Introducing BukkitDev, a new service by Bukkit and Curse!

Discussion in 'Bukkit News' started by EvilSeph, Aug 24, 2011.

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  1. Offline

    EvilSeph

    [​IMG]

    BukkitDev is the missing link in the project management chain prevalent in the Minecraft community. The popular solution of making use of forum software - something designed specifically for single-threaded discussion - leaves developers painfully scavenging through threads made up of hundreds of pages simply to get to that one bug report you finally addressed. It is all very tedious and time-consuming; time lost that could be better spent doing what you love - bringing to life those mad, awesome ideas you have running around in your head. With BukkitDev, each project has their own mini-community and tools that developers are free to moderate and make use of; per-project issue trackers and forums are just a few of the advantages BukkitDev has over using a traditional forum based solution.

    As detailed below, BukkitDev provides you with a complete project management solution that makes maintaining and updating your project a breeze. While many of the things BukkitDev has to offer were what we planned Fill to eventually be, there is no way we would be able to achieve the level of maturity and polish that BukkitDev currently has without the support and backing we now have from Curse. Moving forward, with the support of Curse, we are able to provide the community with some much-needed resources and support that we simply could not do alone. Thanks to Curse's support, we can now confidently provide stable, long lasting download hosting to every project within the community and since this takes advantage of the extensive and powerful Curse.com distribution platform, the reach and exposure your projects have will increase significantly. Since BukkitDev makes use of the Curse.com platform, your Bukkit community accounts won't work - you will have to use Curse accounts instead.

    The Bukkit Project has been about giving the community what they need from day one and with Curse backing the project, we're now provided with a unique opportunity to make that happen. With the help of Curse we've been in active discussion and working closely with Mojang to help them with testing and provide us with the ability to have updates ready shortly after a Minecraft update goes live, reducing the amount of downtime the community run servers face to virtually no time at all, allowing you to experience the full update in your own time and not ours.

    Looking toward the future, the Bukkit Project hopes to work with Mojang and Curse to continue to provide the Minecraft community with the tools they need to continue to make magic happen. As a first step, we're offering the BukkitDev service to client modders to help manage and promote their project just as efficiently as server modders can. We hope to expand this service in the future by exploring the possibility of providing a central client mod base with the cooperation and support of Mojang.

    Presentable project page:
    [​IMG]

    Issue Tracker:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Per-project forums and pages:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Other improvements over our current implementation for plugin releases:
    • Multiple authors per project with permissions handling (for example, you can have a Project Manager, Project Owner, Documenter, Translator, etc).
    • Per-project subscriptions so people interested in your project can follow its progress.
    • Curse provided hosting for your downloads
    • Extra exposure through Curse.com, a high traffic content hub for Minecraft, as well as other games.
    While it is still a little rough on the edges, both Curse and Bukkit are committed to providing the Minecraft community with the best solution we can offer developers to make sharing, managing and supporting their projects as smooth as possible. Please feel free to get your project up and running on BukkitDev (http://dev.bukkit.org) and let us know what you think of the new system (please report issues you have with the site here: http://www.curseforge.com/projects/curseforge/tickets/)!

    If all goes well, we hope to have this new site up and running in place of the unwieldy forum solution we currently employ as soon as possible. Once the majority of the active projects within the community have moved over, we'll be pushing towards phasing out our temporary forum solution.
     
  2. Offline

    Celtic Minstrel

    ...what's the difference then between the Minecraftforum account and the Curse account?
     
  3. Minecraftforum may have its own account that is just linked to your Curse account.
     
  4. Offline

    Belf

    For me http://dev.bukkit.org/ is down 99% of time, I can access one or two pages and then I can't access it...
    Is it just me ? (I have to use a proxy to access it...)

    Also, it seems that the DNS zone has a bad configuration.

