I've always wanted a convenient way to check for updates on all the major sites, and often thought about writing one. Well, it was a pain, it's slightly buggy (everything I write is slightly buggy), and it doesn't include as much information as I'd like (yet), but I finally got round to it:
I have ideas for fixing this, so more data points should appear slowly. Comments are welcome. It's a work in progress, but hopefully there won't be too many breakages, too often.
Plans / ideas: RSS feed, direct download links, changelogs (see above re: data points), upload, local archive (don't think the sites will like that though, and I'm sure some authors would bitch about copyright), cookies ("updated since I last visited"), descriptions, javascriptification, more options for viewing the list.
Just a few UI suggestions not sure if you plan on doing any of these already.
The addon column should be the link to the actual addon not the site column, sites should be shown as "WoWInterface", "Curse-Gaming" and so on maybe have those link to the actual site.
And fix width layouts are evil, should either center it and make it maybe 70%-80% of the screen, or just make it 100% without aligning to give more room and make it look less squashed.
The addon column should be the link to the actual addon not the site column
Yeah, that was my instinct too - but the addon column can't link to the actual addon, because which site would it link to?
Quote from Shadowed »
sites should be shown as "WoWInterface", "Curse-Gaming" and so on maybe have those link to the actual site.
Well, no offence, but I don't think they should be shown as "WoWInterface" etc.; I prefer it compact. The intent is that this is useful for people who normally check the three sites and want an easier way to see what's been updated.
Quote from Shadowed »
And fix width layouts are evil
Ah yes, they are, aren't they.
Quote from Shadowed »
should either center it and make it maybe 70%-80% of the screen, or just make it 100% without aligning to give more room and make it look less squashed.
Yes, that would be nice - but then I'd have to test it on all sorts of browsers and stuff, and I can't be bothered yet. Just aiming for the basic but functional look right now. I basically agree with you though, and I will fiddle with the layout in the future.
The addon column should be the link to the actual addon not the site column
Yeah, that was my instinct too - but the addon column can't link to the actual addon, because which site would it link to?
Quote from Shadowed »
sites should be shown as "WoWInterface", "Curse-Gaming" and so on maybe have those link to the actual site.
Well, no offence, but I don't think they should be shown as "WoWInterface" etc.; I prefer it compact. The intent is that this is useful for people who normally check the three sites and want an easier way to see what's been updated.
Quote from Shadowed »
And fix width layouts are evil
Ah yes, they are, aren't they.
Quote from Shadowed »
should either center it and make it maybe 70%-80% of the screen, or just make it 100% without aligning to give more room and make it look less squashed.
Yes, that would be nice - but then I'd have to test it on all sorts of browsers and stuff, and I can't be bothered yet. Just aiming for the basic but functional look right now. I basically agree with you though, and I will fiddle with the layout in the future.
Quote from Shadowed »
Looks fancy though
Thank you!
I'm not going to get offense because of what you think about a suggestion.
Just add a math.random and it'll link to whatever site, I'm assuming you're grouping addons together by name anyway?
Always hated HTML, but I don't think you need to do much in terms of testing by using a percentage based layout and set all the columns to use 20% or something.
Just RSS 1.0 for now, because I had some templates prepared from something else that made it really easy for me to do. This includes the changelogs for Ace SVN addons, because they're easy to get. Like I said, I've got some ideas about getting more data from other sites, but for now this is it. Also, each there's an RSS item for each site, rather than having multiple sites listed in one, as you can only have one URL per item in RSS 1.0 (that I know of):
I'm not going to get offense because of what you think about a suggestion.
Good good!
Quote from Shadowed »
Just add a math.random and it'll link to whatever site, I'm assuming you're grouping addons together by name anyway?
Que?
Quote from Shadowed »
Always hated HTML, but I don't think you need to do much in terms of testing by using a percentage based layout and set all the columns to use 20% or something.
Ah, see, I've done a lot of this and I'm very picky about thing like line wrapping, broken cells, etc. I can say from bitter experience that it's not actually that easy, in fact it's bloody difficult to get absolutely right when there are unknown factors involved like the length of the addon name, or length of the changelog (which should be added shortly - once I can figure out a nice way to include it in the list, and get more data from addon sites).
I assume that the way you identify an addon as being the same one is by name? Just make it link to a random site then!
Ah, right, I get it now. That wouldn't work really - there's differences enough between the sites that it makes a difference which one you go to and therefore important to allow the user to be able to choose. For example, personally I used to dislike ui.worldofwar.net intensely because they totally screwed up my account after I asked about merging two different accounts meaning I couldn't update any of the stuff I already had on the site - and didn't reply to any of the emails I sent (I couldn't even comment on my own addons - when I log in now it says "logged on as(log out)", and under "My Mods", I get a list of all the recently uploaded files that haven't been approved yet - which I can delete if I want - because my user ID is 0, or something like that; whatever) (and incidentally I'm quite impressed by all the recent updates they've done, and actually received a reply from one of the admins there... who forwarded it to another, sigh)). I expect they were too busy selling out or something (I know, I know, I would've sold out too, but a cheap shot is a cheap shot). OK, so I used that as an excuse to vent my bottled up anger, but the point's there - it could be for the type of ads a site uses, or whether the user has donated to a particular site, or whatever. Gotta list em all.
If you don't mind; I made a Yahoo Pipes filter so that it blocks anything matching the regex ".*UI.*" or ".*Pack". It's available here. I will be updating it as I notice different kinds of named for compilations and crap packs that I don't wish to see.
