The future of Jamba

[Jafula]

Hello,

I have not had much time to work on Jamba recently. I also can no longer afford to multi-box (single income, child, saving for house, etc). I have been dual-boxing for the last two years only with the intention of supporting Jamba. These factors makes it really hard to test and support Jamba. When I do have the time to play WoW, I actually want to play WoW rather than work on Jamba! I've managed to support Jamba for six years. Thank you to everyone who has donated over this time. Your generosity has been appreciated.

So, it's time for me to let go and move on.

However, I don't want to leave Jamba in its current state. Jamba has become complicated over its lifetime. People have trouble getting a basic setup working. The recent failure of mine to implement cross realm support successfully for everybody has been frustrating for me and I'm sure many of you.

In order to remedy this I intend to simplify Jamba before I move on.

I would like to remove the following features;

1) The communications channel.
This means your team list must consist of characters that are online. You can use profiles, macros or ISBoxer to manage adding and removing characters from a team.

2) Support for characters not in a party, raid or battleground.
Jamba tries to accommodate your characters not in a party, raid or battleground. This added complexity makes it hard to make sure a message has been sent to all the characters and is causing issues.

And update the following feature;

3) Cross realm support.
Characters will be stored with separate name and realm fields. A check box will be added to the team management interface for cross realm support. If you have a cross realm team, you will need to check this box and make sure all the realm names are correct. If you have a same realm team, realms will be ignored. Internally Jamba is going to rely on a characters global unique identifier rather than a name-realm pair.

The following features need to be fixed but I probably won't do them;

4) Quest support is broken due to WoD changes and I have not had a chance to investigate properly.
5) I know that there is a lot more that needs to be fixed.

I want to solicit your opinions on how to proceed from here;

Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above?
Should I just abandon Jamba as is?
Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba?
Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all?
I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone know any multi-boxing WoW developers?
Other thoughts?

Cheers,
Jafula.

[Andreauk]

Totally understand - family/rl comes first.

I myself only used Jamba for the loss of follow warning, auto-repair with guild funds, duel refusal & the auto loot feature as it got round the wow bug with slaves getting stuck on looting. All my macros for interact with target, spells and so on I macro in the game using superdupermacro. So seeing those features stay would be fine with me. I hated the fact that the realm name had to show on the team list.. but I just resized it to squish as much of it out as poss.

Wishing you all the best for you and your family, and thanks for all your work on Jamba.

[ebony]

been with jamba for years now i find it hard to play without jamba but with all the probs i keep getting with it i do feel if its to much time try to get someone to help somehow? maybe talk to lax.


Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above?
sure it could help
Should I just abandon Jamba as is?
Be sad to see it go but it might be better if you can not support it right.
Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba?
n/a
Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all?
would suck now that a lot i know are using cross realms.
I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
ya could be good
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone
100% on this one i wish i could code lua, i played with it in minecraft in computercraft.
Saying that i would love to have a go. I have been hacking jmaba code from the tips u gave me the other day. and got a few more bits to work. And i have a TON of free time.

know any multi-boxing WoW developers?
Other thoughts?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Quest support is broken due to WoD changes? I've been using it and since the auto-turn-in thing was fixed it has Just Worked for me through two teams all the way to 100 and one at ~93. Wonder what option is causing the issue(s).

[Jafula]

Quest support is broken due to WoD changes? I've been using it and since the auto-turn-in thing was fixed it has Just Worked for me through two teams all the way to 100 and one at ~93. Wonder what option is causing the issue(s).

The quest log management section, the Jamba bar that appears when you view the quest log, with track all, abandon all, etc is not working.

[Lyonheart]

Thank you so much for your time Jaf! Your addon has made boxing WoW that much better! It worked well with ISboxer, they are two peas in a pod imo.. I hope someone takes the torch. What would be great is if an MMO addict, like myself, knew coding/programming So Jamba could find its way into other great MMOs ( now and future )

[Moorea]

great work over the years jafula - thanks !

clean up and mit release sound good

I'm a server side dev but I have not much knowledge of lua (am a c++/java dude) and even less in UI design/front end - and quite busy with work - hope someone else has bandwidth for this ! (maybe a mini jamba for isboxer)

[JackBurton]

Give a man a fish and you feed a man for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed a man for a lifetime. Thanks for all your hard work.

