Carbonite Notes relying upon Astrolabe

[Kreelor]

Today is: July 19, 2015

I've mentioned the consequences of relying upon 3rd-party authors who fail to update their addons which Carbonite relies upon. I was ignored then. See the following attached image and look at the author's revision date. The listed History of updates on their web site shows that it is rarely updated in a timely manner. It is not encouraging for anyone who wants Carbonite Notes to function properly.

This was copied from the Astrolabe web site.

[mjumnito]

While it is true that Astrolabe has fallen to the wayside, the same thing happened to Carbonite at one point in time. And just like Carbonite, others are stepping up to update/patch Astrolabe via forks. While not perfect (I'll grant you that) it is a work in progress. Lets face it, there will be very few of us that stick around till the end when they shut down the servers and send us packing with a virtual wave. Those of us that do stick around to the end though will always push on and patch/rewrite/takeover where others left off.

case in point http://wow.curseforge.com/addons/astrolabe/?comment=34

[Kreelor]

mjumnito -- Thank you for replying. Your reply was stated very clearly and included several facts which sound encouraging, although approx. dates could have been included. As it is, it is still unclear when Astrolabe will be updated to be functional for use pertaining to Carbonite Notes usage, other addons, and WoW itself before they all go "Poof!". I understand that Astrolabe is in the "GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1)" licensing protocol. I suppose I didn't realize fully just how many people have lost interest in WoW; hence fewer available authors to provide support for addons which so many people used to find desirable. Astrolabe (even with support from qualified authors such as yourself) is falling by the wayside, as you stated. Not even 1 single update for nearly a year, even though Carbonite continues to be updated (although rather infrequently). Yet, it continues to move forward. I am hoping you and other addon authors will find the time to make some significant improvements to Astrolabe. No hurry! I've given up on using "Notes" until it works, but I am looking forward to using it again.

I've been playing WoW since the very first week it hit the shelves for sale. The date on my current wow interface icon does not reflect the reality of when I first joined because I was forced into using a new e-mail address after my previous ISP went "Poof!" and I had to get a new ISP and e-mail address. Neither wow interface nor Blizzard kept track of those records. heh heh. I will probably continue playing WoW until either 'it' vanishes or 'I' vanish with quiet "Poof!" as well!! (big grin). Thanks again for your informative reply.

[ircdirk]

Unofficial Astrolab fork https://github.com/jnwhiteh/astrolabe/ last update 15 march 2015.

@Kreelor just learn lua and make your Astrolab fork with fixes and contribute to Carbonite development. U may also write your own library which will do the same or even better as Astrolabe... eventually u can propose an alternative library to Astrolabe, but i dont see other...

[Kreelor]

Originally Posted by ircdirk Unofficial Astrolab fork https://github.com/jnwhiteh/astrolabe/ last update 15 march 2015. @Kreelor just learn lua and make your Astrolab fork with fixes and contribute to Carbonite development. U may also write your own library which will do the same or even better as Astrolabe... eventually u can propose an alternative library to Astrolabe, but i dont see other...

What? Start from scratch with no prior coding knowledge and learn lua? Sounds redundant to me, since there are already people qualified and capable. If they can't fix the reported issues, then I doubt if I could without extensive experience. If they don't have the time nor the inclination to fix it... then, it must not be important enough.

And, it looks to me that the only changes (NOT improvements) to the code 4 months ago were merely modifying a "revision number" and calling it an "update". I'm not familiar enough with coding to know if anything more relevant than that has been done, but that's how I read it. That's like saying Carbonite is up to date because somebody changes a version number in the TOC without fixing any outstanding issues, etc. Btw, this topic was about Astrolabe and not Carbonite explicitly, except for the fact that Carbonite is depending upon it. I'm not going to be lured into a debate over this. I've already stated that I can wait or do without Carbonite Notes. Enough said.

[ircdirk]

Originally Posted by Kreelor What? Start from scratch with no prior coding knowledge and learn lua? Sounds redundant to me, since there are already people qualified and capable. If they can't fix the reported issues, then I doubt if I could without extensive experience. If they don't have the time nor the inclination to fix it... then, it must not be important enough. And, it looks to me that the only changes (NOT improvements) to the code 4 months ago were merely modifying a "revision number" and calling it an "update". I'm not familiar enough with coding to know if anything more relevant than that has been done, but that's how I read it. That's like saying Carbonite is up to date because somebody changes a version number in the TOC without fixing any outstanding issues, etc. Btw, this topic was about Astrolabe and not Carbonite explicitly, except for the fact that Carbonite is depending upon it. I'm not going to be lured into a debate over this. I've already stated that I can wait or do without Carbonite Notes. Enough said.

https://github.com/jnwhiteh/astrolabe/commits/master more than TOC changes...

