WITH vs WITHOUT Externals

[saltorio2]

With the switchover of ckknight's addons to Rock this week and the bugs that came with that switch, I've read various comments about updating either with or without externals and automatically downloading dependencies.

I've done some searching, but haven't come across any good resources on the difference between these settings, what the benefits are to the end user of one over the other (I've read about and experienced performance gains switching to without+automatic dependencies), and whether or not !!!StandaloneLibraries is required.

Can someone please explain these differences so there's a reference for we non-developers.

Much Appreciated!

[Xinhuan]

Argh, the question about Externals vs No Externals gets asked so often.

Isn't there some wiki page about this that explains it all?

======================

Lets say AddOnA uses libraryX and LibraryY and AddOnB also uses the same 2 libraries. If you installed these 2 addons "with externals", you would have folders that look like this

Interface\AddOns
--AddOnA
--- Libs
------LibraryX
------LibraryY
--AddonB
--- Libs
------LibraryX
------LibraryY

When you load AddOnA and AddOnB, each of these addons instructs WoW to load the libraries, meaning X and Y both get loaded twice. X and Y are smart enough to know that they are the same library so only 1 copy remains in memory. This is also called "embedding libraries".

======================

If you installed AddOnA and AddOnB "without externals" then your addons folder will look like this:

Interface\AddOns
--AddOnA
--AddonB
--LibraryX
--LibraryY

AddOnA and AddOnB will have instructions in their TOC file to force WoW to load LibraryX and LibraryY first before attempting to load A and B (specifically, A and B will list X and Y as optional dependencies). This means you only load each library once, shortening the loading time when first logging in. This is also called "disembedding libraries".

No matter which way you install your addons, memory usage and performance is (usually) not affected, only the initial loading time. Of course, some people don't like seeing 40 different libraries in their addon folders as "individual addons".

[saltorio2]

Cool. That's basically as I understood it.

Any details on !!!StandaloneLibraries or using "Automatically Download Dependencies"?

Yeah, I was expecting there to be a wiki page on it - especially one attached to the WAU wiki page, but couldn't find anything. If no one else does, I'll take the info in this thread and create a page for it.

[Xinhuan]

Originally Posted by Pasus Nauran

Cool. That's basically as I understood it.

Any details on !!!StandaloneLibraries or using "Automatically Download Dependencies"?

Yeah, I was expecting there to be a wiki page on it - especially one attached to the WAU wiki page, but couldn't find anything. If no one else does, I'll take the info in this thread and create a page for it.

Don't use !!standalonelibraries, it is obsolete.
In your WAU preferences, if you use WAU:

Turn on "Automatic Dependency Download"
Turn off "Default mode WITH externals"

And just choose the addons you want to update/install.

[saltorio2]

[quote=Xinhuan ]
Don't use !!standalonelibraries, it is obsolete.
In your WAU preferences, if you use WAU:[/quuote]

Should probably be removed from the SVN then.

Originally Posted by Xinhuan

Turn on "Automatic Dependency Download"
Turn off "Default mode WITH externals"

And just choose the addons you want to update/install.

Is there any real benefit to using WITH externals, other than not having a bunch of libraries occupying the top level of your addons folder?

[Xinhuan]

Originally Posted by Pasus Nauran

Is there any real benefit to using WITH externals, other than not having a bunch of libraries occupying the top level of your addons folder?

For the most part, no real benefit other than what you mentioned. Library upgrades should always be backwards compatible within the same major version. The main issue most people had was that there is no standard library naming scheme so there are heaps of libraries in your addon folders looking like a big mess.

Library authors are moving towards naming their Libraries starting with Lib- though, so this shouldn't be too much of an issue in the future. But the future is a long way off.

Feel free to make a wiki page with all this info.

[Xinhuan]

The other thing that people need to understand is that when libraries are disembedded, each library is treated as a separate addon with its own memory tracking and stuff.

If you used embedded libraries (installed addons with externals), with the above example of A and B, if A loaded first, then all memory usage of LibraryX and LibraryY will be attributed to AddOnA, even if the memory usage is mostly done by AddonB through the use of X and Y.

This causes a lot of misleading issues on what addons is using a lot of memory, because the addon that first loads an embedded library gets all the memory usage blame.

The instructions here from Seerah is useful as well:
http://www.wowace.com/forums/index.php?topic=8542.0
for converting between embedded/disembedded libraries.

[saltorio2]

Done http://www.wowace.com/wiki/WowAceUpd...HOUT_Externals.

Thanks for the info.

[sylvanaar]

Originally Posted by Pasus Nauran

Done http://www.wowace.com/wiki/WowAceUpd...HOUT_Externals.

Thanks for the info.

<3

[sylvanaar]

Also ACP is sorta designed to work with WAU (though neither requires the other).

http://www.wowace.com/wiki/ACP