Bukkit

I have a suggestion that should please all users (developers, Curse devs, and users):

Allow a larger list of compression types (zip, rar, gz, bz2, maybe a few other popular ones) and after the file is uploaded have the curse server convert it to a zip archive.

This allows devs. to use their own format and the user sees a zip file that all OSs work well with.

I contend that: We have interoperability issues with Curse.com of a complexity that would do some DoD/Interprise level projects justice.

The design of Curseclient is, in part, driven by the requirements or the websites with which it works.

Ergo, we need standards.

In the beginning we need just ONE standard compression algorithm. It was chosen to ease working out implementation and design issues of the broader system.

ZIP seems to be that standard.

From a personal point: I would like to be able to get ALL of my files in ZIP format. I dont like the WinRAR program because of a couple of fleas in the user interface. I want to buy and maintain just one compression pgm, WinZIP or a reworked WinRAR.

I love what the Curse people have accomplished and encourage them to keep on keeping on.

Tbh. rar files are perfecly handled on MacOS. Anyway, I understand the reasons, but I'm not totally happy with the choice. Limiting to one and only one format is never good. There are many open source libraries that support more than one format and about antivirus... they open almost every format, excluding just some very new stuff.

Sry but I have to say what I think. Defining "bloating" the support for some more archive types is quite strange since the curse client itself is kinda... full of optional features.

Are you using the InfoZip library? If so, that supports both zip and gz, as both are based on deflate. (zip is really a multi-file version of gz with headers to allow extending it to include other compression types.)

Afaik rar support is not very good on any os other than windows, including Mac's, which makes a great reason to not allow rar's. The only other solution would have been to embed the 7zip libraries in the curse client imho.

You could leave .rar at least. It's the most popular format right now (at least for Windows) and most rar extractors support .zip as well. Not sure about Linux users, but I bet they're not happy about leaving .zip only neither.

Only allowing zip files is a sound decision in my opinion. I know there's people that care about that extra 5% or whatever compression you can get with other formats, but I guarantee the vast majority of users don't. They just get pissed off about getting a file they can't decompress.

... and those few bytes NOT saved is curse's bandwidth problem. They're the hosting site, after all.

And, yes, it's also a very good move for Antiviral purposes; most scanners don't speak 7zip, ace, et al.

zip file are supported by default in windows, that probably weighted in the decision.

it's also a good thing for AV process.

Good decision. I hate to install an obscure decompressor program just to install some addon. Also, the compression efficiency really shouldn't matter much in the case of addons...

cheers, mitch

Erm... this kinda sucks. 7z is MUCH smaller than zip and rar is faster to extract and, I find, far less likely to implode leaving you with a worthless archive file.

How about if the curse client attempting to use the built in tools on the client machine?

Or is the Curse Client still only windohs only?

not sure if its possible but instead of having client side support for it maybe support it server side (when one of those get uploaded they get repacked into a zip file)