-intrusive approach to boss encounter warnings.</description>
   <author>Ammo, Rabbit</author>
   <category>Raid</category>

   <comments>[url]http://www.wowace.com/forums/index.php?topic=1222.0</comments>[/url]
   <enclosure url="[url]http://files.wowace.com/BigWigs/BigWigs-r42949.zip"[/url] length="620754" type="application/zip" />
   <guid>[url]http://files.wowace.com/BigWigs/BigWigs-r42949.zip</guid>[/url]
   <pubDate>Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:20:35 +0000</pubDate>
   <wowaddon:interface>20100</wowaddon:interface>
   <wowaddon:version>42949</wowaddon:version>

   <wowaddon:stable>false</wowaddon:stable>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_Plugins</wowaddon:provides>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_Extras</wowaddon:provides>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_Outland</wowaddon:provides>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_Karazhan</wowaddon:provides>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_SC</wowaddon:provides>

   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_TheEye</wowaddon:provides>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_BlackTemple</wowaddon:provides>
   <wowaddon:provides>BigWigs_Hyjal</wowaddon:provides>
  </item>

Also, .nounpack is the same as [Dummy]-addons in WUU, I guess? (http://wuu.vagabonds.info/wuuki/Dummy - "Dummy allows WUU to ignore certain addons without them having to exist in the Addons directory.") What's the difference between .nopack and .nounpack?

(WUU handles most of the "metadata" in the file addons.wurm.xml in the WoW directory - the only extra item WUU places in the addon directories themselves, is <addonname>.wuuver, which contains the addon version (or revision, in the case of WoWAce addons))

This is probably a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway :)

What's the purpose of storing addon's rss feed data in the addon directory?

All addons already contain a changelog file which contains the revision info, while all the package addons have the filelist.wau file which contains the info about the package itself.
Don't see what other info I'd need for an updater :o

I guess we can add a "WAU compatibility mode" (that has to be enabled) to WUU, but some of this stuff is handled quite differently in WUU, so "for 90% of the user base" (yep, just guessing) it'll just add unnecessary trouble :)

I can't promise that it'll be a priority, though - we've got lots on the menu for 1.6 already :)

personally I frown on creating a lot of artifacts on the clients computer. the version number is available via the change log's file name and that is the standard.

Quote from sylvanaar »

Quote from lejordet »

I guess we can add a "WAU compatibility mode" (that has to be enabled) to WUU, but some of this stuff is handled quite differently in WUU, so "for 90% of the user base" (yep, just guessing) it'll just add unnecessary trouble :)

I can't promise that it'll be a priority, though - we've got lots on the menu for 1.6 already :)

I guess i just mean can we adopt the same methodologies of doing some things, a good example is saving of the local version number.

using the rss feed stored in the addons directory is application neutral in that respect.

I dont mean to imply you need a WAU compatibility mode. I want to just open up a dialog and work together so that we dont have 1 different convention for each updater

We use a file named <directoryname>.wuuver, which only contains the local version on a single line - storing the RSS feed would require making fake RSS files for addons from CurseGaming, AuctioneerAddon, etc.

I'm not going to use the RSS feed for local version, at least (since I don't like dragging the XML parser into this if I can avoid it), so the only part I need from the file, is probably the :provides tags (I get all the other data from the TOC).

...I'll have to look into it :)

Quote from Kaelten »

personally I frown on creating a lot of artifacts on the clients computer. the version number is available via the change log's file name and that is the standard.

Me too, but using the change log isn't a universal option - WUU supports 8-9 different sites (plus "every site", through the OtherSites function), and only WoWAce has a guaranteed change log, so all this either means creating something WoWAce/WAU-specific in the handlers we have, or just create a file that we largely ignore for the most part.

...which is why I suggested adding a specific WAU compatibility mode - I'm not going to create folders that I'm not going to touch unless necessary (the .nopack/.nounpack thingy - still not sure what you mean by "nopack", so I guess I'll have to download WAU and try ;))

I'd rather suggest we found a common file format, or something, to store data about which folders to ignore or not (e.g. an XML file dropped in Interface\AddOns\)

EDIT: For what it's worth: for other sites than WoWAce, we use the date the addon was updated (in YYYYMMDD format, so it can be compared as an integer) as the version number.

Quote from OrionShock »

iirc the nopack idea is from addons that have LoD stubs, like Periodic Table. where it has sub addons that are LoD if unpacked. if left as is when u download it all the subs are loaded when the game starts.

putting a .nopack file in tells wau not to un pack that particular addon as by default wau will unpack any addon flagged for it.

that is .nounpack ;)

.nopack does the reverse when updating or deleting,

.nounpack and .nopack should be options in the gui. Having artifacts for such things isn't a good idea.

lejordet: I understand why you can't use the changelogs exclusively. But regardless for wowace's files and for wau this is the standard I have set.

Quote from Kaelten »

.nounpack and .nopack should be options in the gui. Having artifacts for such things isn't a good idea.

lejordet: I understand why you can't use the changelogs exclusively. But regardless for wowace's files and for wau this is the standard I have set.

Yes, yes :) I've got no problem with the way things work here at WoWAce, since we already do lots of housekeeping to handle the other sites - this is the cleanest to work with ;) I was just thinking: "Hey, this is the perfect opportunity to suggest something that'd make my day easier when handling this site", but I couldn't come up with anything :P

I'll probably get some time to look into this next week; I think the first order of business is to see if WUU can't make use of the :provides tag in the RSS (and write similar "RSS" files for the other sites we work with, basically make the tools to let us work with all sites as if they were WoWAce.com ;))

Oh, and I'm in the middle of rewriting the XML parser and stuff, so I'm not sure if this will make it in before we release 1.6 :(

As far as using changelogs, I prefer a tiny text file with the latest version to the massive changelogs, which I habitually delete.

That period folder crud needs to go. Windows does not like that without going to command line, and that is not user friendly. Yes, great, it's popular in *nix apparently, but these are generic or Windows applications.

I see no issue with an updater maintaining a single file with every addon you have installed, and what version they are at (and other options, such as nounpack and whatnot). Seems like the simplest solution.