World of Warcraft AddOn Syncing App: Beta Testers wanted!

[iKenndac]

Hey guys,

A little while ago I created a thread asking if anyone played World of Warcraft on multiple machines.

Well, I went ahead and created the app anyway! It's called Teleport: AddOns and is a cross-platform application for Mac OS X and Windows. It's about ready for beta testing - if anyone wants to help test, either follow @TeleportAddOns on Twitter or pay attention to this thread and I'll post updates.

Before anyone starts - I'm aware there are other ways of doing this, but now there's another one. :laugh:

Any thoughts welcomed!

Edit: 1.0 betas now available! See here for download links and more information.

Features:

• Syncing to a local file or Dropbox, with more sources coming soon
  
• Automatically keeps backups of your AddOns and their settings
  
• Optional automatic syncing at system startup, Periodically thereafter and just after you exit WoW
  
• Built-in safety - Won't sync while WoW is active, will bail out of a sync if WoW is launched during a sync
  
• Cross-platform - Sync your AddOns across Mac OS X and Windows
  
• Sync archives are implemented using standard technologies — if you need access to your setup, you can download and extract it manually
  

A few screenshots:

[Vice]

This is really cool, I don't play WoW anymore but when I did I longed for an app like this and it looks like you've pulled it off with a really great user interface to boot. You got my respect (Y)

This message sponsored by iKenndac's money :laugh:

[iKenndac]

Thanks! I hope it'll be useful to people.

This message sponsored by iKenndac's money :laugh:

Haha, I forgot that this might be construed that way! If I sell it (not sure if it'll be free or not yet), everyone who helps test can have a free copy.

[Paul]

Looks nice - I'll give it a go

[Mr. Gibs]

Well I don't play WoW anymore, but I believe the curse client has been doing this for a long time now.

Still, having alternatives is always a good thing and it does look like a well designed app!

[Vice]

Well I don't play WoW anymore, but I believe the curse client has been doing this for a long time now.

Still, having alternatives is always a good thing and it does look like a well designed app!

I remember I used to use the Curse Client to accomplish the syncing of addons and things. But the Curse Client was geared heavily to selling a curse subscription and in general there were a lot of security problems with their software. There was more than just a few occasions when malicious software was delivered through it for example.

I think if I still played I'd give iKenndac's syncer a try.

[iKenndac]

The reason I wrote this app is because Curse's syncing is Windows-only, and I primarily play on my Mac :(

Plus I'm a bit of a cheapskate and don't want to play monthly for it! So, instead, I spent over a month writing my own. Win-win, right? :cool: :laugh:

[Minifig]

I'll give it a run, Curse's is kinda awful.. and this looks streamlined.

Will you make it scan wow interface too?

[bjoswald]

No thanks. I don't trust these things anymore. I had the Curse Client installed a while back and my account got hacked. I got it back but I'll never use one again.

Thanks but no thanks.

[Minifig]

No thanks. I don't trust these things anymore. I had the Curse Client installed a while back and my account got hacked. I got it back but I'll never use one again.

Thanks but no thanks.

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

[iKenndac]

Clarification:

For 1.0, this will only sync your existing addons between your computers via Dropbox, a file, your own FTP site, etc. It won't manage new addons - you'll still have to install them via existing means. For 2.0 I plan to implement a decent installation/management feature set, the ability to create and share addon "packs" (for custom UIs, etc) and so on.

Also, I'm not sure if/how you managed to get hacked by using Curse client, but there'll be no advertising or web views in this, or any other way for malicious code to get in. After that, well, you'll just have to trust me I guess. Since the app only needs to talk to dropbox.com or your FTP site or whatever, you can safely deny it access to anything else through your firewall (not that it'll try).

[TrickierStinky]

I woudn't mind giving this ago I hate updating twice on my mac and windows boxes would love something like this :D Looks ace!

Pm if you want me to test

[SMELTN]

I'll give it a run, Curse's is kinda awful.. and this looks streamlined.

Will you make it scan wow interface too?

This is NOT for auto updating of addon's when newer versions are available. This is only for syncing addon's when you use more than 1 PC to play wow on

BTW I am ready to give it a go iKenndac where do we get the file?

[iKenndac]

BTW I am ready to give it a go iKenndac where do we get the file?

I just need to do some more testing before I upload it. Should have it ready tomorrow!

