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11-10-10, 09:03 AM   #1
Maziel
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Minion vs Curse Client

So, I have just discovered this little toy called Minion today.

Finally got it up and running.

I have been a long time user of the Curse Client and wished there was a WoWInterface plug in for the Curse Client, but alas, there is not... which has led me here.

Minion dections is all wrong for me.

It is detecting older versions of addons that I have installed.

For example, it's telling me to grab Auctionator 2.6.2 as it is a new update, but I'm running Auctionator 2.6.8

...

Wants me to grab Armory 9.1.19 when I'm using an alpha revision 375...

...

Want me to update to the BaudBag fix I uploaded here whilst the author was away, but the author has returned and is currently maintaining the addon on Curse only.

Things like that.... make me very reluctant to click update when most of what is listed to update is actually a downgrade for me.

Is there no way to check for alpha releases and beta releases of files like the Curse Client?

Is there no way to validate version numbers of the addon with the information within the .toc files or cross checking the information with what is available on Curse.com? eg: Check WoWInterface, Check Curse, find out which is the latest, display that as link to update addon to.

~

Anyhoo, I understand it is in beta. The addon is a nice idea but would have been even nicer if WoW Interface created a plugin for Curse Client instead of attempting to re-invent the wheel that is already turning nicely for most of us.

For now, I'll have to stick with Curse Client. For a couple of reasons really.
1) The files are more to date (alpha and beta release checking abilities) and
2) The GUI seems to be more intuitive for me, being able to check changelogs and descriptions of files etc without even leaving the client nor opening a web browser.

I hope the above is taken as helpful commentary from a user to hopefully aid you in the direction you wish to take Minion. I hope the above isn't taken as negative feedback only. As for Curse integration, I would like to see Minion detect if Curse Client is running and if it is, verify its addon information with that client instead of just telling me an update is available when it is a downgrade.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep tabs on Minion, but for now it doesn't aid my addon updating as I would like it to.



[Edit]
I was reading up on the whole WoWMatrix vs Curse & WoWInterface thing earlier. If the two big guns can stand up again WoWMatrix, why don't the two big guns get together to create their own WoWMatrix Client which searches both sites and displays the latest release available? Just makes sense and we know you both can stand together on things, why not a addon downloader?

I never used WoWMatrix, but it seems like the *idea* was a sound one, but the way they did it without approval was wrong.

Anyhoo, I'm done, bed time for this aussie. 1.20am >_<

Last edited by Maziel : 11-10-10 at 09:20 AM.
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11-10-10, 09:26 AM   #2
Nobgul
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I have noticed that alot of addon authors are not maintaining their addons on multiple sites, when they used to. I would rather see a app that allows the author to upload to the various sites with 1 click rather then a module for the curse client. But this is just my look at it.
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11-10-10, 09:38 AM   #3
Maziel
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Originally Posted by nobgul View Post
I have noticed that alot of addon authors are not maintaining their addons on multiple sites, when they used to. I would rather see a app that allows the author to upload to the various sites with 1 click rather then a module for the curse client. But this is just my look at it.
That too would be a nice option.

Or a co-operation between the two major sites, if author uploads addon to curse, forward to wow-interface for approval and vice versa so both sites have them.

Both sites are great add-on sites, and the community loves you both.
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11-10-10, 09:54 AM   #4
Quokka
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Originally Posted by Maziel View Post
That too would be a nice option.

Or a co-operation between the two major sites, if author uploads addon to curse, forward to wow-interface for approval and vice versa so both sites have them.

Both sites are great add-on sites, and the community loves you both.
Well sorry no, I hate curse. Not for the company but there site!
You can't download without Flash or Javascript enabled.

If you use the Curseclient, It tends to download junk (i.e. 1 small addon Curse gives you a package) And you may only download 1 Addon at the time, can't even que the damm things.

So no I would never upload there. And am more than happy to have all addons from WoW-Interface, and only a minor fraction from curse.

Most off them are ace addons, and I know the reason they are there so that is fine with me.
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11-10-10, 10:29 AM   #5
Petrah
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Originally Posted by Quokka View Post
If you use the Curseclient, It tends to download junk (i.e. 1 small addon Curse gives you a package) And you may only download 1 Addon at the time, can't even que the damm things.

So no I would never upload there. And am more than happy to have all addons from WoW-Interface, and only a minor fraction from curse.

