Authors CurseForge

The new curse client has been a hot topic in the Wowace's Plans for the Future thread. So I want to make a place for people to discuss it exclusivly.

I'll be reading/answering myself but will also be directing Kolie to this thread so he can answer questions as well.

What will be the differences between WAU and the Curse client?

Will the new client have similar functionality as WAU to detect source control view folders?

For example, for better or worse, my addon folder also is setup for SVN hooks. This way I can make changes and test those changes by just reloading the user interface in WoW. I also can use the same folder for commits and diffs to previous versions. I realize it is probably a better practice to have two separate folders (one for development, another for source control management), but there is a convenience for managing both tasks in one place.

Currently, WAU does not update or obliterate files in addon directories that are also used for SVN view management. Will the new client also have the capability to detect this?

The client has the ability to completely ignore certain directories, if they are in the "managed" addons list. To do so you simply right click it, and change its "Toggle Auto Updated" option.

The client as a whole relies much less on the file system, and more on its internal representation of your addons. Once it picks up an addon as installed from the filesystem, that is all the interaction it has with it until it goes to update an addon, uninstall an addon, what have you, and the correspoding filesystem action is taken.

Rabbit:
http://www.curseforge.com/projects/curse-client-beta/ downloading link.
The installers and information can be found in one click on that page, specifically the installers. I'd post a direct file link, but for longevity of relevance ( I update the installer pretty frequently ) it's the main project page.

The client is written in C++ and will work on windows xp sp2 or later, vista, mac os x, and linux under GTK. 32/64bit doesnt care. The current beta only has the windows version out. The plan is to polish a perfect windows version for release, and have a mac release shortly after ( weeks not months ).

Not a comprehensive listing of all features in the client, but they are:
Screenshot capturing and saving.
Warhammer addon support.
Integration with wowdb.com and wardb.com for character profiles.
Game settings synchronization ( in the code, not visible to the user ).
Error reporting, client usage statistics included. ( client version, current app uptime, cpu speed, free ram, free disk space, etc. all non identifiable. )

Will the WowAce-tailored functionality have the ability to show revision numbers and consolidated changelogs so that community testers will know what new features/fixes to test when they update development versions of their addons? Without a functional fisheye-type tool, it's going to be a huge pain to maintain awareness of addon changes.

The client is getting the ability to show changelogs shortly.

When will it start looking at WowAce for ace2 addons and such so I won't be attacked with thousands of compilations?

After the wowace transition the client will refer to wowace addons as well as curse.com addons ( assuming it supports psyn, the curseforge software does support it out of the box ).

The problem with compilations is two fold:
Compilations exist in their current form. I'm working on changing the representation of compilations.
The compilation shows up if the actual addon isnt on curse.com but the compilation has it. The solution here is have the authors post a curse.com upload. The client can also pull info from wowace.

Quote from HunterZ »

Will the WowAce-tailored functionality have the ability to show revision numbers and consolidated changelogs so that community testers will know what new features/fixes to test when they update development versions of their addons?

afaik the updater will update release and beta versions but not directly from the trunk.

As soon as a tag is made on the repo, depending on the tags name, a beta/release package is created for that project.

Will there be functionality to disembed libraries like the old wau client? Any chance of getting a silent mode for batch/commandline operation?

Support for [dis]embedding is being worked on.

Quote from kolie »

As soon as a tag is made on the repo, depending on the tags name, a beta/release package is created for that project.

So there will be no way to update (via the updater) to untagged versions? This would cause extra work for developers who want people to test quick fixes.

There will be an option to update to the latest alpha. Its not in the current curseforge code base, but its trivial to add once the curseforge code supports it.

Quote from kolie »

The client is written in C++ and will work on windows xp sp2 or later, vista, mac os x, and linux under GTK.

What about Windows 2000?

Windows 2000 : Officially its unsupported.

Ackis:

How do we know that it won't overwrite newer versions of add-ons?

If your refering to the scan addons at start feature, you can disable it from installing the "latest" from curse.com currently as a menu option. If its an addon thats already listed in the client, you right click Toggle Auto Updated, which is only relevant to premium users.

Updating will be done by single clicks per add-on (normal user). Will you be able to see a list of all installed add-ons and where the source for that add-on is? The version of the installed add-on/available add-on?

You can already see a list of installed addons in the client. What do you mean by source? The source is wherever the user installed it from, if the user didn't install it then the client got it from Curse.com. You can also already see the latest version of the addon according to the addon feed for that installed addon.

Quote from kolie »

Ackis:If your refering to the scan addons at start feature, you can disable it from installing the "latest" from curse.com currently as a menu option. If its an addon thats already listed in the client, you right click Toggle Auto Updated, which is only relevant to premium users.

How does this help the first time the client is run after installing? Could you describe what specifically the client will do (and what user interaction will be required/expected) when it is run?

You can already see a list of installed addons in the client. What do you mean by source? The source is wherever the user installed it from, if the user didn't install it then the client got it from Curse.com. You can also already see the latest version of the addon according to the addon feed for that installed addon.

I'm guessing Ackis wants to see a list of everything in the addons folder, with status indicators like "skipped" for svn working copies and anything the user has manually set to be skipped, "unknown" for addons the client didn't install and hasn't updated, "up to date" for addons the client has under its version control and are the latest wowace/curse version, "outdated" for addons that are under the client's version control and have a newer version available, etc. It would also be nice to see the specific version number of each addon, whether it be a tag name for wowace/curseforge packaged addons, or a toc version field. From this view it should also be easy for the user to mark addons as "skipped", and addons with .svn folders should be marked as "skipped" by default. Hopefully this is separate from the list of addons that have available updates, which would ideally be shown when the client runs, with an easy way to access the list of all installed addons.

I'm sure some of these questions could be answered by downloading and running the current client beta, but after all I've read about it, I don't think I want to do that without doing a full backup of my WoW installation first, and I don't particularly feel like doing that.