Introducing dl.bukkit.org!

Discussion in 'Bukkit News' started by EvilSeph, Feb 13, 2012.

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  1. Offline

    EvilSeph

    [​IMG]

    As our project has grown, we've noticed areas where we need to work on and have actively been listening to the community in order to improve. When CI began experiencing difficulties keeping up with the heavy load we experience on update days, I saw this as an opportunity to update our distribution model to bring it more in line with the level of quality that the community has grown to expect of us. The fact of the matter is, CI / Jenkins was not designed to be used as a means to distribute our work to non-developers. This is clearly evident the moment you visit the site as it isn't clear what is the latest download and how do you go about getting to it, among other things.

    Introducing dl.bukkit.org, our solution specifically designed to provide what CI did and more, wrapped in polish, ease of use and an intuitive setup and efficient enough to handle the high amounts of traffic we regularly see from day to day. I am absolutely proud and honoured to finally be able to unveil what we've been working on the past month or so and hope to explain why our new solution is better suited for the community.

    On the surface, dl.bukkit.org, presents you with a landing page that gives you precisely what the average user of our product or prospective users of our product want: a link to the latest download and some helpful links in an attractive design. When designing the landing page, we wanted to appeal to the consumer, rather than the developer. We wanted to provide consumers with a clear indication of where they need to go to get the latest download link and feel we have achieved that with inspiration from Mozilla's Get Firefox page. On top of this, we wanted to provide users with obvious links to answer their most pressing questions so that no one feels lost when trying to get started with Bukkit.

    Of course, we've made sure to provide the resources people have come to rely on:
    Latest Recommended Build RSS Feed:
    http://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/craftbukkit/feeds/latest-rb.rss

    Latest Recommended Build download permalink (wget friendly!):
    http://cbukk.it/craftbukkit.jar

    Check out http://dl.bukkit.org and let us know what you think, or read the rest of the article to find out what it has to offer.

    Thanks for your continued support and we hope you like our new download site as much as we do! As is the case with anything Bukkit, we intend to actively iterate and work on dl.bukkit.org and value any feedback, comments and constructive criticism you may have.



    But that's just the tip of the iceberg. We knew that we had to out-do everything that CI had to offer or the advanced users and our developers would never feel inclined to switch over. With the large feature set that we've developed on DLB, I can confidently say we've done that and more and I am sure you'll agree. By clicking on the small "Alternative Versions" link, you'll get access to the true power of DLB. The problem with CI was that it was designed as a build manager, whereas DLB was designed, from the ground up, with the needs of our community in mind.

    Every build we compile is made available in a helpful list with colour coding corresponding to the type of build, clear markings if we consider a build broken and recommend you do not use it and an easy to access download button so you can get the build you want and go right back to running your server. Instead of having to navigate to each individual build to get useful information and access to the downloads like you had to on CI.
    [​IMG]

    Clicking on a specific build brings you to a page filled with useful information and links: the Git commit associated to the build (with a link to it), the MD5 checksum for the build and the status of the build. Unlike CI, we made sure to provide next and previous buttons that didn't change their position, so that it is easy for you to switch between builds without having to continuously chase those buttons around.
    [​IMG]

    As well as a Git commit log and API changes listing:
    [​IMG]

    For those of you who relied on CI for its changes view, don't worry, we provide that too:
    [​IMG]

    Another awesome feature DLB provides is the ability to compare any two builds:
    [​IMG]
     
    nicoxxl, tomash345, robinjam and 39 others like this.
  2. Offline

    Bertware

    I am currently using a PHP script, that uses a combination of the search function and stripping the page. Though , a simple download link would be handy indeed :).
    However, I really like it!
     
  3. Offline

    Malchus

    Very impressive.
    I love it!
     