Most off them are ace addons, and I know the reason they are there so that is fine with me.
I've been using the curse client since it was in beta, and it's never once downloaded "junk" onto my pc, nor has it downloaded anything that I didn't ask for or put a check-mark by because it was an option. Of course, this is not a debate over a free or paid account, but I have the pay right now (I didn't use to) and I download as many as I want at a very fast download speed.

Weather an addon is Ace or not is a personal preference because there is nothing wrong with an Ace addon that's been properly written, so that last remark sounded more like an attack than anything else.

I have roughly 10 addons over there, and I don't have any issues with them whatsoever. Thus far out of all the Curse haters that I've seen post on any forum, they haven't posted a single legitimate reason not to like them.
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Last edited by Petrah : 11-11-10 at 03:04 AM.
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11-11-10, 09:22 AM   #6
Quokka
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Originally Posted by Petrah View Post
) Weather an addon is Ace or not is a personal preference because there is nothing wrong with an Ace addon that's been properly written, so that last remark sounded more like an attack than anything else.

I have roughly 10 addons over there, and I don't have any issues with them whatsoever. Thus far out of all the Curse haters that I've seen post on any forum, they haven't posted a single legitimate reason not to like them.
I have nothing against ace, I only wanted to state that most off the addons I get at curse are ace, And I have nothing against ace. I use them for quite some time now.

Even before the ace site was in the hands off curse, And lucky they picked it up. Because the ace sites upkeep was to high, even with the donations.

So I don't hate ace nor do I hate Curse, I just dislike the site.
and yes the stuff that came along with a addon was before they cleaned up the site, and the client was in heavy beta.

Checked downloading more than 1 is premium, I'm fine with that.
If only I could que the others.. So I don't have to sit and wait for it to be ready.

But yes It would be nice to have a client, that let me download on both sites.
as long as I can pick what site would be the preferred one
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11-11-10, 08:46 AM   #7
Maziel
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Originally Posted by Quokka View Post
Well sorry no, I hate curse. Not for the company but there site!
You can't download without Flash or Javascript enabled.

If you use the Curseclient, It tends to download junk (i.e. 1 small addon Curse gives you a package) And you may only download 1 Addon at the time, can't even que the damm things.

So no I would never upload there. And am more than happy to have all addons from WoW-Interface, and only a minor fraction from curse.

Most off them are ace addons, and I know the reason they are there so that is fine with me.

I have never had any junk on my pc from it... and I can download more than 1 addon at a time, set that up in the options.

Strange.

But this thread really isn't about which client you prefer, more of what I have experienced after trying minion, hoping that the info helps WoWInterface better minion, but more so above all else, regardless of which client is better or which client you rather, the ultimate goal as a downloader would be 1 client that checks both sites, compares latest versions, and offers it up to you. That's more the direction I would rather this take... hopefully sticking to positives rather than negatives (if possible). =)
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11-12-10, 07:57 AM   #8
VincentSDSH
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Originally Posted by nobgul View Post
I have noticed that alot of addon authors are not maintaining their addons on multiple sites, when they used to. I would rather see a app that allows the author to upload to the various sites with 1 click rather then a module for the curse client. But this is just my look at it.
Er...no, thanks.

Generally, authors want a lot of exposure for their mods to make the greatest number of people happy -- nothing like seeing jumps in your download numbers to make you smile, the little notes of thanks, or the number of annoyed people when something breaks (sure, 200 people are grumpy but, HEY, 200 people are using your work!).

Hosting a mod on 3 sites is, let's be frank here, not a big deal in-and-of itself. It adds about 5 minutes to the time it takes to release an update since it's the same .zip file, the same update note, and (most of the time) the same markup for any major changes. It's only annoying when you have to do it 3-4 times in a day or two after release to work out kinks -- and that's easily solved, if it's an issue at all, by using a primary site and filling in after you're certain it's stable.

The issue is this: unless you're one of the plethora of unresponsive authors who generally make the user community miserable, you will check frequently (every couple of days at minimum) to see what your users have gotten up to, what problems or questions they have, and respond to them. To do this, you have to visit those sites. If you are visiting those sites to check on the work you host there, hosting it there obviously isn't an issue since you'll spend more time in a month talking to users than you will updating 2 extra sites on release day.

Being able to u/l to 3 sites with 1 click is cute...but no more than cute. This is not why some authors only host on two of the big three, or only on one of them.

Hosting work on a site will generally generate some level of traffic for the site which means you are earning them money. I'm happy to host my work here on WoW Interface because it has a good and responsive staff, software that adequate to the task (even if it is occasionally annoying), and a user community of which I'm happy to be a part.