    Edit :
    If I flush my DNS records every time i have a problem dev.bukkit.org is up again.
    On windows in cmd type :
    ipconfig /flushdns
     
  5. Offline

    Gabriel333

    curse is also blocked at my work...

    i have the same problem i cant use my nickname on curse - somebody has taken it... there are other games than bukket/minecraft on curse.See www.curse.com -this is the reason why we have problems... :mad: at the moment my plugin cant be found... :'(

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
  6. Offline

    Chronx6

    Why is this not better integrated with bukkit's main site? It should have been integrated by user accounts (even if on initial log in it requested you change your handle), we should be able to 'watch' bukkit dev projects, we should be given links in the forum section of bukkit to the bukkit dev forums of our watched projects, ect.

    Bukkit dev is good for developers and in a lot of ways users. The way it is now though is causing problems and breaking the community up.
     
  7. Offline

    oglop


    yes I agree, dev bukkit is great Idea but users database should be implemented from original bukkit
     
  8. Offline

    Evenprime

    I don't get how the file approval process is working. I never had to do anything with curse, so I'm a complete noob with this. Can somebody please explain? Who exactly is approving files, when, and how is it done?

    E.g. I upload a new "NoCheat.jar" file. What happens next?

    - Is somebody decompiling the .class files inside and reading through its contents, searching for malicious code?
    - Is somebody going through my git repository last changes and hoping that the .jar only contains those changes?
    - What if there is no source code available (closed source)?
    - Are virus scans run on the file? (pretty pointless for .jar files)
    - Is somebody just looking at the file, going "Oh, a jar. Can't do anything with that." and just approves it without further investigations?

    To me it looks as if the whole file upload/approval process is made to perfectly fit WoW plugin developement, not arbitrary game modifications developement.

    And a related question:

    If I don't want to use the file upload feature and rather use an external hosting service (dropbox), how could I still notify players through dev.bukkit.org about the new version of my plugin?
     
  9. Offline

    Denney

    I'm curious about this to because of the "will not syndicate" message on my project page. I have no intention of hosting anything on BukkitDev.
     
  10. Offline

    Drakia

    @EvilSeph I have s few questions/concerns. First off, I was looking at the submissions guidelines and saw this:
    this was in regards to file uploads/names. One question is am I required to upload my releases to DevBukkit? I would much prefer to keep them hosted myself.
    And on that note, you require The CB build in the filename. This is a terrible idea as I can have one version of a plugin that works for 10+ RBs, yet for every one I would need to upload a "new" file and wait for approval?
    As for approval for uploads, what is the purpose of this? We didn't need approval for new versions on the forum, it's going to take hours at the least to get new files approved, so why is it a requirement?
     
    Samkio likes this.
  11. Offline

    Celtic Minstrel

    @Evenprime – I can't enumerate everything that goes into the approval process since I'm not one of the ones who does it, but I believe one thing they do that you haven't covered is to check the forum to make sure that you're the author of the plugin.

    I agree with Drakia on build number in the filename.
     
  12. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    hmm... why not put the README.txt as Official Download and another download link to the plugin?

    people.... relax.... work WITH the system not against it.. I know change being pressed upon somebody is NOT good... but sometime change is necessary

    Everybody needs to learn the new system... devs and admins... and I guess with good feedback the system can be enhanced..

    well.. they should be still in the old place... didn't you make bookmarks? :oops: joking aside... I also have some old plugins which still work but are not updated anymore.

    Honestly I don't want them to be moved over... only if a new dev picks them up or the old dev comes back... give it time.

    See it as an automatic purge... an evolution...

    and hopefully with the new stuff we also get better submission guidelines and requirements...

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
  13. Offline

    Taranis01

    @EvilSeph
    ...didn't seen the guidline update yet. May i ask what the purpose of the whole filename-guidline part is? I really don't understand it.
    Provide some additional fields for version and CB build (CB build edit-able without new upload) for each upload, don't make unnecessary work for server owner which need to cut this part out of the name/delete the old .jar.
     
  14. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    I think the forums is a MUST and the tickets should depend on the developers perrogative (?)

    ... usefull subject lines are user driven though..

    I think everybody needs to learn it... People who post heeeelp as topic... well they NEED help.. but that help has nothing to do with bukkit or the plugin.

    IMHO plugin devs should FORCE people to post usefull subject lines or to use the BugTracker / Ticket system correctly by using the powers they have.

    If somebody has a subject of Help... tell them to open a new thread with a meaningfull subject and close the thread, point to tickets if people ask questions about issues... and perhaps even guide them a little.

