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10-04-15, 12:01 AM   #1
EyalSK
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Few suggestions that I would really love to see!

Hello,

I've been using WoWInterface since I started to write addons many years ago (back then my nick was Lonny) but in recent years I'm using curse because their facilities seems to be more modern/streamlined in terms of development.

Here are few features that I really like about CurseForge, prioritized from the most important to the less important and yet cool to have.
  1. Bug tracker system and a custom URL to an external system e.g. I'm using GitHub issues.
  2. The ability to disable comments.
  3. Addons are bundled/packed automatically when pushed to the repository.
  4. Markdown support.
  5. That's quite subjective but in my opinion the design of the front-end looks better and there's even a better design coming up with some more features.
  6. Reward program but this doesn't bothers me much, it's cool incentive though.

A features that I would really love to see coming to WoWInterface and doesn't exist in CurseForge yet but is coming in their beta is an option to choose GitHub or another Git server for the repository.

A feature that doesn't exist in CurseForge at all and I would really love to see is an option to "integrate" to some of the GitHub services beyond sources such as issues, history, milestones and wiki.

By integrate I mean providing a way to specify external URLs to different services which can work as follows:
WoWInterface Change Log -> GitHub History e.g. https://github.com/<account>/<repo>/commits/master
WoWInterface Comments -> GitHub Issues e.g. https://github.com/<account>/<repo>/issues
* Milestones-> GitHub Milestones e.g. https://github.com/<account>/<repo>/milestones
* Pages -> GitHub Wiki e.g. https://github.com/<account>/<repo>/wiki

* Means I think that WoWInterface doesn't support/have this feature.

So when a user clicks these tabs in WoWInterface it will create a new div/window or however you may choose to implement it (if it's going to be implemented) and open up GitHub, people may specify different URLs to their own tools but I'm using Git and GitHub primarily for development hence I'm using GitHub for my examples.

Alternatively, you can use GitHub APIs to consume these services but then you will probably need to support Bitbucket APIs and offer a 3rd way through external links just like the Curse guys do it, anyway, any kinda of integration is awesome and I'm sure that many of us will be glad to have it.

Last edited by EyalSK : 10-04-15 at 12:46 AM.
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10-05-15, 12:12 AM   #2
Phanx
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Originally Posted by Lynxium View Post
The ability to disable comments.
You can already do this on WoWInterface. Just use the "Report" button on your project page to contact a moderator, and type in the box that you want to disable comments.

Originally Posted by Lynxium View Post
Addons are bundled/packed automatically when pushed to the repository.
You can already do this too.

Addon Packager Proxy (best way if you're already using GitHub and Curse):
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=51553

Other ways to script addon uploads:
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=51835

Originally Posted by Lynxium View Post
That's quite subjective but in my opinion the design of the front-end looks better and there's even a better design coming up with some more features.
Extremely subjective, as I personally think the beta site is atrocious. It's pretty much unacceptable for any website designed in the year 2015 to not be responsive (eg. usable on different device/window sizes without a horizontal scrollbar) and it's full of tiny and/or low-contrast text. The beta CurseForge site is a little better about color contrast than the beta WowAce site, but 14px is just not an acceptable size for text on the web.

Even if you have perfect vision and only browse on a large monitor in a maximized window and aren't bothered by the above, it's still missing features that have existed on the site for years (eg. a "dashboard" where you can see an overview of new tickets and comments for all your projects) and many pages appear unfinished (despite them supposedly having worked on this for TWO YEARS!) or are a huge step backward from the current design (eg. in the new localization system you can only see 5 phrases per page! and you have to click and load a new page to edit each translation instead of being able to edit them directly on the listing page).

In fact, their new site is SO bad that if it goes live in its present state, it's very unlikely I will continue using any Curse sites for comments, tickets, or posts, and will only continue hosting my addons there at all if I can do it remotely and never have to use the website.

Originally Posted by Lynxium View Post
A features that I would really love to see coming to WoWInterface and doesn't exist in CurseForge yet but is coming in their beta is an option to choose GitHub or another Git server for the repository.
The only functional difference this will make is that when I push changes to my remote repository, I just push to "origin" instead of "all", so I don't think it's really as cool as it sounds at first glance.

Originally Posted by Lynxium View Post
A feature that doesn't exist in CurseForge at all and I would really love to see is an option to "integrate" to some of the GitHub services beyond sources such as issues, history, milestones and wiki.
Issues, absolutely.

Commit history, I disagree. Commit notes are typically quite terse and technical, so they may not be understandable by the average non-programmer, and there are often many commits which aren't of any interest to users. I think it's much better to write a changelog yourself for public releases, so you can list only the changes that are meaningful to users, and describe them in a way that's understandable by non-programmers.