I refuse to ever host a mod on wowui again, due to the atrocious user-community there, multi-hosting is not a barrier. They have not earned my trust or the traffic hosting my work there might generate for them.

I refuse to host anything on Curse any longer because they kept making maintaining an addon there more and more of a chore, more and more about $$ and less and less about users or authors. I still, regretfully, have to nab a few mods from there and damn if they don't make that an annoying, multi-step problem as well. They have not earned my trust or the traffic hosting my work there might generate for them. The traffic I'd drive to their site may only be .002 cents a year but, damn it, that's .002 cents a year they didn't earn.

I'd rather my fractional pennies of financial impact go to WoW Interface. They put in the effort to earn it at the author and user levels, where they should: they worry about us, we can worry about their bottom line.
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01-01-11, 10:42 AM   #9
Bluspacecow
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Originally Posted by VincentSDSH View Post
Generally, authors want a lot of exposure for their mods to make the greatest number of people happy -- nothing like seeing jumps in your download numbers to make you smile, the little notes of thanks, or the number of annoyed people when something breaks (sure, 200 people are grumpy but, HEY, 200 people are using your work!).
And some don't care how many players use their addon at all.

They do it for themselves , their guild and their friends and family.

They upload to Curse & Wowinterface for ease of updating for the members of their above circle.

So they will go for whatever site they find easier to work with.

Other addon authors do it for the fun of coding and upload it for their fellow addon authors to pick through. "Maximum exposure" is about the furtherest thing from their mind.
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01-01-11, 12:24 PM   #10
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Just thought I would add my two cents because I've had the same battle between sites and their updaters...

To begin...
Wowinterace.com - good job on your website. Very clean and very easy to read and follow.

For the reasons I stated above, I would choose wowinterface.com over curse.com in a heartbeat. And I come here quite often search for new addons.

However, curse.com has my money (quarterly payments) because of their curse client. Their curse client is done very very well. Their website, on the other hand, is horrible. Way way to busy. If they could only dumb it down some. But because their client app is done very well in managing my addons, they have my financial support.

If wowinterface.com could make an updater that rivaled curse's updater app, I would gladly send my money to wowinterface.com rather than curse. If money is the issue on development. At least expose the API so that other developers can take a stab a creating a better updater for your website.
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01-01-11, 01:37 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by Stabler View Post
However, curse.com has my money (quarterly payments) because of their curse client. Their curse client is done very very well.
Luckily taste is different for everyone ... the client (and its developer) was what drove me away from curse And so I love their client as it "forced" me
to come here ... and I really enjoy my time here (even now that its dark around here )

But I confess when I setup addons for my friends and family I recommend
the curse client, too ... but just because I know that version numbering is
too difficult for most ppl out there to read or understand
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01-01-11, 04:15 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Stabler View Post
Just thought I would add my two cents because I've had the same battle between sites and their updaters...

To begin...
Wowinterace.com - good job on your website. Very clean and very easy to read and follow.

For the reasons I stated above, I would choose wowinterface.com over curse.com in a heartbeat. And I come here quite often search for new addons.

However, curse.com has my money (quarterly payments) because of their curse client. Their curse client is done very very well. Their website, on the other hand, is horrible. Way way to busy. If they could only dumb it down some. But because their client app is done very well in managing my addons, they have my financial support.
^^ This.

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12-29-10, 01:01 PM   #13
FlareLT
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Cool

Originally Posted by Maziel View Post
It is detecting older versions of addons that I have installed.
The same for me.

MMOUI Minion suggests an "update" to OLDER version of addon (for example if addon is no longer updated on wowinterface, etc). It should say "unknown version" or "can't update" in such cases.

Anyway, this bug is showstopper, and should be fixed with highest priority. The purpose of client itself is to make addon updates/management easier. And it is not much easier, when you have to review 20 out of 40 addons manually

Originally Posted by Maziel View Post
For now, I'll have to stick with Curse Client.
Same for me. For the reason mentioned above.

BTW, I am still using Curse client v3, and not v4. This is because v4 uses .NET, which basically means it's inefficient and bloated.

And for me it's sad, that new client on market "MMOUI Minion" uses JAVA. I wish it was stand-alone client, probably written in C, and not based on any bloated "platform".

How difficult could it be to accomplish such a simple task like updating a file from internet (check version/date in TOC, get "latest" TOC info using HTTP, download addon using HTTP, replace files on given folder). But that's actually a problem with most of software these days - most important factor for creators usually is how quick software can be implemented, and how easy the maintenance will be. Efficiency, performance, low-resource-usage is usually just ignored ("who cares if app is 0.2mb download and memory footprint, or 20mb?"). But that's why software today is usually as slow to startup and run, as it was 10 years ago (which is ridiculous result having in mind how computer hardware has evolved during that time).