  4. Offline

    Dinnerbone Bukkit Team Member

    You're aware we have an API for programs to use, which would tell you the download link of the latest dev build? :D However, for both you and Jamy - http://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/craftbukkit/get/build-1930/craftbukkit.jar

    http://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/craftbukkit/get/latest-dev/craftbukkit.jar


    See http://dl.bukkit.org/about/ for both info on the API and info on what you can stick in that part to get different versions (latest-rb, build-123, etc)
     
    Jamy likes this.
  5. Offline

    Bertware

    I wasn't aware of that :p
    However, thanks a lot, as it is really usefull :D
    *opening programming environment to implement API*
     
  6. Offline

    Dinnerbone Bukkit Team Member

    There's a link at the bottom of pages with an API view of that page, for ease ;D
     
  7. Offline

    obnoxint

    A Java utility class would be awesome. If someone would like to write and publish such a class, I would highly appreciate it. I don't feel experienced enough in Java network I/O, except for RMI and socket connections, and I also don't feel like teaching myself in the topic of HTTP in Java right now. So if someone likes to do it, don't forget to tag me when you're done ;) .
     
  8. Offline

    Dinnerbone Bukkit Team Member

    I'm going to leave such an exercise up to the reader - we'll gladly link to a class if anyone wants to contrib it. The website isn't written in java and so we don't actually have much excuses to justify spending time on it, when we're busy enough as it is :(

    Sorry!
     
  9. Offline

    obnoxint

    That's ok. I wasn't expecting specifically you to write it, if it should have sound like that. I just wanted to point out the important part (for me at least) of the informations. I appreciate, that you're ready to promote a solution if one pops up, though. Thanks for it.

    Because of your last post I found this: http://dl.bukkit.org/api/1.0/downloads/projects/craftbukkit/artifacts/
    Shouldn't be too hard to download and parse this file. Maybe I'm doing it myself, but I'm sure others will be faster than me.
     
  10. Offline

    rufust

    Love how you guys strive to do what's best for the community. Another donation coming your way!
     
  11. Offline

    DrBowe

    Beautiful. This is one of those things where you don't realize it's a bad system, until a much better system gets thrown in your face and you realize how bad the old system was.

    Bravo.
     
    hammale likes this.
  12. Offline

    martinherrmann

    i like it. clean and simple..
    but a way to fire foxy button for me :D
     
  13. Looks really nice. Very clean design! Good work.
     
  14. Offline

    generilisk

    I noticed the permalink didn't have a "-r4" tagged on the end, although I didn't try to download through it. Does this mean going forward I won't have to edit the .bat file every time I update craftbukkit?
     
  15. Offline

    JixaFlix

    Bukkit you're doing great! Thanks to the whole Bukkit Team for the hard work you bring to the Bukkit community!
     
  16. Offline

    Grovert11

    Of course :p My6 stupid mistake!

    EDIT: Btw, what does the beta functioin in the auto-uodater mean? Which versions are the beta verrsions?
     
  17. Offline

    monotonehell

    dl.bukkit.org looks very nice. However I may be missing something here, I used to get ScrapBukkit and ChatBukkit from Jenkins. Where are we supposed to source those now?
     
  18. Offline

    Dinnerbone Bukkit Team Member

  19. Offline

    Super Jamie

    I like curl better than wget, you can use curl to display a short download progress meter or just a progress bar as part of scripts.

    Progress meter:

    % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
    Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
    0 604M 0 1701k 0 0 615k 0 0:16:45 0:00:02 0:16:43 654k

    or just the bar with -# switch:

    ####### 10.9%

    As http://cbukk.it/craftbukkit.jar uses HTTP 301 and 302 redirects (which is the correct way to make a link like this) you need to use the -L commandline switch with curl, which re-issues the HTTP request with the new link the 3XX redirect provides, instead of just seeing the redirect (curl's default behaviour).

    For example: curl -L -# -o craftbukkit.jar "http://cbukk.it/craftbukkit.jar"

    Hope that helps someone.
     