[Guest]

Good idea. I dont play WOW but i can see how this would be useful.

How long did it take to make?

[Lexcyn]

I just need to do some more testing before I upload it. Should have it ready tomorrow!

This is awesome. I would like to try this out as well.

One thing - will this also backup your interface settings (ie the World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\%accountname%\SavedVariables folder)?

[Minifig]

Clarification:

For 1.0, this will only sync your existing addons between your computers via Dropbox, a file, your own FTP site, etc. It won't manage new addons - you'll still have to install them via existing means. For 2.0 I plan to implement a decent installation/management feature set, the ability to create and share addon "packs" (for custom UIs, etc) and so on.

Any plans to have it update Addons too?

Having it do an ALL-in-one, would be a deathblow to the curse client.

[iKenndac]

How long did it take to make?

I've been working on it since early-November. I had to write it twice, once for Mac and again for Windows - there's no shared code!

One thing - will this also backup your interface settings (ie the World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\%accountname%\SavedVariables folder)?

Yes. It syncs the Addons themselves, as well as account, realm, and character-level settings. One of the tests I'm doing is syncing a Addon-heavy install (custom bars and keybinds through Bartender4, etc) to a completely fresh install - after the sync, you load up the fresh install, log in, and it's *identical* to the first install. There's nothing particularly clever going on here - just a fairly simple file comparison algorithm - but it sure is nice to have it work with the click of a button. :laugh:

[Lexcyn]

Any plans to have it update Addons too?

Having it do an ALL-in-one, would be a deathblow to the curse client.

The problem with that is all of the content is basically stored on Curse's servers - and they won't allow anyone access to them since they make their own client. You would have to only update addons that are stored on private servers, which would be a task in itself to figure out. Not to mention asking permission from addon authors ...

Yes. It syncs the Addons themselves, as well as account, realm, and character-level settings. One of the tests I'm doing is syncing a Addon-heavy install (custom bars and keybinds through Bartender4, etc) to a completely fresh install - after the sync, you load up the fresh install, log in, and it's *identical* to the first install. There's nothing particularly clever going on here - just a fairly simple file comparison algorithm - but it sure is nice to have it work with the click of a button. :laugh:

Sweeeeeet. I use a lot of key bindings with bartender as well and that would be sick to have it sync like that. Especially if I am using someone else's computer... *drool*

[iKenndac]

Any plans to have it update Addons too?

Maybe in the future. However, it's not an easy problem to solve — I'd essentially have to create my own AddOn directory and ask the AddOn authors to also submit their AddOns to it. There's already a few directories out there and fragmentation is already starting to become a problem - I don't really want to make it worse!

Edit: What Lexcyn said! :laugh:

[treemonster]

looks really cool! i only play wow on one machine though.

as for the curse client, i'm not sure how it can be used to hack your account as long as you get the REAL version. as usual though i wouldn't have it running when you start wow or log into wow through ANY 3rd party program. addons can't hack your wow account btw, from what i read they don't/can't contain what's necessary to do so.

[iKenndac]

Hey guys,

Version 1.0b1 is now available! See here for downloads and more information. Let me know how you get on!

[Lexcyn]

Hey guys,

Version 1.0b1 is now available! See here for downloads and more information. Let me know how you get on!

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /products/teleportaddons/teleportaddonsb1setup.exe on this server.

:(

[Paul]

Same :(

[firey]

that looks really cool, i'll give it a shot tonight.

I'll look more into curse, because as with any file on the internet it can always be downloaded, and so what if you use the curse servers? Just don't make it some super big popular app like WoW Matrix, and if ya do ensure you pack it, and encrypt it, and such.

As expected.. I did a quick poke at their downloading...

They give a url that includes a validation page you go to, stripping that out.. you can get the link to the file directly..

ie) http://addons.curse.com/Curse.Projects.ProjectFiles/7529/485654/ACP-3.3.12.zip

So if you really wanted to, you COULD create a crawler to parse through the curse site, grabbing the project id for each project (used to determine the page / download page), build a database of them then have your client connect to your database to retrieve the ID, have your client connect to the curse site and grab the site source, then parse through the sites pulled data to get the link.

Pain in the butt? Yea, but once you get the crawler and database together, the rest is prety easy, they have specific divs, and specific links and such that you can check for so you know where to look. If ya want I can write something up in C# (Im not sure which language you used) that would do that for ya.

Really not that difficult.