Well, at least JAVA is multi-platform, which makes it less ridiculous (compared to .NET).
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12-29-10, 01:17 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by FlareLT View Post
How difficult could it be to accomplish such a simple task like updating a file from internet (check version/date in TOC, get "latest" TOC info using HTTP, download addon using HTTP, replace files on given folder).
You'd think it would be simple... until you start writing it. Authors keep different version numbers on different sites, some times forget to update the toc version but update the database version, have multiple toc's, etc. This is why Minion is still in beta, we are trying to figure out a way to get it to more accurately detect the version of an installed addon downloaded from another site. Since this is a community project we are open to help.

Curse has a couple full time programmers on their updater. We can't afford that and rely on the help of others.
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12-29-10, 03:14 PM   #15
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Most of what I've seen posted here seems to be from people that have been using up-daters for quite some time. However, it seems as though no one is aware of one simple feature that is available in both of them. You don't want to have an addon up-dated from somewhere? Right click the addon in the listing, and choose whatever option is available in the menu to ignore that addon. I've found this works quite nicely. Even for addons that are hosted on both Curse.com and WoWInterface.com. Usually, but not always of course, one is more up-to-date than the other and you get to know which is which over time.

I use both the Curse Client and MMOUI Minion, and rarely have the "down-dating" problem. I also like both, but would really like to see Minion become more "polished". However, I can wait. Much in life rarely happens instantaneously.
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12-29-10, 03:17 PM   #16
korgan.nailo
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Its been a long while but I felt like adding my 2 cents here.

I've been checking MMOUI every month or so to see if there is any change or improvement.

The "Version detection" issue has been around for more than a year if I can remember. I'm not saying it is easy, I'm just saying the game uses a .toc file and honestly that should be the base. If the authors don't use it like that even WoW won't detect it properly. Blizzard has a standard, focus on that standard and the authors should follow.

C, Java, who cares? Java allows your devs to write a single code maybe with one or another tweak and have it running on multi-platforms. Want a native client? Sure, create it and maintain it. The client is not a "right", it is a "privilege", remember that.

Another thing people said is that they wanted a client to check several sites. Cool, there you have it, Minion. It was written to support modules. All you have to do is create a Curse module and it will check it. It is on the client's site, check the docs there.

Anyway, what I end up doing due to the version checking issue is:
- Run Curse, update
- Run MMOUI, note the addons it lists for updates
- Manually check each addon listed by MMOUI
- Update those that indeed have a new version
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01-01-11, 10:36 AM   #17
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I do believe *checks*

Yes the latest version of OmniCC is "4.0.waffles10". Tuller named it as such to prove a point with methods of updating : The Version field will take anything a author prints in there.

You can't rely strictly on a numbers based version of checking what the new version is. If the authors don't adhere to a standard of naming the versions any such system would be meaningless.

For example my version numbering system is to version it the same as the current version with the last .x being for bug fixes. So the sound command listing for 3.3.5 is 3.3.5 and 3.3.5.2 for a bug fix.

But not everyone is going to use a logical numbering sequence like that. For example someone could equally as well just one like "Boy , Man , Child , Woman, Girl , Rabbit , Steer , Roast , Apple , Orange , Banana"
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01-01-11, 01:55 PM   #18
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Originally Posted by FlareLT View Post
And for me it's sad, that new client on market "MMOUI Minion" uses JAVA. I wish it was stand-alone client, probably written in C, and not based on any bloated "platform".

...

Well, at least JAVA is multi-platform, which makes it less ridiculous (compared to .NET).
That's not why Minion is written in Java. It's written in Java because it has the capability of being extended by anyone via OSGI. In fact, anyone could write their own WoWI module for Minion if they wanted to. When people complain about Minion's problems it's not actually Minion that's unstable but rather the WoWI module and, in particular, its algorithm for finding addons. The core functionality of the program is pretty stable and, with the exception of one security manager bug (where it was locking out actions that it shouldn't) I really haven't heard of any problems with it.

Granted, that doesn't really mean much if nobody else chooses to write modules, but it's there.

That being said, I've just graduated and suddenly have a lot of free time, which I've already allocated towards fixing the well-known addon detection problems.
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01-01-11, 03:54 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by Shirik View Post
...
That being said, I've just graduated and suddenly have a lot of free time ...
Congratulations =)
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