[Bloodcloud]

Give a man a fire he will be warm for the day. Set a man on fire he will be warm the rest of his life.

[luxlunae]

Thanks for all of your hard work over the years!

Yeah, definitely cut the not in party/bg/raid support if thats too complex for another dev to take over. Does cross realm support become a lot easier if you can guarantee that everyone is in the same group?

After all these years I primarily use the follow color bars (fucking phased areas) and slave cloned quest turnins. Duel refusal and guild invite refusal are also certainly helpful but not heartbreaking to live without.

[Katestrasza]

First, I wanted to thank you for all your hard work over the years with this add-on. I'm sorry you won't be able to maintain it going forward but your reasons are more than understandable.

Let me try and answer your questions:

Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above? Yes. The primary reason I use Jamba is for the strobe and follow features. The communication feature is very nice because it forwards any messages to my primary character. I don't really use the Questing features.

Should I just abandon Jamba as is? I hate to see it abandoned so I would prefer that you hand it over to someone. I'd like you to please revert the recent changes. Personally I've been using version 6.0.2.3 because the recent changes have partially broken the strobe feature for me. Sometimes it will just stop working for me. I would prefer you simplify it and see if another developer can take it on.

Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba? I love Jamba. Simplifying it will make it easier for another developer to take it on.

Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all? I've been having issues since the last few updates so for me yes. I'd prefer you revert it.

I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone know any multi-boxing WoW developers? As a previous post said Jamba and ISBoxer go very well together. I'd love to see them take it on if that's possible. Maybe contact them and see if they can take it or if they know someone who can. I'd hate to see it just abandoned after all your hard work. I'd prefer a smooth handoff.

Other thoughts? Thanks again for all your hard work over the years. Your time and effort has been appreciated. Good luck to you and your family! ;)

[Masochisto]

Thank you for six years of hard work Jafula. I haven’t been as active on the forums. But I’ve been a member and wow multi-boxer for a very long time, and a user of Jamba since your initial release. I use many more features than everyone else, but probably nowhere near all of the features you have implemented in Jamba. You have had a huge impact on our community and created something that cannot be uncreated. Once you step away, others will step forward out of necessity, and their work will stand on the shoulders of your work.
There is a lot of software expertise in the multi boxing user base. I expect many of us have a programming background or work in a related field. As a software developer and manager of developers, I am impressed at the work you have done and am skeptical any single person can fill your shoes as well as you have.

Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above?
Should I just abandon Jamba as is?


Major code refactors, even when refactoring for simplicity tend to take longer than you think they will and require some support time after the dev team thinks it is complete to shake out all the subtle bugs that creep in. My recommendation would be to take some time to update the code with comments and minor bug fixes but no major refactoring. This is your shortest way out, and allows a more stable state for the developers that will be trying to come behind you. My background is in languages with stronger typing than lua, so *I* think lua would be more susceptible to this than java or c#, but I could be mistaken as I don’t know lua.
TLDR: Open the source as soon as possible; spend your remaining development time on comments and bug fixes.

Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba?


Jamba is pretty complex, and has many features that not everyone is using. If I were the architect I probably would simplify it by breaking it into smaller add-ons that interact, but don’t require one another. This isn’t a criticism, as the work you have done is spectacular. I would not suggest trying to refactor for this now, but as individual boxers hotfix Jamba, or prune it of features they don’t care about and release simpler versions I'd suspect it to evolve in this direction.

Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all?


Just document the parts you think work and the parts you think don’t work. Let users who need to get it working pickup from where you left off, and users that don’t prune it away themselves.

I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone know any multi-boxing WoW developers?


I can’t imagine a Jamba without your direct involvement Jafula. Whichever License you use (I’m not familiar with their particulars) please allow for the use of your code in new add ons with similar feature sets. If *I* were going to pick up where you left off I’d want to do so by starting a new project and copying in the code for the features I cared about so I didn’t muck up the source material. I would not want to feel responsible to maintain all the features you have implemented, but would feel that way if I had to stay within the “Jamba” product.

Other thoughts?


Thank you for engaging the community rather than just disappearing. I personally wish you the best of luck to you in all of your future endeavors, but have confidence you will not rely on luck.

