Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCurse Client for Mac
by Eliah Hecht 
Apr 22nd 2009 at 11:00AM
Curse Client for Mac has been a long time in the making. With the 3.0 version that came out recently, they finally have a client that appears to run (on Intel/10.5 Macs, anyway), even if it does display a wxWidgets error upon first launch (which can safely be ignored). I've been using it to manage my addons for the past week in order to bring an informed review, so here goes.
The first thing you notice about Curse Client is that it just doesn't look like a Mac app. It's got these weird tabs up top with icons in them, the main icons for initiating events are unfamiliar and un-Mac-like, and it summons odd progress bars that float on top of all your other windows in the lower-right-hand corner (odd progress bar depicted at right).
However, if you can get over all that, it actually works quite well for keeping your addons up-to-date. It scans my directory of about 100 addons pretty quickly and fetches information on any release-quality upgrades (or whatever level of upgrading you set as your preference) that are available, downloads and installs them efficiently, and lets me get on with my playing.
Another feature I find convenient is the ability to handle "install via Curse Client" web links. Being able to install a mod with one click from a web site is nice, especially for an addon junkie like me. This feature does not appear to work if you click a link while Curse Client is not open. It does launch the client, but the addon never downloads and installs (despite the presence of a progress bar).
On the other hand, there are still some things about Curse Client that do not please me. Foremost is its unnecessary invasiveness. I don't want an icon in my menu bar whenever I have the program open (at right), and I don't want Curse Client to start up every time I log in; I just want to update my addons every so often. I can change the start-at-login behavior from the preferences, but the default (to start at login) is wrong. There isn't any way to remove the useless menu bar icon that I know of.
I'm also told that the Windows client by default installs an addon that mines your data and uploads it to Curse, which is unacceptable behavior, but this isn't the Windows review, so I'm not going to say any more on that point.
The icons, which seem to be the primary interface for most actions in the client (checking for updates, installing addons, removing addons), are less than intuitive, and are certainly non-standard. I would like to see more standard Mac OS interface elements in a future version. And what's with swoopy-arrow meaning "update all addons"? I'd like to see multiple overlapping arrows, or something like that.
There is one big functionality issue. For a substantial minority of mods, even if they're on the Curse site, they turn up as "unidentified" and have to be re-installed via Curse Client before you can update them automatically. I don't know what the deal is with that. And of course mods that aren't on Curse don't show up in the client, but there's not much to be done about that.
So, Curse coders: if you can fix the non-sensible defaults, get rid of the menu bar icon, improve the icons, solve that wxWidgets error, stop cluttering up my screen with progress bars that should be in the main window, and figure out why some addons aren't being detected, you'll have a great client on your hands. Until then, it does the job, and that's really what matters.
Download Curse Client at Curse
Filed under: Add-Ons
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Drahliana Apr 23rd 2009 3:14PM
Addons can easily however contain executables within them. How many people actually check the folder contents?
Quijamabub Apr 22nd 2009 12:46PM
Over the last few weeks I downloaded only 3 things. addon updates through the curse client. Itunes for my new ipod, and 3.1. Long story short: Last week I come home from work with 32 trojans detected. I lock the firewall and quarantine them, my computer shuts down and my registry was eaten. I needed a full system restore. Hard lesson learned.
Arcus Apr 22nd 2009 1:00PM
First Mistake : Just browsing the web will infect an unpatched and improperly protected windows machine. Downloading and installing programs is probably the least likely place you got them.
Amritrao Apr 22nd 2009 1:02PM
That sucks, Quijamabub. I'm really sorry to hear that :(
And on a much less sever yet still related note, my spam load has literally quadrupled since I joined Curse in order to take advantage of its favourites function. Never ever will I install the client now.
sprout_daddy Apr 22nd 2009 1:12PM
Installed Curse client. Created a log in to use it.
No spam, no trojans, no issues (knock on wood).
I wonder if it's really Curse or something else that's causing all these issues, because from what I can see in the current client, there is little happening that is likely to cause any real issues on most macs using standard protection options. But if you're worried about it phoning home, use Littlesnitch or similar.
tfrlaey Apr 22nd 2009 2:20PM
I've been using curse client for a little over a week now.
It is still buggy.
And feels like a thrown together Port (which it is)
I don't feel like they really wanted to make a mac app they just didn't want to loss potential advertisement loss due to WM
and this was there fast fix for it.
the limitations and bugs are due to a port we all know that is not the way to make things.
Now for something curse wants to make money off seeing there pushing this addon will be a subscription how can they offer a port that just plan wrong.
the one thing i must say is it is limited to just curse.
If they can add a RSS download feed via add update link for addon's or something along those lines so none curse addons can be updated also from add on developers own sites and so forth. This would push the addon it self foward.
I under stand this is a company that provides a service but you guys are trying to change gears a bit and produce a product. People have to want you product not forced into use it because they like your service. If you can not produce a good product then higher someone to do it for your or don't lock and limit your self.
There is a demand out there it the ground running and meet it. Before someone else does.
Eid Apr 22nd 2009 2:07PM
I'm glad we have this, I used wowmatrix, but NEVER liked it, a closed source app that has gold apps all over it was hard to trust fully. WUU (http://sourceforge.net/projects/wuu) was tempting, but I never really liked how it felt. While I feel for the likes of Curse and WOWInterface give me my addons in the way that is convenient for me, and sorry, but that does not involve browsing your site on a daily basis...
I've not had any problems (including the error on start up) with this app. It quickly recognised my addons, though I did have to do that manually. Fingers crossed it gets developed further since it can still use some polishing...
