Authors CurseForge

@HunterZ

While what you say does hold merit, please believe me when I say that we did spend a good deal of time asking just that question. The only thing we had decided at that point was that sticking with wxWidgets was really not a viable option.

Again, we have no one who's done any significant work in java in more than 5 years, the rest of us who have used it at some point in time is closer to a decade (I remember using java 1.1 last). But java was in fact considered.

Interesting. I'm curious what your team's skillsets are if noone knows C++ or Java. I guess you guys must be coming from a purely web development side of things.

Many of us are web developers. Strong skillsets in python and .net. I had a smattering of objective-c as well (which is quickly becoming one of my stronger skills). There are only 8 of us at the moment as well, and we all have multiple things going on.

So what would be the preferred automatic update method for us Linux users? The new client won't work, current version has issues that are fixed in 4.0, which looks like abandonware to me. At a first glance scripting file downloads doesn't seem feasible due to how the paths are made up on wowace.com. Bar allowing third party updaters, which doesn't seem likely to happen, SVN checkouts is the only thing that comes to my mind. Is there any other option (except "go to website, click on download etc")?

Quote from HunterZ

I figured it might be a skillset issue, but what about, say, Java?

As a software engineer (and no, I barely know Java so I'm no Java zealot!) it just makes me cringe to see that noone has asked "what is really the right tool for this job?" before going forward.

I should mention that I'm thinking as much of the Mac ports here as Linux when I talk about cross-platform. It strikes me as crazy that you'd want to set out with the intention of supporting Windows and Mac but then do it in a way that will require a bunch of extra work to produce the Mac port. Going cross-platform from the start would make tacking on Linux support almost trivial.

If you look at it like a software engineer then it makes sense and maybe would save developement time but if you look at it from a user point of view cross plattform developement often means downloading additional runtime environments.
And as a user I hate such programs that require me to download additional stuff from what I don't even know what it does (commonly speaking). I don't know how many people that currently use the client do have Java RE installed... not even speaking of QT for Windows.

You have read the numbers Kaelten posted and keeping that in mind it absolutely makes sense to primarily support Windows and Mac and making it as simple for the end user as it can get... the more users, the more people that might try premium ;)

Quote from jokeyrhyme

Regarding Linux, I imagine we're between a rock and a hard place right now. The Curse team can't very well release the details required to author a new client, seeing as they are beseiged by WowMatrix and the like. And they just don't have the resources to produce a Linux-compatible client. Perhaps if someone were willing to sign an NDA or something for closed access to the site's API? Who knows? And who has the time?

I think the easiest way would be if Curse would make a MMOUI Minion plugin.

Amen to that

Quote from Marsti

I think the easiest way would be if Curse would make a MMOUI Minion plugin.

Minion is newer than CC and as such curse would be throwing away alot of dev time. The other issue with this is that CC seems to be a.) easier to use and b.) better at detecting the correct addon than minion is (YMMV, that's just my own experience with these clients).

I would love to see a Curse module for minion, with that said I do not think it could replace the CC for all users for the reasons stated above.

Quote from Leialyn

If you look at it like a software engineer then it makes sense and maybe would save developement time but if you look at it from a user point of view cross plattform developement often means downloading additional runtime environments.
And as a user I hate such programs that require me to download additional stuff from what I don't even know what it does (commonly speaking). I don't know how many people that currently use the client do have Java RE installed...

Java has a huge install base, though maybe not outside of the browser on Windows. Certainly Mac and Linux have Java support out of the box though.

not even speaking of QT for Windows.

Qt is a C++ library-based SDK/API thing and doesn't require that the end user install anything AFAIK. It shouldn't need more than some extra DLL files in the updater program's folder.

You have read the numbers Kaelten posted and keeping that in mind it absolutely makes sense to primarily support Windows and Mac and making it as simple for the end user as it can get... the more users, the more people that might try premium ;)

Nah, that level of argument makes no sense because getting everyone a client would get the most users on-board.

The skillset issue is very valid, however, and I can't hold that against the Curse team. Again, though, they could at least limit themselves to something that would work under Wine or Mono or whatever. Maybe a reason for not doing this was given, but I didn't see one.


Also, to whoever suggested MMOUI Minion: it's extremely crude compared to the Curse Client. For example, it won't let you even check for updates for 3rd-party FuBar or BigWigs plugins until you first let it "update" to an outdated version of FuBar or BigWigs. No way am I going to roll my addon versions back and forth every time I want to even check for updates for other addons that depend on them! I've pretty much given up on using it because of issues like that.

Well, I have some ideas for supporting the linux users. I can't promise anything yet, but once I get further along I'm going to do some more research to really test the feasibility of the idea.

My Curse Client (for Windows, v. 3.0.0.7, it says no client updates are available) has been set to install libraries separately (disembedded) and has worked fine that way for several months.

Today, the client appears to have "automatically" uninstalled about half a dozen libraries it felt were no longer needed. These same libraries had previously been installed automatically by the client.

I have compared the .toc and embeds.xml files for each of the addons, and they haven't changed. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the addons completely, and that didn't bring back the libraries. Uninstalling the Curse Client, deleting my preferences, and reinstalling the client also did not work.

Specifically, LibWindow-1.1 (required by Bartender4) was uninstalled and would not automatically reinstall. Also, all the LibBabble-* libraries used by Ackis Recipe List were uninstalled by the client and will not automatically reinstall.

Edit: LibBanzai-2.0 and LibHealComm-3.0 (required by PitBull4) also got uninstalled and must be reinstalled manually.

Had the same with libDualspecc used by RangeDisplay.