[Jafula]

Thank you to everyone for your replies so far. I have rolled back the cross realm support for Jamba and re-released that what essentially is 6.0.2.3 with a few quest watcher and item bar fixes as version 6.0.3.4.

I have changed the license to the MIT License which is a very liberal non-viral open source license, so developers feel free to use parts (or all) of Jamba as you see fit.

ebony, do you want to take over the curse and curseforge sites for Jamba? The only condition I have is that you leave the MIT license in place.

I will try and finalize up a few more things in a week or so.

[Deimonics the mulitboxer]

How about accept a bg or dungeon with the master or auto accept them. or that isnt allowed?

And thnx for the great work, Jamba has been a main addon for my multibox. And it will always be as long as it works ill enjoy this every day.
But reallife has priority.

[toomanytoons]

Jafula,
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors! Thank you so much for all the years of hard work and support you have provided to the boxing community. As far as your questions.....


I would like to remove the following features;

1) The communications channel.
This means your team list must consist of characters that are online. You can use profiles, macros or ISBoxer to manage adding and removing characters from a team.
Does this mean that I will no longer be able to invite my team using Jamba? That would suck since I don't use ISBoxer being a mac user (hate windows, refuse to use Bootcamp), but I'm sure I would manage.


2) Support for characters not in a party, raid or battleground.
Jamba tries to accommodate your characters not in a party, raid or battleground. This added complexity makes it hard to make sure a message has been sent to all the characters and is causing issues.

Wasn't really aware that this option was in there since I use two different profiles, team and single and switch to single when I run toons alone.

And update the following feature;

3) Cross realm support.
Characters will be stored with separate name and realm fields. A check box will be added to the team management interface for cross realm support. If you have a cross realm team, you will need to check this box and make sure all the realm names are correct. If you have a same realm team, realms will be ignored. Internally Jamba is going to rely on a characters global unique identifier rather than a name-realm pair.

Not an issue for me since I don't run cross-realm teams.

The following features need to be fixed but I probably won't do them;

4) Quest support is broken due to WoD changes and I have not had a chance to investigate properly.
5) I know that there is a lot more that needs to be fixed.

I want to solicit your opinions on how to proceed from here;

Do you want me to make the simplifying changes above? Up to you really.

Should I just abandon Jamba as is? I hope you don't, but the choice is ultimately yours. Hopefully you pass the torch to those in the community willing and able to take over where you leave off.

Do you have a better solution to the current state of the Jamba code base and the usability of Jamba? Wish I could help, but I'm not a programmer of any kind, sadly.

Should I try and revert all the cross realm changes and not have cross realm support at all? Would it be easier to leave it as is? I haven't had any trouble, but then I don't run cross-realm teams.

I will probably open-source the Jamba code (MIT License, not a fan of GPL).
Ideally one or more developers would step forward and be willing to take over the Jamba development including the Curseforge and Curse sites. Anyone know any multi-boxing WoW developers?
Other thoughts?

[Maxion]

I have rolled back the cross realm support for Jamba

Thank you for all the work you have put in over the years!

Though the update today seems to have broken the team list, as I apparently have a bunch of name-realm versions of the team in the list, which I can no longer remove (my team is same-realm), and the real ones then get listed in addition to those, making the team display look very off. :/ Trying to set one of them as master gives the error: could not find area: <name of character>.
Maybe I can find how to fix it in the save data...

[laguy442]

My team list was messed up also. I edited the Jamba.lua file but as soon as the game reopened it set it back to the broken method. Going to see if I can roll back. Otherwise my team is toast for now.

Update: Rolled back to previous version and manual editing my Jamba.lua config file and it worked fine. Not sure I needed to change the config since it might have automagically corrected itself but bottom line is am running again with previous version.

[Bloodcloud]

last jamba release before real stuff was "fixed" is here : http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/jamba/832885

[Jafula]

The last release reverted cross realm support, which means the name-realm pair in your team list will no longer work. You will need to add only the character name back in. As for removing the name-realm pair from your team list, you can edit the following config file.

