Wootbit Client - downloads and auto-installs mods from wowinterface.com
 

I just released my new WoW addon manager, Wootbit Client, today at http://www.wootbit.com/. It has an embedded web browser so you can browse wowinterface.com, when you click a download link it automatically recognizes it and installs it into your WoW installation without any of that manual unzipping or copying. It should make wowinterface even more convenient. :) Because it uses a web browser you are still directly using and supporting wowinterface when you use the tool.

Hope you find it useful. I certainly find wowinterface useful and I tested Wootbit Client extensively with wowinterface. If you have any questions/comments/feedback please feel free to let me know here or on fb/twitter.

We also posted the download on wowinterface.com itself here

I haven't actually tried the app (and probably won't, as I already get free Curse Premium as an addon author and I don't use many addons that can't be updated through the Curse Client) but based on your screenshots I have a few suggestions for the addon management list:

(1) Add a way to quickly visit an addon's website. A button up there with Browse, Refresh, and Delete would work for this.

(2) Increase the font size, or at least increase the padding (whitespace). People with poor vision and/or high screen resolutions will likely find the current small size and lack of whitespace between text and borders rather eye-straining. The best solution would be to use the system text size setting (Control Panel > Display > "Make it easier to read what's on the screen") and the system font setting (Control Panel > Personalization > Window Color and Appearance > "Advanced appearance settings") with a generous amount of padding, but I don't know what GUI framework you're using or whether it supports using the system settings.

I'm also not really clear on how useful this whole thing is... does it recognize when updates are available for the user's installed addons are? I don't see anything in the screenshots indicating that. Without that feature, it seems like you've put in a lot of work just to spare the user from having to look directly at their AddOns folder or learn how to extract a ZIP file. Am I missing something?

Hi Phanx,

You're right, the tool doesn't detect when an addon is out of date (yet). That's the next feature on the list though! :) We're targeting the 0.2-alpha release to switch on our web service which is still under development. This is an alpha release, so the tool is not finished yet. I thought this release might still be valuable though because it makes it really quick and convenient to install addons in one click. It might be helpful for people installing WoW addons for the first time.

Thanks for your suggestions!

That's true, but people installing WoW addons for the first time are probably barely aware that the Curse Client exists, let alone that your new alpha-version app exists. :p

That doesn't, however, mean that you shouldn't continue the project if you want to.

Obviously. ;)

My point was more that rather than focusing on/highlighting features for newbies at this stage in the project, it would probably make more sense to focus on features that will appeal to advanced users, since they're the ones who are more likely to find out about a new "universal" addon updater and be willing to try it out.

This looks interesting. Which AddOn download sites are you currently supporting (I'm assuming wowi and curse/wowace) and how are AddOn conflicts being handled?

Hey Ravagernl,

Thanks for the interest. It should work with any .zip file download out there on the web that contains a WoW addon. But the tool was specifically tested with wowinterface.com, wowace.com and curse.com. It should work well with all of those sites (note: currently one of the ads running on curse.com will crash our browser). If it doesn't work with some download, then please send a bug report. On the Feedback menu, click "Create bug report zip file ..." and mail that to us at [email protected] and we'll have a look.

Regarding conflicts, right now if you have two different downloads with the same addons, then it will show both of them as installed. This is because it is checking based on the contents of the zip files and what you have installed. If you have downloaded two different versions of the same addon, then the Downloads tab will show one as installed and one as not installed. In the 0.1-alpha release, the last download is always installed. It is really easy to go to the Downloads tab and change which one you have installed (select the download, click the install button).

When we have our web service hooked up (soon! still in development ...) then it will be used to resolve version conflicts and check which of your addons are out-of-date, as well as where to get the update. We'll be favoring links to wowinterface.com, and we will always link to the site so that we are all supporting the community. But the tool makes it very easy to download/install in one click.

Thanks!

Put up a youtube video which demonstrates how to use the program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcGwfTN20Q

Really neat, makes things a bit simpler.

It fails to detect my WoW install location, maybe you should add an install location browse option to set it up manually.

Hi Bloodier,

Could you do Feedback -> Create Bug Report Zip File and send me the .zip? You can email to [email protected]. Thanks.

Ok, done :P

I wondered when someone would come out with another installer. Will it support .rar? Some addon authors use this format instead of .zip. +++ for supporting multiple sites.

Supporting RAR wouldn't make much sense... neither WoWI nor Curse allow uploads in any format other than ZIP, so it would just bulk up the client with the inclusion of another decompression library that wouldn't really benefit anyone.

If you're downloading from some author's personal site, there's not really any good reason for them to use RAR instead of ZIP -- support for the latter is built into every modern operating system, while they need to go download a third-party utility to open RAR files. The small difference in the size of the final file just isn't enough to justify the hassle for the average WoW addon user.

Big thanks to Bloodier for the bug report! I got it fixed and Bloodier tested it for me. If anyone is having the same problem please try this version with the fix:

wootbitclient-0.1-alpha-fix.exe

I will incorporate these fixes in to the next release. Still working on the web service stuff :)

EDIT: BTW I will eventually incorporate Bloodier's suggestion to allow you to override the WoW install path too.

I thought WoWI supported RAR I know i've accidently uploaded a few of my addons in rar files from time to time.

It does.
The mmoui minion didn't, but since that's mostly gone the way of the dodo it's not a big issue.

The fact remains that while .rar is a superior compression format, most windows users can't readily extract it.

Actually, we changed our policy a while back. We ask that authors only use .zip for their compression format now.

Ops, sorry for the misinformation and thanks for correcting me :)