  20. Offline

    venom1113

  21. Offline

    LimitedWard

    THANK YOU! Now I can actually understand what I'm reading ;)
     
  22. Offline

    Barozine

    Wow! The new page looks great and is very streamlined. This page is a great start for people who are new to Bukkit. However I have some suggestions, which might make it more effective.I think it would be easier and more inviting if the links on the right led to a page which described it's features.

    1) "Unleash the Potential"
    -Let's look at this page, as an example http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/features/ .
    -The page clearly defines what Firefox does. It tells of the possibilities that Firefox has, and it shows it's features in a simplified way. It is very helpful for a new user, who has no prior experience with Firefox.
    -Now let's compare it to the closest link - "Unleash the Potential".
    -The Bukkit link "Unleash the Potential" merely takes you to the plugin catalog. This can be confusing for a new user, because they will not completely understand the plugins.
    -When you click the link, you should be brought to an 'introduction' page which shows all the features and possibilities that Bukkit has to offer. It would show how someone can create a completely unique server with many interesting and fun plugins to experiment with. This entices any new user, who will then be interested in using Bukkit.
    -This link should be on the top, because it should be the first thing that a new user should read. In comparison to books or movies, the "Unleash the Potential" link is the 'hook' - you use it to get users interested so that they will delve into the program.

    2) "Getting Started"
    - This should be the second link, following the 'hook'. Since the wiki page is kind of confusing at first glance, new users will be dissuaded from trying to create a Bukkit server simply because it looks confusing. As with "Unleashing the Potential", I think this link should lead to another page, where you can tell of how easy it is to install and manage a Bukkit server. This page would lead to various wiki links, from initial server installation, configuration, plugin usage, and management.

    3) "Join the Community"
    - Similar to the first two links, this one will lead to another page. This page should describe, in simplified terms, how you can receive help, contribute to plugins, and communicate with others.
    -This should be combined with the "Getting Help" link, because actually using the help forums requires an account, and this "joining the community."

    Of course, these are just my ideas. However, I think that my suggestions will help new users by creating a more welcoming and simplified environment where they can take their first steps into Bukkit.

    Hope I helped!:D

    TLDR; I think it would be easier and more inviting if the links on the right led to a page which described it's features.
     
  23. Offline

    EvilSeph

    This is in line with what we had planned from when we were first designing DLB, but we needed to get a first iteration out as it was holding back the promotion of R4. We plan to iterate, support and improve DLB well into the future. While the response to DLB has been incredibly positive and overwhelming, there are definitely areas that we can improve on and are planning to do so.

    Thanks for the feedback, we hope to incorporate some of it with our next iteration in the near future.
     
  24. Offline

    xXGravyPopXx

    Is there a reason none of the links work though? :p
     
  25. Offline

    NuclearW

    Cannot reproduce. Sure it isn't an issue on your end?
     
  26. Offline

    Gravity

    It was down for about 5-10 minutes, then came back up.
     
  27. Offline

    NuclearW

    Well that would make sense. Our apologies xXGravyPopXx
     
  28. Offline

    Nirojan

    Today I decided to make a server.
    And what good server doesn't have bukkit, amirite?
    So I went to get bukkit. But I received a 404 link.
    I am dissapoint.
    How do I get bukkit nao?
     
  29. Offline

    EvilSeph

    Sorry for the delay in getting it back up. I got an alert it was down, checked twitter and noticed the time: this is around the time when we would have our scheduled restarts, so I thought nothing of it. Turns out this happened just after that and the site was still down, so I brought it back up.

    https://twitter.com/EvilSeph/status/173672987155898369
     
  30. Offline

    NullCity

    Now it's easier to find the latest development build.

    :) and the latest stable version for my plugins
     
  31. Offline

    junwin

    It appears the dl site is offline, getting the following for the address http://dl.bukkit.org/

    404 Not Found


    nginx/1.0.4
     
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