I'm posting this here because it doesn't pertain to any one of the frameworks, its about how all this affects the end user of the addons themselves. If there is a better place for this, then by all means move it there.
As basically just a user of Ace addons and nothing more, I must say this whole Ace2 vs. Rock vs. Ace3 just makes me want to throw up my hands and go back to a simple addon package like CT or Cosmos. Frankly its confusing as hell, I don't know which addons are safe to update via (WAU) and which ones will break my carefully laid out UI setup.
Do I wait patiently for things to be fixed or go back to *insert name of UI site here* and try to find something that works kinda-sorta the way my broken addons did?
So can the powers that be, that being the Ace/Rock people possibly put together some kind of comprehensive document/post (ONE please, not three of them) explaining to the common non-tech savvy user what this all means, what does and doesn't work now, and how to proceed during this transition.
The supposed purpose of forums like this one is to make information and the exchange of ideas, easy. Currently it isn't. There are several long threads, many of them with unneeded drama, not explaining much of anything in a way that the average user (like myself) can easily fathom.
I just need to know:
1. Which addons are affected/going to be affected?
2. Why are my addons broken?
3. How can this be remedied (workarounds)?
4. Will my addons need to be replaced, if so with what?
5. Is WAU safe to use now? Should I set it to ignore certain addos for the time being?
6. Anything else that might help the user base get through this situation as painlessly as possible.
1. Right now, anything the CKK ported to Rock seems to have some problems, but they are to be expected from a recent change of the behind the scenes code. Give a few days and I'm sure he'll get everything working again.
2. Your addons are broken because common tasks that were done by one set of framework/libraries has changed to another set. CKK spent time trying to make the port as smooth as possible (I assume, since he seems like a really good developer), but as with any software, sometimes things just don't work out like the dev wanted.
3. Go back to the last working revision of the broken addons. You did make backups right? If not, go to http://files.wowace.com and find the older revisions of the mods and use those.
4. Your addons should not need to be replaced if you do what I said in my response to #3. Go to your backups or pull down older versions.
5. See #6 and define "safe to use". To me the WAU has never been "safe" for an end-user because of the nature of the SVN, but thats just me.
6. Stop updating your addons daily. The SVN is usually home to recent, cutting edge changes, which from time to time are highly bug prone. CKK recently ported his addons to Rock, this caused some problems, some things unrelated to the framework, others slightly. (not that it matters really). So, until the bugs are ironed out of the Beta software, avoid updating and you won't have problems.
Well, part of the problem is that the wowace svn isn't really used to keep stable builds easily available, but rather all changes are committed to the trunk - which also is the source for the automatic zip-file generation used by files.wowace.com.
Even though one shouldn't blindly update all addons frequently, many people do so - and they usually had good reasons to do so. Which is why I would have preferred a restructuring of the SVN *before* starting to port addons to a new framework in the trunk. Now the damage is done, and many people now think "rock = minimap button and ugly config window".
I wish we would have had a 'rock' branch on the SVN for at least one more month, instead of forcing people to a new framework (it's not like ckk doesn't know that thousands of people auto-update their addons from wowace.com daily - and 99% aren't developers, and therefor have no clue what rock is).
It would have been possible for ckk to port dewdrop to rock and add rock support to waterfall.
Without knowing what happened behind the scenes, I can only assume ckk had his reasons for this hazardous move with major impact on the wowace community. Now if only someone could convince me that the main reason for this move wasn't to sabotage the success of wowace.
Maybe Ckk wanted everyone to use it all at once? :P
FWIW, changes in frameworks and large things like this always break stuff no matter how often you've tested it. The stuff with Rock was fixed for me within 2 minutes... compare that to real world and you'll be very impressed.
I think he should have upped the version of the addons that are going to use rock, and just have let the addons that use Ace2 be - so they keep working as people upgrade to what would be FuBar2, Cartographer2, Pitbull2, etc.
I think he should have upped the version of the addons that are going to use rock, and just have let the addons that use Ace2 be - so they keep working as people upgrade to what would be FuBar2, Cartographer2, Pitbull2, etc.
True - but he was asking for trouble. And in that case, upgrading two of the most-known and used ace2 addons to a new framework that doesn't have all the UI features the old versions had, especially in a place where many, many people would auto-upgrade to rock without even realizing before launching wow (to then realize that WAU and others don't offer a way to read changelogs, revert to older versions etc.) - is there anything better you can do?
oh, sorry, I'm a Mac user, so I have no idea what WAU really does. All I can say the updaters I've seen that run on OSX/Linux don't support such functionality.
