Greetings, I hope this is the proper forum for this.
An issue I've been noticing with the ability to embed Ace2 libraries is that the same libraries exist in many Ace2 addons and thus increase the total space taken on disk, but also the load time of WoW. The game will access every single library instance, even if it is already loaded. If it's a newer version it will also replace the older.
Of course it won't take more memory space at the end, but the result is higher loading times. Whatismore, if a library is loaded by a load-on-demand addon, the check&replace process will happen at that point, possibly causing a framerate drop or even a halt for a couple seconds.
Unless I'm terribly wrong in the above, I would like to see the ability to have Ace2 libraries distributed in a seperate package like Ace1 was (ofc load-on-demand so only those libs used will be loaded). The addon author will have the choice to post two packages, one with embedded libraries and one without. This also helps with the SVN, since people will be able to SVN_Update the libraries seperately and only once, and then 'skip externals' for the addons, resulting in much faster updates and lower bandwidth usage for wowace.com. Right now SVN checks the libraries for every addon and updates multiple times as needed. It's all so time-consuming, it can hardly fit into the scope of Ace2.
Indeed, but there are also other libraries which are not part of the core Ace2, and it's a lot to maintain for an average user, while it should be easy from the developer's side.
If you choose to un-embed your libraries then yes, it's more effort on your part to maintain. Most all the libraries have a standalone counterpart on the SVN, if they don't just whine and we'll fix that, it's easy to change. Same goes for mods missing their OptDeps.
See I think that the Embeds are great, remember, the average player just wants to DL an addon and have it work,not have to DL a missing dependency.
And what is with people lately whining about how much disk space an addon uses up? In this day and age, that should be the last thing you should be worrying about.
My only concern with the embeds in general are that they seem to break each other alot.
I'm constantly having problems with updating ace addon1, then ace addon2 is breaking because of a conflict between an updated embedded library. I know it's been said before that everything is backwards compatible, but in practice it's not really.
It's sent me going bonkers a few times trying to track down the specific problem...might be an idea for me to de-embed my libraries, but then it's not going to solve the problems I'm having now anyway, will it? I suppose the addon needs to be updated in any case, because if it's conflicting one way, it'll conflict the other ><
I suppose the more ace addons you use, the more difficulties can potentially arise.
Note, i'm not suggesting anything, I wish I could have (and almost do) all my addons as ace addons...but coming back to WoW after the previous Ace system, it is a little more fidgety. I seem to have alot of these problems namely with AceEvent, DewDrop and AceLocale mostly.
My only concern with the embeds in general are that they seem to break each other alot.
I'm constantly having problems with updating ace addon1, then ace addon2 is breaking because of a conflict between an updated embedded library. I know it's been said before that everything is backwards compatible, but in practice it's not really.
It's sent me going bonkers a few times trying to track down the specific problem...might be an idea for me to de-embed my libraries, but then it's not going to solve the problems I'm having now anyway, will it? I suppose the addon needs to be updated in any case, because if it's conflicting one way, it'll conflict the other ><
I suppose the more ace addons you use, the more difficulties can potentially arise.
Note, i'm not suggesting anything, I wish I could have (and almost do) all my addons as ace addons...but coming back to WoW after the previous Ace system, it is a little more fidgety. I seem to have alot of these problems namely with AceEvent, DewDrop and AceLocale mostly.
This is why API needs to be locked down, and bugs needs to be fixed.
So after reading here, other threads, and the wiki, I still have one last clarification question about un-embedding. Is the only benefit to un-embedding that I will get a faster initial load of WoW when I first open the application and log into a character?
Load time and hard disk space ;). And yes, some of us play on systems with strained hard disk space, laptops especially. Every little bit less helps :). I just run a del /s Libs on my addons directory after I'm done updating addons, after that I dump !!!Libraries and I'm off. Not too hard, and worth the extra effort, if only for less of my life spent starting at status bars ;) (initial load).
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An issue I've been noticing with the ability to embed Ace2 libraries is that the same libraries exist in many Ace2 addons and thus increase the total space taken on disk, but also the load time of WoW. The game will access every single library instance, even if it is already loaded. If it's a newer version it will also replace the older.
Of course it won't take more memory space at the end, but the result is higher loading times. Whatismore, if a library is loaded by a load-on-demand addon, the check&replace process will happen at that point, possibly causing a framerate drop or even a halt for a couple seconds.
Unless I'm terribly wrong in the above, I would like to see the ability to have Ace2 libraries distributed in a seperate package like Ace1 was (ofc load-on-demand so only those libs used will be loaded). The addon author will have the choice to post two packages, one with embedded libraries and one without. This also helps with the SVN, since people will be able to SVN_Update the libraries seperately and only once, and then 'skip externals' for the addons, resulting in much faster updates and lower bandwidth usage for wowace.com. Right now SVN checks the libraries for every addon and updates multiple times as needed. It's all so time-consuming, it can hardly fit into the scope of Ace2.
Just my thoughts, hope I don't offend anyone.
Then tell your SVN client to ignore externals. Current practice is to put Ace2 and other libs as optional dependencies.
As far as the rest ... all the satellite libraries should remain under the new SVN embed library functionality.
But that's just my 2 cents.
And what is with people lately whining about how much disk space an addon uses up? In this day and age, that should be the last thing you should be worrying about.
I'm constantly having problems with updating ace addon1, then ace addon2 is breaking because of a conflict between an updated embedded library. I know it's been said before that everything is backwards compatible, but in practice it's not really.
It's sent me going bonkers a few times trying to track down the specific problem...might be an idea for me to de-embed my libraries, but then it's not going to solve the problems I'm having now anyway, will it? I suppose the addon needs to be updated in any case, because if it's conflicting one way, it'll conflict the other ><
I suppose the more ace addons you use, the more difficulties can potentially arise.
Note, i'm not suggesting anything, I wish I could have (and almost do) all my addons as ace addons...but coming back to WoW after the previous Ace system, it is a little more fidgety. I seem to have alot of these problems namely with AceEvent, DewDrop and AceLocale mostly.
This is why API needs to be locked down, and bugs needs to be fixed.
Thanks.
Thanks much for the answer. I'll stick with the embeds if that is the case.