Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Curse Client Linux Alternatives For Updating World Of Warcraft Addons

Curse Client is an addon management tool for games such as World of Warcraft and others, which unfortunately doesn't work on Linux.

World of Warcraft WoD Ubuntu

Installing a World of Warcraft addon is easy, you must simply extract a zip into the game's AddOns folder however, updating them manually is pretty time-consuming, even if you only use a few addons, because you must check if the addon has a new release, then download the new version, extract the zip - all of this manually and for each addon.

That's why I searched for a Curse Client Linux alternative that works with the latest World of Warcraft (Warlords of Draenor) and I found a couple of such tools which, even though are not perfect, can automatically update all World of Warcraft addons via curse.com, and I though I'd share them with you.

Important notes: both Curse Client Linux alternatives below only support World of Warcraft. Also, they don't support searching the curse.com WoW addons database from the application so to install addons, you must add their URL (lcurse) or short name (jcurse) - that's not required when updating addons though.

I should also mention that WowMatrix is a tool similar to Curse Client (for WoW only) and it works on Linux, but it uses its own database, which lacks many addons (in my test, only one of the 5 addons I use was available via WowMatrix), that's why I searched for Curse-compatible alternatives.


lcurse: a Python "Curse" compatible client for Linux (GUI)


lcurse is a Python "Curse" compatible GUI client for Linux initially developed by ubuntuusers.de's user JörnS and then improved by Thilo Cestonaro.
lcurse Linux Curse.com client

lcurse features:
  • install, remove or update World of Warcraft addons via a GUI; 
  • supports installing beta addon versions;
  • you can install Addons by addon name (with autocomplete) or Curse URL;
  • import/export addon list;
  • configurable World of Warcraft installation path and concurrent threads.

To install lcurse in Ubuntu or Linux Mint (and derivatives), you can use the main failsdownloads PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lcurse
If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the deb from HERE or grab the source from GitHub.

Installing addons is very easy: the first time you start lcurse, click "Update Catalog" - this gets a list of all the available addons from Curse.com. This can take quite a while but only the first time as it's much faster after that. Then, click "Add addon" and enter either the addon name (this field uses autocomplete so typing just a few letters from the addon name should list the addon you want to install) or the Curse.com addon URL, click OK and that's it:

lcurse Linux Curse.com client


jcurse: a Java "Curse" compatible client for Linux (command line)


jcurse is a command line Java tool to install and update World of Warcraft addons on Linux, via curse.com, developed by ubuntuusers.de's user otakun.

jcurse features:
  • install or update World of Warcraft addons from curse.com via command line;
  • supports installing alpha/beta addon versions (as well as stable releases, of course).

Note that jcurse (unlike lcurse) doesn't detect addons that are already installed so you must reinstall them via jcurse to be able to update them later on.

Because jcurse requires Java 8 and OpenJDK 8 is not available in the Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04 repositories, I didn't package the application.

To install OpenJDK 8 (JRE) in Ubuntu 14.10 or 15.04, use the following commands:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre
For Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04, you can use THIS PPA to install OpenJDK8 (not tested).

Also, for any Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint version, you can use the failsdownloads Oracle Java PPA to install the latest Oracle Java 8:

After installing Java 8, simply download the latest (version 1.0 at the time I'm writing this article) jcurse from HERE and extract it in your home directory. 

The first thing you need to do to be able to use jcurse is to set the World of Warcraft installation path:
cd ~/jcurse*
./jcurse --set-wow "/path/to/World of Warcraft"
(the first command above navigates to the jcurse folder and it assumes you've extracted jcurse in your home directory)

For example, to set the path to the default World of Warcraft installation folder, use:
./jcurse --set-wow ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft"
(add quotes if there are spaces or precede the spaces with "\")

You can now proceed to installing/updating WoW addons. To install an addon, use the following command:
./jcurse add ADDON_SHORT_NAME
where "ADDON_SHORT_NAME" is the addon short name which comes after "/wow/" in the curse.com addon URL. For instance, if the curse.com addon URL is http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/deadly-boss-mods, for the command above you'd have to use "deadly-boss-mods" (without the quotes).

To update all the addons, use:
./jcurse update all

To see all the available options, simply use the command below:
./jcurse

Also see: How To Install World Of Warcraft In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint (W/ Fixes, FPS Optimizations)
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