    For a lot of developers the amount of capabilites is not needed.. but for the more common and bigger one I think it is the right way.

    There is always a bumpy ride ahead if you change something dramatically... just wait for space travel..
     
  15. Offline

    Evenprime

    I didn't read that about the file names before. But now that I have, I'm confused about what is meant with "filename". bukkitdev allows to upload a file, and give the Download a different name.

    I used this with the idea in mind that my files are all called "NoCheat.jar" (as I have done up until now), and just give the downloads unique names. Like this: http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/nocheat/files/

    Is that now the correct way to handle this, or should I have named the file "NoCheat_v2.00_CB1060.jar"?
     
  16. Offline

    Taranis01

    @Evenprime
    i guess and hope the download-name is meant - that would make my problem with it solved :)
     
  17. Offline

    EvilSeph

  18. Offline

    Rigby90

    Who exactly is approving files, when, and how is it done?

    Currently there are about 10 of us who have access to the approval queue. We're trying our best to keep the file approval queue empty and to respond to approvals quickly so you don't have to wait.

    Project approvals did slack over the past 24-48 hours as the guidelines were written up and then readjusted after we gained feedback from the community. Projects require more attention than the individual files as we have to set a standard to make it easy for server administrators to browse the system.

    If I don't want to use the file upload feature and rather use an external hosting service (dropbox), how could I still notify players through dev.bukkit.org about the new version of my plugin?

    I don't think there is a method, the idea behind uploading your files to Bukkit Dev is that there is one host for everything and that people can add your plugin to their favourites and can easily check to see if it has been updated.

    Out of curiosity what is it that is making you want to use an external service? It is just the hassle of uploading a file to a website or is it the approval process?

    I've been working on a simple Java utility that uses the Curse API to upload files from your desktop or a script, I'm hoping this will ease some of the load and make it easier on plugin developers to get their file onto the system instead of loading up the website all the time.
     
  19. Offline

    cyberdude

    The filename bukkit build is just STUPID as ****. What about the hundreds of plugins that work with new builds, do we now have to upload the god damn same file again and again in order to show that it still supported by the new RB. That is just dumb... With the file approval you will get 1500 file approvals withing a day or two, how long is that not going to take?

    What about the 43 issues on leaky?

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
  20. Offline

    Rigby90

    If no files are hosted on your project then your project will be stuck in the "Planning" stage and therefore will not syndicate over to http://www.curse.com, meaning it will not be visible to the public on their system.

    I was wondering if you would mind sharing why you don't want to use the Bukkit Dev system for hosting?

    If you have any suggestions or concerns regarding the system then please let us know.

    Those issues have been looked into and passed on to Curse, hopefully we can get around to replying to those tickets to at least put some peoples minds at rest.

    I believe there's been some confusion with the term 'File Name'. Hopefully we can adjust the wiki to better explain it.

    There's the File Name which is the name of the file on your operating system.

    Then when uploading your file there's a name field -
    [​IMG]

    This is the name which should contain the version/build numbers. The wiki may need to be adjusted to state the "Upload Name" instead as I suppose that is more appropriate.

    As you can see, the 'Game version' field is now available which will allow you to select Minecraft Versions and Recommended Builds.

    Lastly the system has been released to the public so everyone can get to grips with it and we can get feedback and work out the kinks. The guidelines and such are not set in stone currently and are a WIP.

    How you've done it is the correct way, I believe the Wiki needs changing as there is some confusion as to what the 'File Name' is.

    There is now a Game Version field which has been populated and is selectable when uploading Files.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
  21. Offline

    cyberdude

    @Rigby90
    There are many reasons not to host on Curse, but what I've read so far (and my own):
    - People have their own stuff on their own servers, so they are in control.
    - Using Dropbox especially usefull for providing WIP/Beta//Test/Dev builds on, it's easier to just compile into your dropbox folder, and then it's a done deal, no uploading, no waiting hours for approval.
    - The approval process, taking hours.
    - ^Which means it's no longer possible to release bugfixes within minutes, last minute bugfixes
    - Some don't like giving their work to Curse because they don't trust Curse or is in dispute with their policy.
    - Freedom to decide. It's our creating, we decide where we want to host. If I want to host it on a server on the moon, it's my decision.
    - I want to be in control of the file, If I decide tomorrow the file should be deleted, I should damn well be in position to delete the file from the host. Does that seem possible with Curse, no?
     
