Originally Posted by pelf
Or, can you have a page on CurseForge that isn't actually linked to code?
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Yes. You can upload your addon to either site without using a version control system hosted by that site, and without using a version control system at all. SVN and Git repositories are offered as a convenience to authors who want to use those systems for their development process, so they don't have to deal with a third-party hosting service. You are not required to use them.
The only exception is WowAce. If you want your addon "hosted on WowAce" -- which really just means it's hosted on CurseForge but gets a special label so it says "wowace" in the URL bar instead of "curseforge" -- then you have to use a CurseForge/WowAce-hosted version control system, since the special "wowace" label removes your ability to upload your own ZIP files. This is why I don't recommend anyone choose the "wowace" URL over the "curseforge" URL. The
only difference to users is that your project URL has a different domain name, but you lose features.
Originally Posted by pelf
Oh, I guess you just point the CurseForge site to the WoWI repository?
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No. WoWI creates my ZIP file from the files in my WoWI repository, and puts it on my WoWI download page for me. I then go to my WoWI download page, click the Download button, and save the ZIP file to my computer. Finally, I go to my CurseForge project page, click the "Upload file" link, and upload the same ZIP file from my computer to my CurseForge project page.
Theoretically you can do what you describe, using the "External repository" option on CurseForge, but:
(1) The CurseForge packager works off of the tags you make in your repository. (If you're not familiar with SVN or Git, a "tag" is basically a specific revision that you've "bookmarked".) The CurseForge packager automatically labels the ZIP files it makes as alpha, beta, or release quality depending on what name (if any) you gave your tag, and those labels determine which users see the file. Curse.com only shows versions labeled as "release", and by default the Curse Client only updates to "release" versions as well. Alpha versions are packaged for every commit. Beta versions are packaged for every tag that has the word "beta" in the tag name. Release versions are packaged for all other tags. (You can disable alpha and beta packaging if you only want to make release versions available.)
By contrast, the WoWI packager does not care about your tags at all. When you tell it to package a release, it pulls the current latest versions of all your files from the trunk (for SVN) or the master branch (for Git). So, if you wanted to host your repo on WoWI, and have the CurseForge packager work on it, you would need to tag your repo with the same name you entered on WoWI when you packaged it here.
(2) Nobody seems to know exactly how it works, how reliably it works, or even
if it works at all. I've asked several times on the WowAce forums about it over the years, and have never gotten any replies from people who have actually used the feature. Considering that this is Curse we're talking about, it's quite possible that it doesnt work at all, or if it does, that it's extremely unreliable and full of bugs. Between that, and the fact that I'd have to clutter up my repo with tags to try it myself, and the fact that it's just not that hard to manually upload a ZIP file, I haven't bothered to check it out.