Well... I think I've heard said that it has an "undo" feature... I don't see it at the moment... I usually back up my Interface folder or grab the old mod folder out of the recycle bin. (If you have WAU set to delete before extracting and use the recycle bin)
1. Which addons are affected/going to be affected?
2. Why are my addons broken?
3. How can this be remedied (workarounds)?
4. Will my addons need to be replaced, if so with what?
5. Is WAU safe to use now? Should I set it to ignore certain addos for the time being?
6. Anything else that might help the user base get through this situation as painlessly as possible.
Thanks!
2. Because you simply ignored the fact, that WAU(or better files.wowace.com) does not support any method of tagging versions as release or Beta. files.wowace.com and WAU is meant(atleast atm) to update on the Bleeding Edge, getting AddOns long before they are meant to be Released to get in touch with new AddOns or features more often and help developers to enhance/fix their AddOn.
3. By not using WAU or wait till Kaelten etc. have a working beta/release tagging system and till that is done only using pages like WoWinterface Curse whatever
5. WAU will not be "safe" to use until there is a release/beta state implementation
Well, part of the problem is that the wowace svn isn't really used to keep stable builds easily available, but rather all changes are committed to the trunk - which also is the source for the automatic zip-file generation used by files.wowace.com.
Even though one shouldn't blindly update all addons frequently, many people do so - and they usually had good reasons to do so. Which is why I would have preferred a restructuring of the SVN *before* starting to port addons to a new framework in the trunk. Now the damage is done, and many people now think "rock = minimap button and ugly config window".
I wish we would have had a 'rock' branch on the SVN for at least one more month, instead of forcing people to a new framework (it's not like ckk doesn't know that thousands of people auto-update their addons from wowace.com daily - and 99% aren't developers, and therefor have no clue what rock is).
It would have been possible for ckk to port dewdrop to rock and add rock support to waterfall.
Without knowing what happened behind the scenes, I can only assume ckk had his reasons for this hazardous move with major impact on the wowace community. Now if only someone could convince me that the main reason for this move wasn't to sabotage the success of wowace.
He said on IRC that he ported them to Rock for that day because he thought 2.2 was coming out. Now that he knows it's not it'll probably be plenty stable by the time 2.2 really does come out.
There is zero need to stop updating your addons as regularly as you are, many many updaters have a built in backup system, if you download manually, you should take responsibility to back up your addons manually.
I wish we would have had a 'rock' branch on the SVN for at least one more month, instead of forcing people to a new framework (it's not like ckk doesn't know that thousands of people auto-update their addons from wowace.com daily - and 99% aren't developers, and therefor have no clue what rock is).
This issue is not CKK's fault.
The issue is that not only is the SVN wide open to anyone / everyone to see / download from, there are virtually no disclaimers or communications stating that files hosted at files.wowace.com are "Bleeding Edge / Developer / Beta / Use at your own risk repository.
The answer is not to "break" the developer tools / paths ... the answer is to educate the masses.
Case in point: A developer uses a directory off his main site to beta test all of his page changes and it is called .com/beta. The company starts to get complaints from end users that the web pages in the .com/beta are giving errors or appear to be broken ... then the company telling the developer to fix the code in .com/beta so it doesn't break anymore and they stop getting complaints.
Irony anyone?
How about a nice big banner on the top of files.wowace.com stating what you guys think is blatantly obvious? And on the WUA as well.
The reality is that the OP is frustrated cause his *expectations* are incompatible with the services he is using. The job here is to not realign the services, but to realign the customer to the proper method to get *stable* add-ons.
Actually I warned ckk about bumping hes versions but he did not.
I agree though the main problem is the way updating currently works, under the discussion currently is swapping files creation to a tag based folder for full releases only, optionally having the trunk as a 'beta' maybe in a WAU option for people willing to participate.
I updated CowTip, Fubar & Cartographer as soon as the new versions were out and had 0 problems.
The config is ugly but who cares it's not like you need to change the config of mods you've already setup in the past much.
Same here. I havent had any errors. I constantly update my addons using wau. There are several things people can do to lessen the impact of something new, different.