And if u dont have coding knowledge and experience, dont be so "smart" and dont write us what to do and what not to do, and what to use and what not to use... Do u even know how long it takes to write this kind of library?

[Rythal]

Carbonite does not rely on astrolab, nor is it an included library.

The only libraries carbonite uses currently are:

Ace3 -- not going anywhere and constantly updated
LibDataBroker -- again not going anywhere, way to many addons utilize it
LibSharedMedia
LibCompress -- Carbonite itself does not use this, but the shared guildbank library does
LibGuildBank -- I'm using a modified version of this and if it breaks, i'll fix it myself.

[Kreelor]

Originally Posted by Rythal Carbonite does not rely on astrolab, nor is it an included library. The only libraries carbonite uses currently are: Ace3 -- not going anywhere and constantly updated LibDataBroker -- again not going anywhere, way to many addons utilize it LibSharedMedia LibCompress -- Carbonite itself does not use this, but the shared guildbank library does LibGuildBank -- I'm using a modified version of this and if it breaks, i'll fix it myself.

So, Rythal, can we place notes onto our maps (as we used to be able to do), or not?

Carbonite used to use Astrolabe ("Notes" was dependent upon Astrolabe for "Notes)" but, you are not using it any longer since they gave up on it. [Reference my previous comments about relying upon 3rd-party addons!!!]

It's been at leat 4 months since your post about this issue and not one word from you about what's going on with it. Has "Notes" been ditched or, are you "still looking at it?"

[jeffy162]

Kreelor, if you had bothered to experiment a little and make some notes (for placement on your Carbonite maps) you would know that you can. You can even pick the icon for the note on the map. I don't know how for you can take this, now, but it works. At least on the normal world maps (maximized and minimized). I don't have any characters high enough level to test it at maximum level spots. Sorry.

[Kreelor]

Originally Posted by jeffy162 Kreelor, if you had bothered to experiment a little and make some notes (for placement on your Carbonite maps) you would know that you can. You can even pick the icon for the note on the map. I don't know how for you can take this, now, but it works. At least on the normal world maps (maximized and minimized). I don't have any characters high enough level to test it at maximum level spots. Sorry.

jeffy162, you intervened instead of Rythal who this message was intended for.

To me, experimenting doesn't make any sense when I've been told that a certain feature will not work. Well, I guess I don't understand. From what I've read, Carbonite Notes (DEV version) is still using Astrolabe -- which is supposedly no longer a 3rd-party addon used by Carbonite, according to Rythal (Ref: his statement "Carbonite does not rely on astrolab, nor is it an included library."). Note: That's his spelling, not mine.

It's too bad nobody has updated the current status of Carbonite and its features and how to work them (or, anything else!). I suppose users are supposed to guess and use trial-and-error to see what works and what doesn't work. Not very professional. I remember when Carbonite used to work flawlessly, but that was a very, very long time ago.

Thanks, jeffy162 for replying to me since Rythal will probably never will. I think he's too busy "still reviewing things" from a year ago.

[jeffy162]

Originally Posted by Kreelor jeffy162, you intervened instead of Rythal who this message was intended for. To me, experimenting doesn't make any sense when I've been told that a certain feature will not work. Well, I guess I don't understand. From what I've read, Carbonite Notes (DEV version) is still using Astrolabe -- which is supposedly no longer a 3rd-party addon used by Carbonite, according to Rythal (Ref: his statement "Carbonite does not rely on astrolab, nor is it an included library."). Note: That's his spelling, not mine. It's too bad nobody has updated the current status of Carbonite and its features and how to work them (or, anything else!). I suppose users are supposed to guess and use trial-and-error to see what works and what doesn't work. Not very professional. I remember when Carbonite used to work flawlessly, but that was a very, very long time ago. Thanks, jeffy162 for replying to me since Rythal will probably never will. I think he's too busy "still reviewing things" from a year ago.

Carbonite no longer uses Astrolabe - if it ever did use it (I don't know). The latest DEV version does not even have Astrolabe downloaded with it installed (doesn't make any difference, I know, if Astrolabe is already installed somewhere in your addons - IF it makes calls to Astrolabe, that is, which it doesn't [not the Notes module, anyway]). Try it out and see for yourself. It's apparently all we can do, right now.