Milestones... I think it's fine for this to stay on a developer site. For one, WoW addons are small and purposed enough that very few addons are going to benefit at all from milestone tracking. Even for larger addons, it's still probably easier to keep track of planned features using issues. For another, it's unlikely users of a WoW addon are going to bookmark your milestones page and check back periodically to see what's coming next in the addon... they're just going to install updates as they become available. I'd guess that the large majority of addon users don't even read changelogs.

Wiki... if your addon is so complicated it needs a wiki, you're probably doing it wrong. If you have optional "tips and tricks" pages or "advanced usage" tutorials, just put links to them in your addon's description. I don't think there needs to be a dedicated "Wiki" link on addon pages.
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10-05-15, 07:59 AM   #3
Kaelten
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Hey Phanx!

Would love to here more specific feedback (or if you've made it I'd be glad to have a link). Many of the pages you talk about are still being worked on, and have plans to be updated before launch.

Responsive won't be here before launch I don't think but it _will_ be coming as well.
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10-05-15, 08:09 AM   #4
Phanx
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Originally Posted by Kaelten View Post
Would love to here more specific feedback (or if you've made it I'd be glad to have a link). Many of the pages you talk about are still being worked on, and have plans to be updated before launch.
http://authors.curseforge.com/forums...eta-wowace-com
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10-05-15, 08:12 AM   #5
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Thanks Phanx! I'll make sure this gets read and we'll do as much as we can. Unlike the last time we did the themes, we have much better people than me and CK doing the front end work
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10-05-15, 08:13 AM   #6
EyalSK
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You can already do this on WoWInterface. Just use the "Report" button on your project page to contact a moderator, and type in the box that you want to disable comments.
Thanks, I didn't know that but I still think that it's nicer to have an option for that.

You can already do this too.

Addon Packager Proxy (best way if you're already using GitHub and Curse):
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=51553

Other ways to script addon uploads:
http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=51835
Thank you but I didn't ask for solutions.

Extremely subjective, as I personally think the beta site is atrocious. It's pretty much unacceptable for any website designed in the year 2015 to not be responsive (eg. usable on different device/window sizes without a horizontal scrollbar) and it's full of tiny and/or low-contrast text. The beta CurseForge site is a little better about color contrast than the beta WowAce site, but 14px is just not an acceptable size for text on the web.

Even if you have perfect vision and only browse on a large monitor in a maximized window and aren't bothered by the above, it's still missing features that have existed on the site for years (eg. a "dashboard" where you can see an overview of new tickets and comments for all your projects) and many pages appear unfinished (despite them supposedly having worked on this for TWO YEARS!) or are a huge step backward from the current design (eg. in the new localization system you can only see 5 phrases per page! and you have to click and load a new page to edit each translation instead of being able to edit them directly on the listing page).

In fact, their new site is SO bad that if it goes live in its present state, it's very unlikely I will continue using any Curse sites for comments, tickets, or posts, and will only continue hosting my addons there at all if I can do it remotely and never have to use the website.
I completely agree, sites need to be designed responsively, regardless, I think that the site itself looks good and in my post I was referring mainly to how it looks, I should have clarified what I meant.

I don't think it's that extreme to have a different taste.

I haven't explored the beta much so I don't have a clue about missing features.

The only functional difference this will make is that when I push changes to my remote repository, I just push to "origin" instead of "all", so I don't think it's really as cool as it sounds at first glance.
That's certainly one approach to make unmanageable things more manageable but it's still better to have a single repo than pushing to multiple ones.

Commit history, I disagree. Commit notes are typically quite terse and technical, so they may not be understandable by the average non-programmer, and there are often many commits which aren't of any interest to users. I think it's much better to write a changelog yourself for public releases, so you can list only the changes that are meaningful to users, and describe them in a way that's understandable by non-programmers.
Commit notes doesn't have to be terse or technical but I get what you're saying, I'm a programmer but authoring addons is not my daily day job, I do that on my free time and so I cut corners when I can and this is a corner I'd definitely cut in favor of other things.

Milestones... I think it's fine for this to stay on a developer site. For one, WoW addons are small and purposed enough that very few addons are going to benefit at all from milestone tracking. Even for larger addons, it's still probably easier to keep track of planned features using issues. For another, it's unlikely users of a WoW addon are going to bookmark your milestones page and check back periodically to see what's coming next in the addon... they're just going to install updates as they become available. I'd guess that the large majority of addon users don't even read changelogs.
Yeah maybe but go figure maybe they will once they will realize they can.