1. Always understand your mods, play with tem try to break them.
2. Keep your saved variable folder "cleaned up". I cannont tell you how important this is.
3. Related to #1 AVOID mods that duplicate efforts. The best example I can give you here is using a mod like pitbull and using a separate mod for raid frames.
4. READ and READ somemore, mod descriptions, bug reports and almost any other information readily available.
5. Always remember that addons are extra's created by people who enjoy making them, either for themselves or cause they enjoy making other peoples gameplay better. Using a mod is a choice. The blizzard interface works just fine and many good players use nothing but the blizzard interface.
I dont know of any mod that doesnt have 2 or 3 things that do the same thing out there. I used dotimer for ages till I found the chronometer, houglass, elkano combination.
I personally applaud any developer, doesnt matter if its be the ace team, Ck, cladhaire, tekkub, ammo, rabbit, gello or any of the other awesome developers.
I really appreciate the helpful replies, and give ye old one finger salute to the snarky one in there. I do hope the answers help many people out there who were as baffled as I was. I think for the time being however, I'm moving away from Ace/Rock where possible and just going back to getting my addons from Curse and WoWI and only using Ace ones when nothing else will do (e.g. OnScreen Health, SCT, Spam Sentry), until things stabilize around here (Titan Panel, Atlas here I come!).
I think he should have upped the version of the addons that are going to use rock, and just have let the addons that use Ace2 be - so they keep working as people upgrade to what would be FuBar2, Cartographer2, Pitbull2, etc.
never thought i would feel so much solidarity with you, Indy.
no, honestly. cant agree more, just dont understand why he did the either way :(
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As basically just a user of Ace addons and nothing more, I must say this whole Ace2 vs. Rock vs. Ace3 just makes me want to throw up my hands and go back to a simple addon package like CT or Cosmos. Frankly its confusing as hell, I don't know which addons are safe to update via (WAU) and which ones will break my carefully laid out UI setup.
Do I wait patiently for things to be fixed or go back to *insert name of UI site here* and try to find something that works kinda-sorta the way my broken addons did?
So can the powers that be, that being the Ace/Rock people possibly put together some kind of comprehensive document/post (ONE please, not three of them) explaining to the common non-tech savvy user what this all means, what does and doesn't work now, and how to proceed during this transition.
The supposed purpose of forums like this one is to make information and the exchange of ideas, easy. Currently it isn't. There are several long threads, many of them with unneeded drama, not explaining much of anything in a way that the average user (like myself) can easily fathom.
I just need to know:
1. Which addons are affected/going to be affected?
2. Why are my addons broken?
3. How can this be remedied (workarounds)?
4. Will my addons need to be replaced, if so with what?
5. Is WAU safe to use now? Should I set it to ignore certain addos for the time being?
6. Anything else that might help the user base get through this situation as painlessly as possible.
Thanks!
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Curse Premium1. Right now, anything the CKK ported to Rock seems to have some problems, but they are to be expected from a recent change of the behind the scenes code. Give a few days and I'm sure he'll get everything working again.
2. Your addons are broken because common tasks that were done by one set of framework/libraries has changed to another set. CKK spent time trying to make the port as smooth as possible (I assume, since he seems like a really good developer), but as with any software, sometimes things just don't work out like the dev wanted.
3. Go back to the last working revision of the broken addons. You did make backups right? If not, go to http://files.wowace.com and find the older revisions of the mods and use those.
4. Your addons should not need to be replaced if you do what I said in my response to #3. Go to your backups or pull down older versions.
5. See #6 and define "safe to use". To me the WAU has never been "safe" for an end-user because of the nature of the SVN, but thats just me.
6. Stop updating your addons daily. The SVN is usually home to recent, cutting edge changes, which from time to time are highly bug prone. CKK recently ported his addons to Rock, this caused some problems, some things unrelated to the framework, others slightly. (not that it matters really). So, until the bugs are ironed out of the Beta software, avoid updating and you won't have problems.
Even though one shouldn't blindly update all addons frequently, many people do so - and they usually had good reasons to do so. Which is why I would have preferred a restructuring of the SVN *before* starting to port addons to a new framework in the trunk. Now the damage is done, and many people now think "rock = minimap button and ugly config window".
I wish we would have had a 'rock' branch on the SVN for at least one more month, instead of forcing people to a new framework (it's not like ckk doesn't know that thousands of people auto-update their addons from wowace.com daily - and 99% aren't developers, and therefor have no clue what rock is).
