|
Originally Posted by Debz
I use a lot of ace2 addons, but frankly I know nothing about them and how they work, other than download, unpack here, and config them in game with various slash commands or gui's.
i'm sorry to bother you Seerah, but would you mind going a bit more into this standalone libs stuff.... I'm always up for improving my performance 
If it helps I also use the wowace updater, and always update externals (although I had no clue what it meant until this post, I figured better safe than sorry) |
Using standalone libraries means that you install (and update) the libraries just like regular addons. This way, you only have one copy of each library in your AddOns folder, they can all be kept up to date easily, and your loading time is a little shorter (though not significantly - sometimes it's not even noticeable) because WoW doesn't have to determine which version of a library it needs to load.
Using the WoW Ace Updater (WAU) is the easiest way to install and maintain standalone libs.
1. Back up your Interface folder and open up the WAU program
2. find !!!StandaloneLibraries in the list of addons in WAU, check it and install only that one - WAU will unpack the empty lib folders that are inside into your AddOns directory
3. Go to WAU's preferences and have it Skip Version Check and Delete Before Extracting (you can change these back later) - this will update all of your Ace addons (even if already at most recent) and delete the old folders and their embedded libs before installing the new ones
4. Update All Installed AddOns - this will download them without externals by default, and will fill the previously empty lib folders with the most recent versions of all libraries
Tada! Not too hard.
I only recommend it though if people feel real comfortable doing this and if they feel that they will really benefit from it.
If you only run a few Ace mods and never run into library issues, then don't bother.
Here is the WAU wiki page and more info about using !!!StandaloneLibraries:
http://wowace.com/wiki/WinAceUpdater
Here is another thread in this forum on the topic:
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ght=standalone
edit: since people seem to still be linking to this post...
With the new breed of WAU, switching to external libraries is even easier.
1. Download and install !!StandaloneLibraries
2. Open up WAU - in the bottom right corner of your screen you will see that WAU has automatically detected !!SAL and set your default to "without externals"
3. Go to File -> Reinstall All Addons (this will redownload *all* of your addons and delete the old versions, thus getting rid of the embedded libraries)