Wiki... if your addon is so complicated it needs a wiki, you're probably doing it wrong. If you have optional "tips and tricks" pages or "advanced usage" tutorials, just put links to them in your addon's description. I don't think there needs to be a dedicated "Wiki" link on addon pages.
An addon doesn't have to be big or complicated to warrant a wiki page or multiple wiki pages.

Sure, I can do that myself but when a developer renames the pages or post new pages she needs to go to each site whether it's Curse/WoWInterface and add/edit these links and not everyone have time to do it, again, a corner I'd cut.


I honestly appreciate that you actually took the time to give me solutions and write your POV but the point of this post is not about me looking for solutions to my problems but about improving the overall experience of WoWInterface, if it was about me then I'd write I need help with something but I wrote about how I feel and why I favor CurseForge over WoWInterface.
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10-06-15, 02:26 AM   #7
Phanx
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Originally Posted by Lynxium View Post
Thank you but I didn't ask for solutions.
Eh, the fact that you're asking for X means you don't know that X is already available, so I don't understand at all why you'd object to me (or anyone) letting you know that X is already available...

However, if your point is that these features should be more visible, then yes, I agree. Reporting your own project to contact a moderator isn't intuitive (though it works that way on Curse too) and it's unlikely most people uploading addons are going to randomly browse the forums and find the packager proxy. The FAQ section of the site could definitely use an update.
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10-06-15, 09:18 PM   #8
EyalSK
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Eh, the fact that you're asking for X means you don't know that X is already available, so I don't understand at all why you'd object to me (or anyone) letting you know that X is already available...
Sorry, wasn't meant to be harsh or anything!

I didn't ask for solutions primarily because I haven't used WoWInterface since I moved to CurseForge and so I'm updating WoWInterface once in every few releases and I really want WoWInterface to improve so I'd use it more often.

The way I look at it is WoWInterface and CurseForge are about the community above all so taking the burden out of dealing with source code and streamlined development can be pushed to places that understand developers and were designed to deal with their needs in terms of managing the code such as GitHub or BitBucket.

The reason I offered external VCS integration is so I can save time updating and managing addons on multiple places and I'm not speaking only about the source itself which like you suggested can be managed with Git itself but also about documentation or wiki pages and comments and whatnot that authors might need.

I'm pretty busy with my work and my degree and I'm sure other authors aren't spending all their time writing addons so making this process easier for us can be quite awesome both for us and consumers.

Yeah, it's exactly my point, make some of the features I suggested more viable and inviting, I'm mean, I didn't even know I can request a moderator to disable comments.

Last edited by EyalSK : 10-06-15 at 10:55 PM.
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10-10-15, 07:27 PM   #9
Seerah
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Don't forget to utilize your Author Portal! Bugs/Feature Requests tracker, ability to post updates for your users, ability to create new pages or link to outside ones, ability to create an FAQ...
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10-11-15, 03:47 AM   #10
EyalSK
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Originally Posted by Seerah View Post
Don't forget to utilize your Author Portal! Bugs/Feature Requests tracker, ability to post updates for your users, ability to create new pages or link to outside ones, ability to create an FAQ...
Thanks but that's the thing, I want to have a central place for tracking issues, a single repository and a single place for posting docs and pages.

I'm self-employed and pretty busy with many other things mainly my CS degree and don't have much time to update Curse and WoWInterface, I no longer even update Curse regularly but GitHub.

I could probably write a build script that does many things automatically but the simple solution is to just point people to my Github repo instead of updating Curse and WoWInterface and that's what I do however there's some things that I think WoWInterface can take advantage of which I pointed them out in my post and hopefully they will realize that it's the right thing to do especially when it comes down to hosting code, external issues and disabling comments.

Github and BitBucket are great for hosting code and they provide everything a developer/programmer needs, I realize that it's not everybody's cup of tea but to some of us it is and it's not only nicer but superior in many ways.

One of the things that really bothers me and I actually forgot to write about it in my original post is the fact that I'm using WoWInterface and CurseForge as mediators to GitHub, I feel like it isn't right to some extent but then again it's much easier for me to deal with the code that's one of the reasons I proposed to use GitHub and BitBucket integration, I know the Curse guys are already working on something like that so I thought maybe WoWInterface can think about it too.

I don't want to sound harsh, I respect both communities of Curse and WoWInterface and I'm one of the first people to use them even though my account doesn't show that but I'm writing this because I actually care.

Last edited by EyalSK : 10-11-15 at 04:06 AM.
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WoWInterface » Site Forums » Site help, bugs, suggestions/questions » Few suggestions that I would really love to see!

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