It would have been possible for ckk to port dewdrop to rock and add rock support to waterfall.
Without knowing what happened behind the scenes, I can only assume ckk had his reasons for this hazardous move with major impact on the wowace community. Now if only someone could convince me that the main reason for this move wasn't to sabotage the success of wowace.
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Curse PremiumFWIW, changes in frameworks and large things like this always break stuff no matter how often you've tested it. The stuff with Rock was fixed for me within 2 minutes... compare that to real world and you'll be very impressed.
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Curse PremiumA new QA strategy? Flood the users with the new product to get all the bugs at once? :P
True - but he was asking for trouble. And in that case, upgrading two of the most-known and used ace2 addons to a new framework that doesn't have all the UI features the old versions had, especially in a place where many, many people would auto-upgrade to rock without even realizing before launching wow (to then realize that WAU and others don't offer a way to read changelogs, revert to older versions etc.) - is there anything better you can do?
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Curse Premiumoh, sorry, I'm a Mac user, so I have no idea what WAU really does. All I can say the updaters I've seen that run on OSX/Linux don't support such functionality.
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Curse PremiumThe config is ugly but who cares it's not like you need to change the config of mods you've already setup in the past much.
2. Because you simply ignored the fact, that WAU(or better files.wowace.com) does not support any method of tagging versions as release or Beta. files.wowace.com and WAU is meant(atleast atm) to update on the Bleeding Edge, getting AddOns long before they are meant to be Released to get in touch with new AddOns or features more often and help developers to enhance/fix their AddOn.
3. By not using WAU or wait till Kaelten etc. have a working beta/release tagging system and till that is done only using pages like WoWinterface Curse whatever
5. WAU will not be "safe" to use until there is a release/beta state implementation
6. Reading the forums/wiki helps alot
He said on IRC that he ported them to Rock for that day because he thought 2.2 was coming out. Now that he knows it's not it'll probably be plenty stable by the time 2.2 really does come out.
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Forum ModeratorThis issue is not CKK's fault.
The issue is that not only is the SVN wide open to anyone / everyone to see / download from, there are virtually no disclaimers or communications stating that files hosted at files.wowace.com are "Bleeding Edge / Developer / Beta / Use at your own risk repository.
The answer is not to "break" the developer tools / paths ... the answer is to educate the masses.
Case in point: A developer uses a directory off his main site to beta test all of his page changes and it is called .com/beta. The company starts to get complaints from end users that the web pages in the .com/beta are giving errors or appear to be broken ... then the company telling the developer to fix the code in .com/beta so it doesn't break anymore and they stop getting complaints.
Irony anyone?
How about a nice big banner on the top of files.wowace.com stating what you guys think is blatantly obvious? And on the WUA as well.
The reality is that the OP is frustrated cause his *expectations* are incompatible with the services he is using. The job here is to not realign the services, but to realign the customer to the proper method to get *stable* add-ons.
Make sense?
Glad we had this talk :-)
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Forum ModeratorI agree though the main problem is the way updating currently works, under the discussion currently is swapping files creation to a tag based folder for full releases only, optionally having the trunk as a 'beta' maybe in a WAU option for people willing to participate.
Same here. I havent had any errors. I constantly update my addons using wau. There are several things people can do to lessen the impact of something new, different.
1. Always understand your mods, play with tem try to break them.
2. Keep your saved variable folder "cleaned up". I cannont tell you how important this is.
3. Related to #1 AVOID mods that duplicate efforts. The best example I can give you here is using a mod like pitbull and using a separate mod for raid frames.
4. READ and READ somemore, mod descriptions, bug reports and almost any other information readily available.
5. Always remember that addons are extra's created by people who enjoy making them, either for themselves or cause they enjoy making other peoples gameplay better. Using a mod is a choice. The blizzard interface works just fine and many good players use nothing but the blizzard interface.
I dont know of any mod that doesnt have 2 or 3 things that do the same thing out there. I used dotimer for ages till I found the chronometer, houglass, elkano combination.
I personally applaud any developer, doesnt matter if its be the ace team, Ck, cladhaire, tekkub, ammo, rabbit, gello or any of the other awesome developers.
Keep up the good work everyone!!
Thanks everyone!
never thought i would feel so much solidarity with you, Indy.
no, honestly. cant agree more, just dont understand why he did the either way :(