  22. Offline

    Rigby90

    Regarding 'File Names' I believe I answered it in one my replies a couple minutes ago. Basically what is meant by the file name is the name field in the upload window. However this may no longer be an issue as the 'Game Version' field has now been populated and you can select the CraftBukkit/Minecraft versions from it.

    As stated previously the approval process is a 'Curse' policy which we have to adhere to.

    We didn't need approval for new versions on the forum, it's going to take hours at the least to get new files approved, so why is it a requirement?

    As I already mentioned file approvals are not that much of an issue, once you have a project established on the system file approvals are quite easy and there should be no reason to go hours without it being approved.

    If the file is legitimate and there's no problems with naming or any other problems that arise then the approval is pretty simple and should go by quickly.

    Why is what a requirement? The approval queue? If so Curse Policy.

    - People have their own stuff on their own servers, so they are in control.

    I first thought this, I loved using my own dedicated server as I got loads of stats from it and I could see how the versions were being downloaded etc. However this is just an epeen stat for me, it provides no real use. A benefit to it being hosted else where is it's a load off my back, I no longer have to worry about my own servers uptime.

    I have also used DropBox briefly in the past. However the service to me is sometimes flimsy and at the time of it being my only download link I had people complaining of the download link being down...

    - Using Dropbox especially usefull for providing WIP/Beta//Test/Dev builds on, it's easier to just compile into your dropbox folder, and then it's a done deal, no uploading, no waiting hours for approval.

    I agree it is a nifty feature, which is why I'm working on a simple Java utility to ease the upload process.

    - The approval process, taking hours.

    Where are you getting these figures from?

    The only reason for an approval to take its time is if there's any doubts about the file or project. Which really there shouldn't be. Also this is why we've spent the last few days working on a FAQ and Guidelines which we're still ironing out. This will ease the approval process as we wont have to keep denying projects for a lack of a decent description.

    - ^Which means it's no longer possible to release bugfixes within minutes, last minute bugfixes

    Again I agree this was a slight concern for me to start with. However as with the previous answer, there is no real reason for the approval queue to take so long.

    - Some don't like giving their work to Curse because they don't trust Curse or is in dispute with their policy.

    I have only seen the odd person kicking up fuss regarding their policy, what most people don't realise is Bukkit would of had to adopt a similar Policy/ToS if they had continued with the Fill Project. Also Curse are currently reworking their ToS after some people raised their concerns.

    - Freedom to decide. It's our creating, we decide where we want to host. If I want to host it on a server on the moon, it's my decision.

    Fair enough.

    - I want to be in control of the file, If I decide tomorrow the file should be deleted, I should damn well be in position to delete the file from the host. Does that seem possible with Curse, no?

    You should have a 'Delete File' option with the File tab.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
  23. Offline

    cjc343

    I'd rather be able to provide an external link because, as you mentioned in a later post, you can do things like run awstats against your server logs and get beautiful bar charts filled with information about who's downloading your plugin, from where, and when. Being forced into uploading a new file that only provides a simple download count decreases the accuracy of and utility of the stats I gather from hosting the plugin myself. If bukkit provided the same level of stats as awstats, I wouldn't have this problem. If bukkit allowed me to link to a version which allows me to continue using awstats, I wouldn't have this problem.
     
  24. Offline

    Drakia

    @Rigby90 I do not like the Curse TOS and find it gives them too much power over my files/projects. I will never upload my releases there, and I doubt a TOS change will change how I feel.
    I don't like Curse, and I don't trust Curse with my projects, especially with how this whole switch went down.
     