There is a program out there called Website Watcher that can be configured to monitor changes on webpages. Perhaps that might give you additional ideas.
Time periods are now working correctly also ("week" option didn't work - removed (actually, just hidden; it'll still work) now, there were too many listings, replaced with last 3 days).
Sorting added by addon name or date.
RSS autodiscovery should work now, with the <link type=alternate> going to an RSS feed that applies the currently selected options.
Options should be properly preserved when refreshing the page now, either by using the submit button or the sort links.
If you don't mind; I made a Yahoo Pipes filter so that it blocks anything matching the regex ".*UI.*" or ".*Pack". It's available here. I will be updating it as I notice different kinds of named for compilations and crap packs that I don't wish to see.
This is one of the things that really pisses me off about most of the sites I check, I hate all the "packs" that people upload and always wanted to be able to filter them out. Thanks for reminding me about this; I'm not using my own tool enough.
Added: ignore field to specify a Perl-style regex that allows you to ignore matching addons. Regexes in all lowercase (lower case? hmm) are case-insensitive, use any uppercase character to make the regex case-sensitive.
Changed: all links go to .../update/<id> now (also added a bit of JS to change the window status bar to show the actual destinatino URL, probably won't work as most browsers disable this by default).
Don't suppose a plain-text format would be of any use to anyone?
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I've always wanted a convenient way to check for updates on all the major sites, and often thought about writing one. Well, it was a pain, it's slightly buggy (everything I write is slightly buggy), and it doesn't include as much information as I'd like (yet), but I finally got round to it:
- http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/
I have ideas for fixing this, so more data points should appear slowly. Comments are welcome. It's a work in progress, but hopefully there won't be too many breakages, too often.
Plans / ideas: RSS feed, direct download links, changelogs (see above re: data points), upload, local archive (don't think the sites will like that though, and I'm sure some authors would bitch about copyright), cookies ("updated since I last visited"), descriptions, javascriptification, more options for viewing the list.
cheers,
- Fin
The addon column should be the link to the actual addon not the site column, sites should be shown as "WoWInterface", "Curse-Gaming" and so on maybe have those link to the actual site.
And fix width layouts are evil, should either center it and make it maybe 70%-80% of the screen, or just make it 100% without aligning to give more room and make it look less squashed.
Looks fancy though
Yeah, that was my instinct too - but the addon column can't link to the actual addon, because which site would it link to?
Well, no offence, but I don't think they should be shown as "WoWInterface" etc.; I prefer it compact. The intent is that this is useful for people who normally check the three sites and want an easier way to see what's been updated.
Ah yes, they are, aren't they.
Yes, that would be nice - but then I'd have to test it on all sorts of browsers and stuff, and I can't be bothered yet. Just aiming for the basic but functional look right now. I basically agree with you though, and I will fiddle with the layout in the future.
Thank you!
I'm not going to get offense because of what you think about a suggestion.
Just add a math.random and it'll link to whatever site, I'm assuming you're grouping addons together by name anyway?
Always hated HTML, but I don't think you need to do much in terms of testing by using a percentage based layout and set all the columns to use 20% or something.
Anyway, this is better than nothing:
- http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/rss/
cheers,
- Fin
Good good!
Que?
Ah, see, I've done a lot of this and I'm very picky about thing like line wrapping, broken cells, etc. I can say from bitter experience that it's not actually that easy, in fact it's bloody difficult to get absolutely right when there are unknown factors involved like the length of the addon name, or length of the changelog (which should be added shortly - once I can figure out a nice way to include it in the list, and get more data from addon sites).
I assume that the way you identify an addon as being the same one is by name? Just make it link to a random site then!
Ah, right, I get it now. That wouldn't work really - there's differences enough between the sites that it makes a difference which one you go to and therefore important to allow the user to be able to choose. For example, personally I used to dislike ui.worldofwar.net intensely because they totally screwed up my account after I asked about merging two different accounts meaning I couldn't update any of the stuff I already had on the site - and didn't reply to any of the emails I sent (I couldn't even comment on my own addons - when I log in now it says "logged on as(log out)", and under "My Mods", I get a list of all the recently uploaded files that haven't been approved yet - which I can delete if I want - because my user ID is 0, or something like that; whatever) (and incidentally I'm quite impressed by all the recent updates they've done, and actually received a reply from one of the admins there... who forwarded it to another, sigh)). I expect they were too busy selling out or something (I know, I know, I would've sold out too, but a cheap shot is a cheap shot). OK, so I used that as an excuse to vent my bottled up anger, but the point's there - it could be for the type of ads a site uses, or whether the user has donated to a particular site, or whatever. Gotta list em all.
Fixed. Thanks. Sorry.
Also fixed. Thanks. Sorry.
Sorting added by addon name or date.
RSS autodiscovery should work now, with the <link type=alternate> going to an RSS feed that applies the currently selected options.
Options should be properly preserved when refreshing the page now, either by using the submit button or the sort links.
This is one of the things that really pisses me off about most of the sites I check, I hate all the "packs" that people upload and always wanted to be able to filter them out. Thanks for reminding me about this; I'm not using my own tool enough.
Added: ignore field to specify a Perl-style regex that allows you to ignore matching addons. Regexes in all lowercase (lower case? hmm) are case-insensitive, use any uppercase character to make the regex case-sensitive.
Don't suppose a plain-text format would be of any use to anyone?