WoW\WTF\<account>\SavedVariables\Jamba.lua

Find the team list section that looks like (there may be more than one);

["teamList"] = {
["Caaile-Realm"] = 3,
["Caaila-Realm"] = 2,
["Caaily-Realm"] = 6,
["Bootia-Realm"] = 1,
["Caailo-Realm"] = 5,
["Caaili-Realm"] = 4,
},

Remove the -Realm parts from the teamlist and you should be good to go.

Make sure you edit the file when WoW is not running. You will probably need to do it for each account as well.

Edit: You will need to disable ISBoxer management of the Jamba team (sorry Lax) or else it will try and add name-realm characters to the team list.

Edit 2: Try resetting the profiles. That should remove the old name-realm pairs.

[ebony]

ebony, do you want to take over the curse and curseforge sites for Jamba? The only condition I have is that you leave the MIT license in place.


I can try and keep it working when stuff changes (patch's/bugs) thanks for removing the cross realm stuff i need to get my head round the basic stuff before trying to go into deep into that stuff. None else seems to want to do it so i will do my best and try and keep the jamba name going for a few more years.
i have no plans to change license or change names or remove you from the code. You will always be loved!

My name on curse is ebonyfaye

[Jar]

I can try and keep it working when stuff changes (patch's/bugs) thanks for removing the cross realm stuff i need to get my head round the basic stuff before trying to go into deep into that stuff. None else seems to want to do it so i will do my best and try and keep the jamba name going for a few more years.
i have no plans to change license or change names or remove you from the code. You will always be loved!

My name on curse is ebonyfaye

Awesome Ebony!!!! I only wish I could as I am retired and have tons of time. I'm a fast learner Ebony if you would like any help and wish to "show" me stuffs. I used to know some Borlean lol been years tho

[Lax]

Jafula, you are a legend. Thanks much for all of the time and effort you have put into this Addon for the WoW multiboxing community!

[CMKCot]

would be nice to have a lite version, it would be easier to support by a new dev. the only MUST features are the item bar, auto accept invites and maybe quest watcher for those with over 5 toons.

the rest are nice extras, but ones i can live without.

[CDNProdigy]

Jafula, you are a legend. Thanks much for all of the time and effort you have put into this Addon for the WoW multiboxing community!

I'll second that.

I don't use Jamba anymore but I considered it a instrumental part of my multiboxing in the early days. Without it, at the beginning, I would never have honed my love for multiboxing without Jafula's addon.

So my addiction is partly Jafula's fault! :p

[Norrin]

Jamba was the first tool I came across when I first started boxing.
Its one of the only addons that I stilll keep active.

Thanks for an awesome contribution to boxing Jafula.

[Invisahealz]

Thanks Jafula for everything. All the hard work, all the hours and great work you put into your addon. jamba was the first addon I ever used while multi boxing and I continued using it until the day I stopped playing. I probably wouldn't of gotten anywhere as far as I did without your kickass program. Your work is greatly appreciated and I hope the rest of your endeavors, whatever it shall be, goes well! Thank you!

-Invisahealz

[golin]

Just wanted to offer help if needed, have done minor things in lua and can't be without Jamba. If there is some way Ebony that I can be of assistance just give me a shout.

[Jafula]

Thank you everyone for your kind words. I have made Ebony the manager of Jamba on curseforge. From now on, I am unable to make any changes to it.

I am curious to see what the future holds for WoW multi-boxing addons.

[ebony]

Thank you everyone for your kind words. I have made Ebony the manager of Jamba on curseforge. From now on, I am unable to make any changes to it.

I am curious to see what the future holds for WoW multi-boxing addons.


Thanks. i hope i can do well on jamba.

[Ñightsham]

Ebony, thanks for taking over and if changes are made we appreciate you keeping us updated here for this awesome add on.

..... Thank you again Jafula for your previous work and effort on this project.

[Iru]

Thank you everyone for your kind words. I have made Ebony the manager of Jamba on curseforge. From now on, I am unable to make any changes to it.

I am curious to see what the future holds for WoW multi-boxing addons.

Ebony (& Jafula),

I'd stayed out of this thread until now because I didn't have time to commit to this. However, that has recently changed.

Can you send me a PM and point me at the current buglists etc on curse so I can do some digging and see what I can contribute?

PS: yes, I used to write code for a living. Having hacked on Altoholic in the past, coming up to speed on Jamba should be straight forward.