  25. Offline

    Ahniolator

    @Rigby90

    Although I see why people are raising points about all of these issues, which are surely significant and personal to them, the only real thing that annoys me about BukkitDev right now is the file approval process. I've got an established project up and released a few updates for it, but even after the project was approved it still takes 2 hours or more for my files to actually be approved. For example, I've uploaded the official release of my SunBurn plugin taking it out of beta. I'm extremely disappointed with the approval time because as of now, it's been over 9 hours since I've uploaded it and it still has not been approved. I've read their policies and believe than in order for people to use their system effectively their policies must be very close to the ones they have now.

    One thing that I do find odd is: We aren't allowed to use the plugin name along with the version number when we upload the files. Is there a reason that we are allowed to use v1.0 but not SunBurn v1.0 in the file name? Edit: Reason I say this is because since the time of uploading, it has not yet been approved but the SunBurn portion of the name has been removed since I uploaded it.
     
  26. Offline

    Rigby90

    Ok thanks for sharing, some others have already expressed their concerns over the lack of advanced/more in depth download statistics.

    Apologies for it taking this long, as stated we were going over the submission guidelines and how projects and files should be named. So this put a real hault on the approval queue and we're in the process of dealing with those that have backed up. I've now gone through and approved your files.

    The upload name should only contain the version number because the project name is often prefixed onto the file name on certain pages, so it would be listed as "SunBurn SunBurn v1.0". Which for some may get confusing and also makes the site look like a mess on long named projects such as mine "Multiverse-Core Multiverse-Core 2.0-b244" :(

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
  27. Offline

    Ahniolator

    That makes more sense now. Thanks for clearing that up!
     
  28. Offline

    GarretSidzaka

    why bother bookmarking when i have such a good list here at bukkit
     
  29. Offline

    Ahniolator

    Another quick question: What are the limitations of using html on the project pages? If we can use external css files we could create very similar web pages throughout each project that we have (should we have the knowledge of html enough to do this), or even between the individual pages within each project with little effort on our part if there are few limitations.
     
  30. Offline

    cjc343

    I'm currently unable to see the project management box which used to appear at the top right when viewing the overview page. I was attempting to modify the project name to no longer include the current version etc but cannot do so with this box missing...
     
  31. Offline

    cyberdude

    First off, thanks for the answer :).
    However I don't agree on this part, as there are other people that also seems to disagree on this.

    I would not appreciate running yet another Java application taking a double digit amount of memory just to ease the upload process. I am already running DropBox which does the job for me (And alot of other people also).
    Just easing the upload process doesn't really make much of a difference. It would still somehow require an UI where version information and bukkit build would be entered. This is not easing the process of having a "Latest dev build" download option.

    From my own file uploads.
    I also believe that part of the problem is that I can't update my thread to reflect the changes in the new version in the meantime while waiting for approval. If I do this, the post/project will not reflect the current available download, which can lead to a lot of headaches from users complaining about functionality not working (Because really the functionality might not exists yet, when the user downloads his version).
    I don't have an endless amount of time, so I can't sit around and wait for the exact moment the file is approved to update the project description. This means that the file might have been approved for hours or days before I can get a chance to update the project description. Again in this time, the project description might not correspond to the version the user downloaded and thus might not work as prescribed in the project.
    Even 10 minutes approval time would still be an users, albeit less of a chance.
    I can't wait to read through all those lovely message from users complaining the plugin doesn't work (because they either have a version that is newer than the description, or older, this even if they just downloaded the newest version available to them)
    And believing that you will be able to continually minimize the approval time is naive. At the same time as you promise the time will be as minimal as possible, you explain that you were very busy and thus as anhilator explains that the process has already taken 9 hours. What about in a month? What about christmas time, new year, summer holidays. Time difference? Have you covered all 24 hours of the day? What about when a new RB comes out, and hundreds (1000+?) plugins will be updated in the matter of a day or two.

    But it does ;)

    I'm not really concerned about the Curse ToS, but I noticed that a lot of people is. I think it's basically about being in control of their own project.

    :), As above, it's about control of our own projects.

    Thank you :). That helped. +1

    http://dev.bukkit.org/wiki/knowledge-base/markup-types/#w-safe-html

    It doesn't seem to support any <link> or <style> tags. Which means it properly doesn't support any stylesheets, it seems it doesn't even support the style attribute and thus doesn't seem to support any CSS at all.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2016
    Taranis01 likes this.
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