Sorry 'bout the tone of my post yesterday (well, and maybe today). I just wasn't feeling all that well and it slipped into my typing. Still not feeling all that well, so I hope I caught everything (in my post).

[Rythal]

Why would I respond further? You took something being talked about and assumed something completely different. The discussion about astrolab was in regards to Handy Notes not Carbonite Notes, Carbonite has never in it's entire history used it, and saying that Carbonite doesn't use Astrolab was the end of the discussion.

I was making Notes work for people who wanted to use handy notes data in the same manner of gathermate data, and came across the bug with astrolab, it actually helped me find long standing compatibility issue's with addons such as archy and why when using any astrolab addon you couldn't display more then 3 zones before the map stopped responding.

[Kreelor]

Hi Rythal,

Then what does this mean? (see link to a previous topic)

http://www.wowinterface.com/forums/s...8&postcount=31

It is from an earlier post. There may be other posts as well, but I found this one which does indicate to me that Carbonite "DID" use HandyNotes which "DID" rely upon Astrolabe once-upon-a-time. Without up-to-date current documentation, it's hard to tell what's new and what is ancient.

I'm sorry if I am not reading the information correctly. I'm just trying to figure out why things aren't working.

In any event, I tried adding a couple of notes yesterday (11-17-15) as a test. It turns out that I cannot select different (alternative) icons for the notes. Maybe I'm missing something or, maybe I can't do it because Astrolabe used to do it (and, you are no longer using Astrolabe)?

Not only that but, I cannot ever see or find the "Favorites" folder in which you said in your "Docs" would contain certain information, including "Notes." -- I can find no folder named "Favorites" anywhere.

Note: I'm using the latest several-month-old DEV version.

Thanks for you reply.

[jeffy162]

Well, I don't know about the rest of this stuff but I do know how to change the icon for a Carbonite note.

Make your note. Then, on the Carbonite map, right click on the icon for your note. In the pop-up menu you get, choose "Find Note". That will open your "Notes" interface. Right click on the icon for your note and choose "Set Icon". That will open an icon list that you can choose your icon on. Just click on an icon and it will change both in your list and on the map. This is really easy but it sounds complicated (maybe it's just me ).

As far as the actual notes go ... Look in "Path to your WoW folder\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME (or number)\SavedVariables\" for the "Carbonite.notes.lua" file. That's where the notes are.

[Rythal]

That post was exactly what it said it was.. my maps were not loading, and it was Handy Notes causing it, Handy Notes is not Carbonite Notes and a completely separate addon that I was (and do) run as a test to allow people to access other addons information that normally would not work with Carbonite.

Handynotes does not use astrolab any longer, and carbonite has never used handynotes nor astrolab. It was all about compatability between addons so they all work together in harmony.

[Kreelor]

Originally Posted by jeffy162 Well, I don't know about the rest of this stuff but I do know how to change the icon for a Carbonite note. Make your note. Then, on the Carbonite map, right click on the icon for your note. In the pop-up menu you get, choose "Find Note". That will open your "Notes" interface. Right click on the icon for your note and choose "Set Icon". That will open an icon list that you can choose your icon on. Just click on an icon and it will change both in your list and on the map. This is really easy but it sounds complicated (maybe it's just me ). As far as the actual notes go ... Look in "Path to your WoW folder\WTF\Account\ACCOUNTNAME (or number)\SavedVariables\" for the "Carbonite.notes.lua" file. That's where the notes are.

Thanks jeffy162 for your post. Actually, I already knew how selecting the alternate icons is supposed to be done. What happened to me (yesterday) was that it did not work for some reason. It would not present the list of icons to choose from. And, I also got an error message, so I gave up yesterday.

Today, I tried it again and this time is worked even though there still remains an lua error message when attempting it. I've posted the error here. I can live with the error since it doesn't interfere with actually placing an icon on the map. But, maybe somebody can figure out just what the error means.

[Kreelor]

Originally Posted by Rythal That post was exactly what it said it was.. my maps were not loading, and it was Handy Notes causing it, Handy Notes is not Carbonite Notes and a completely separate addon that I was (and do) run as a test to allow people to access other addons information that normally would not work with Carbonite. Handynotes does not use astrolab any longer, and carbonite has never used handynotes nor astrolab. It was all about compatability between addons so they all work together in harmony.

Thanks, Rythal, for replying and explaining it. I misunderstood what you had posted earlier. I understand now that you were only testing HandyNotes and its use of Astrolabe for compatibility as a 3rd-party addon.

I appreciate your reply.