[thefunk]

Jafula you're a legend - haven't multiboxed in over 2 years due to kids etc... but that addon has always been genius. good luck with the future!

[ebony]

Ebony (& Jafula),

I'd stayed out of this thread until now because I didn't have time to commit to this. However, that has recently changed.

Can you send me a PM and point me at the current buglists etc on curse so I can do some digging and see what I can contribute?

PS: yes, I used to write code for a living. Having hacked on Altoholic in the past, coming up to speed on Jamba should be straight forward.


The main topic at the top has a "few" bugs posted the ticket site on curse is a bit of a mass so am going to clear it and start it over.

Ill make a post about the new stuff i got planed somepoint. But for now most of the bugs i know off i can not seem to work out right now are in the quest system
(Scenario (that is what used in dungons now) Would be nice to get added to the quest watcher as well And the random popup quests need to get added as well) there the main things that need fixing/adding right now.) PM me if you wonnted access to the dev curse site.

[Mulb]

Hi,

It will be a great shame to see Jamba go. I consider it to be the ideal complement to Isboxer.
Just handing it over to someone or opensourcing it I see as possibly being a very poor outcome, having watched so many great addons die over the years.

I would implore you to consider doing the following.

1. Leave the free Jamba as is - people can take it over/open source/whatever for the free version. Users who want a free option can take their chances on it.

2. Go forward with a paid version that either you fully support (and receive the income) or that you hand over to Lavish to continue to support (and receive the income). I would imagine a fee similar to Lavish's of say $50 a year. Multiboxers are by and large pretty serious players and I'd imagine you'd get as much support for the paid version as you have for the free. You may even receive enough income to allow you to focus full time on it. You certainly deserve it for the quality product you've produced and the dedication you've shown over the years.

Please do consider this. I'd place my money on Jamba not being usable within the year if you don't go down the paid version option.
I've thought you needed to go paid for years - just to give you the focus to be able to iron out the little things here and there.

Kind Regards and all the best for the future whatever you decide.

[MiRai]

2. Go forward with a paid version that either you fully support (and receive the income) or that you hand over to Lavish to continue to support (and receive the income). I would imagine a fee similar to Lavish's of say $50 a year. Multiboxers are by and large pretty serious players and I'd imagine you'd get as much support for the paid version as you have for the free. You may even receive enough income to allow you to focus full time on it. You certainly deserve it for the quality product you've produced and the dedication you've shown over the years.
Blizzard hasn't allowed add-on authors to charge for their add-ons for almost 6 years now (http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/03/20/new-add-on-policy-makes-selling-add-ons-against-the-rules/). Here's the updated source (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1021053914) from that article:


1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create "premium" versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

[ebony]

Hi,

It will be a great shame to see Jamba go. I consider it to be the ideal complement to Isboxer.
Just handing it over to someone or opensourcing it I see as possibly being a very poor outcome, having watched so many great addons die over the years.

I would implore you to consider doing the following.

1. Leave the free Jamba as is - people can take it over/open source/whatever for the free version. Users who want a free option can take their chances on it.

2. Go forward with a paid version that either you fully support (and receive the income) or that you hand over to Lavish to continue to support (and receive the income). I would imagine a fee similar to Lavish's of say $50 a year. Multiboxers are by and large pretty serious players and I'd imagine you'd get as much support for the paid version as you have for the free. You may even receive enough income to allow you to focus full time on it. You certainly deserve it for the quality product you've produced and the dedication you've shown over the years.

Please do consider this. I'd place my money on Jamba not being usable within the year if you don't go down the paid version option.
I've thought you needed to go paid for years - just to give you the focus to be able to iron out the little things here and there.

Kind Regards and all the best for the future whatever you decide.


Hi i don't know how long you been here, I been playing wow for 6 years, Am not going anywhere I been boxing for a good 5 years since wotlk sometime am not going to quit just like that, If anyone wonted to make a clone of jamba then they can, but the main jamba as it is now and what i been doing over the last few weeks. For now jamba is very safe in my hands!


AND THERE WILL BE NO paid version! right now am not taking any money only what i get from curse that is not that bad to be fair.

[JackBurton]

He's just a troll. he only has one post.
http://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=14629880
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/outland/Mulberry/simple

[luxlunae]

Still against the TOS to charge for addons, regardless.