World of Warcraft AddOn Syncing App: Beta Testers wanted!

[firey]

However, the hacker/nerd in me is interested in how it works! Let us know in the thread if you choose to share it :-)

I will, I gotta clean the GUI up and all that, then create the database of addons so it knows where to go. The way it works is really quite simple. The curse site has 2 pages for each addon. A details page (that has the big download button), that download button links to the actual download page. Inside that download page is the manual download button, which contains a link to the file (however the user is supposed to visit a validate page) can strip off the validation page and just download the file directly.

So it requires a bit of parsing and such, but because I am not storing any of their files, or ripping files from them (just following their own links inside the program) it's more or less just automating downloading.

Once the file is downloaded, it will extract it and overwrite the addon in the wow/addons folder (set by the user on program first load). The reason I had thought about integrating with you, was to have all the functionality of the curse premium.. without premium. (Full Syncing, multi-downloads, etc). But because the pages are still being loaded inside the program they still get the hits from ads, so they still get the money (however little it may be) from that.

On a side note, What I have done now.. does work and is functional, but has no automation just based on the addon. The way it begins the automation is the user (me) uses a built in browser [all this will be stripped when I add the db] click on the addon I want (ie: recount) and once I click that link, and the addon page loads, it does everything from there the dl and extract.

I still have a long ways to go visually and logically with checking versions and such.. but it's getting there.

[HawkMan]

snip

Since it's probably already a given that your client wil be faster than curse's own (it can't really be any slower) how will it features match up. will you have the full app description and screenshots visible in the app, and maybe the ability to category sort ?

[treemonster]

aside from the 10 s start up of the curse client, how is it slow? i just updated 5 addons in less than 30 seconds without using the premium only update all button.

[HawkMan]

Have you even used the Curse client, it's horribly coded as far as resource management, go. and uf you try to do somethign stupid like minimize it it takes forever to restore, open another app in front of it, and switch back to Curse and same issue again, it rsource management is plain horrible

part of the blame seems to lie in their horrible accelerated graphics, but most would be in their horrible coded skinnable UI

[treemonster]

Have you even used the Curse client, it's horribly coded as far as resource management, go. and uf you try to do somethign stupid like minimize it it takes forever to restore, open another app in front of it, and switch back to Curse and same issue again, it rsource management is plain horrible

part of the blame seems to lie in their horrible accelerated graphics, but most would be in their horrible coded skinnable UI

i'm doing all that stuff right now and it's no slower than switching to any other windowed app in any of those ways. minimize restore switch windows.

oh and i lied about it not having ads. i'm blind apparently because there's a big one in the lower right hand corner.

[Lexcyn]

FYI I installed the new version but I am still getting the error "Sync source is in use by another machine."

Could this be due to the fact I have dropbox installed on my computer and syncing folders?

[Lord Nite]

Not sure what I am doing wrong, but it will not let me choose my actual WoW directory. I have it in c:\games\world of warcraft, yet it doesn't recognize that. I tried a different game in the same subfolder (c:\games\Battle of the immortals) and it picked that up just fine.

[firey]

Since it's probably already a given that your client wil be faster than curse's own (it can't really be any slower) how will it features match up. will you have the full app description and screenshots visible in the app, and maybe the ability to category sort ?

Honestly, I hadn't really thought about that, it was more POC than anything (To get it to use curses servers for addon updating). I guess if I went all out with a database (I had found a more efficent way) I could have addon sorting, images, descriptions. At that point it would almost make more sense to build a complete addon website along with the app that could share a database and the update app almost mirror the website. Obviously to go that in-depth would require more time and such but it is possible, I have the programming knowledge (both application, and website [php, mysql,etc] ) to be able to do it nothing listed above is beyond my capabilities. I guess if there was some sort of request list?? I could go from that.. I guess I could technically rip all of curses images and descriptions as well, but that does go against their terms.

Also, yea part of curses thing is uses WPF which really isn't needed, I can make a skinnable app without WPF.

[iKenndac]

Not sure what I am doing wrong, but it will not let me choose my actual WoW directory. I have it in c:\games\world of warcraft, yet it doesn't recognize that. I tried a different game in the same subfolder (c:\games\Battle of the immortals) and it picked that up just fine.

So when you click "Choose...", the folder selector won't let you choose your WoW folder what does it show?

FYI I installed the new version but I am still getting the error "Sync source is in use by another machine."

Could this be due to the fact I have dropbox installed on my computer and syncing folders?

Could you uninstall completely and reinstall just to make sure please? The installer might not be updating properly.

[Lord Nite]

So when you click "Choose...", the folder selector won't let you choose your WoW folder what does it show?

It allows me to choose my World of Warcraft folder, but Sync stays grayed out. When I choose a different folder the Sync button allows me to press it, at that point, but never when I choose my World of Warcraft Folder.

[iKenndac]

It allows me to choose my World of Warcraft folder, but Sync stays grayed out. When I choose a different folder the Sync button allows me to press it, at that point, but never when I choose my World of Warcraft Folder.

Could you show me a screenshot please?

The button on the left is for choosing where World of Warcraft is, and is typically autodetected by the application.

The button on the right is for choosing where to sync to. You shouldn't choose your WoW directory for that.

[bjoswald]

Did you click the Logon button via the client? If so, that's your fault.. I never ever log in via external clients.

Yep. I entered my Curse account details and logged in to download my mods (like everyone else does). Hardly my fault.

I don't how how it happened and I don't care. Fact is, they're unsafe and you're putting yourself at risk by using them. I don't

care if Jesus Christ himself coded the damn thing(s).

[Lord Nite]

That's the thing though. I know it should auto-detect, but it never shows my World of Warcraft folder as being selected. I setup the dropbox portion, but it seems to misfire on the WoW auto-detection.

[Lexcyn]

Could you uninstall completely and reinstall just to make sure please? The installer might not be updating properly.

Sweet that worked. Had to run it as "admin" to allow it access to the temp folder but other than that it works great!

[Lord Nite]

I figured out my problem. I had to elevate the privileges to administrator in order for it to properly seek out the WoW folder.

[iKenndac]

That's the thing though. I know it should auto-detect, but it never shows my World of Warcraft folder as being selected. I setup the dropbox portion, but it seems to misfire on the WoW auto-detection.

So you can't manually choose it either? That's really odd. Would you mind sending in a screenshot of what the folder picker looks like when you're trying to choose the WoW folder? I'd appreciate it!

Sweet that worked. Had to run it as "admin" to allow it access to the temp folder but other than that it works great!

Excellent - I need to make a better installer. Also: I hate InstallShield!

Could you explain about what you mean by having to run it as admin to access the temp folder? Were you getting errors? I initially had the app always request admin privileges at launch, but that seemed a little OTT and made installation etc a lot more difficult. WoW seems to use the Program Files virtualisation system for addons on Win7, and my application seemed to work fine with that without admin privileges.

Sweet that worked. Had to run it as "admin" to allow it access to the temp folder but other than that it works great!

Oh, really? Damn, looks like the application needs to be run as admin all the time then. That sucks! Could you let me know what OS you're running please? Thanks!

[firey]

Yep. I entered my Curse account details and logged in to download my mods (like everyone else does). Hardly my fault.

I don't how how it happened and I don't care. Fact is, they're unsafe and you're putting yourself at risk by using them. I don't

care if Jesus Christ himself coded the damn thing(s).

What if.. like for my program (Atleast.. the plan anyways) Is to release it requiring no user name, and fully open source?