Eid
Etinfall Apr 22nd 2009 4:32PM
to Eid:
/quote
I'm glad we have this, I used wowmatrix, but NEVER liked it, a closed source app that has gold apps all over it was hard to trust fully.
/end quote
I have been using Wowmatrix for over a year now and I have never seen a gold app. Wowmatrix has 3 one line text adds at the top. No graphics, no flash adds, nothing of the sort. Most of the adds were leveling guides for WOW, ie. how to make 700 gold in a day or something like it. Or how to level 1-70 in a day blah blah. But these were small and hardly noticeable.
Curse website has so many adds and scripts running that my scriptblocker (NoScript) has a field day with it. And it is all for Curse to make money. I saw a add-on author post on curse forums that he has never seen a penny from Curse. Curse replied that they get free access to their "Premium Service", even though they have not begun to charge for it.
People have said, Wowmatrix is evil and thieves for stealing from Curse. All they did was see a market to create a app that helped download add-ons from many different websites. The added 3 lines of adds ( you really think Wowmatrix is getting rich of 3 one line text adds?), I seriously doubt it. Curse is just unhappy that people were not coming to their web site and generating revenue from their adds. Maybe rightly so, but Wowmatrix saw what customers really wanted and created an app to do it.
And now that Curse and WI have blocked Wowmatrix, they are making an effort to get the add-on authors to host thier add-ons with them. I actually write to the authors of the add-ons I like asking them to use Wowmatrix as well. I even give the link to Wowmatrix's page.
Michael Apr 22nd 2009 2:23PM
Put me in the "no PPC support = fail" group. Curse should have addressed this before the WowMatrix lock out. From what I've seen so far about ALL of the issues people have with the lock out, Curse responds by getting defensive. It's almost like they can't quite comprehend why most people don't see them as the "good guys". Time to get some perspective, Curse.
Charlie Apr 22nd 2009 2:25PM
The CC was very unstable and buggy. I recently tried the latest and it still isn't working that great.
I didn't really appreciate having to sign up for an account to do anything and then reading the "coming-soon Premium accounts" made me uninstall it. They will cripple non-paying people to download addons.
My best experience by far has been WM. It just worked. A pity the corporate greed has taken hold of curse and it is the users who suffer.
Phil Apr 22nd 2009 2:27PM
You can download addons with CC w/o being premium. The premium just gets you the ability to auto-updated, last they announced anything about it.
Phil Apr 22nd 2009 2:27PM
The Windows version doesn't install the addon by default unless you blindly click through the installer without reading - there's very clearly an option to NOT install the addon, which I chose, and to not use Curse's profiler, which I also chose.
Stormsinger Apr 22nd 2009 2:32PM
So far I'm surprised how well the Mac client is working for me. Getting that error on startup was scary, but now it's perfectly solid. I went through and identified the mods it didn't figure out on its own, reinstalling a few to make sure it was in sync. Now it feels very smooth.
UI-wise, it looks like almost every program made for macOS by pc people. They make stabs are the ui, but they don't nail it. Still, knowing I play on the red headed step child of gaming machines I accept that. Plenty of useful little utilities have the same visual quality. What matters to me is that it is perfectly functional. I don't need an elegant UI to click a button, wait for download and then quit :-)
I'm mad Apr 22nd 2009 5:42PM
Curse = FTL
Frank Apr 22nd 2009 3:34PM
still won't make me use curse. : P
wowmatrix FOREVARRR!!one!1
bradv10 Apr 22nd 2009 4:12PM
command dragging an icon in the menu bar sometimes works to remove an icon
Sejast Apr 22nd 2009 8:23PM
I know WowInsider has covered a lot of different add-ons by topic, but any chance of a "Curse Alternatives" article or two for finding add-ons with similar functionality to the most popular ones hosted on Curse?
artifex Apr 22nd 2009 8:30PM
From what I recall, the Curse Profiler also is set up for install in the Mac version. I don't think it's evil; it can be disabled easily. I actually was hoping to see my character info show up, but Curse doesn't yet have the website end ready for that.
BTW, I was unaware that WoW itself is supported on PPC Macs, so I was surprised to see people asking why there is no PPC version of the Curse client :)
And for those of you who only update after a patch: at least every week one of my addons has an update or a patch, sometimes a big one. It just makes sense to run this every once in a while.
Kody Apr 23rd 2009 1:32AM
Hi all,
Kody from Curse here. Thanks for the feedback so far; I wanted to respond to a few comments.
UICentral - This is not a Curse property and never was; it was the updater run by IncGamers.
CTRL + W closing the client window rather than changelog - Thank you; noted and passed on to the developers.
Update All's icon not really conveying what it does - Agreed. Also noted and passed on to the developers.
Using your email address - We will only do this if you give us permission to, and it will only be for whatever you opt-in for. We've had this in place for well over a year now, and I'm sure you can ask any of our 1 million+ registered users if they've ever received emails for something they don't want, and they'll tell you no. The primary use of this is to send you daily emails about anything updated in your Favorites list.
Eliah, thanks for giving the client a proper review. Hopefully we can take all of the feedback from your review, comments here, and other reviews and improve the client (both Windows and Mac) in a timely fashion.
Cambro Apr 23rd 2009 3:58AM
Great to know someone at Curse is reading and responding. I haven't tried the product yet, but I have an additional feedback from one of the screenshots...command-F = "Open Client"? Where in the world did that come from? For how many years has command-O been the "Open" standard for Mac, and control-O the standard for Windows? I could kinda see command-F if we were talking about "Open File..." but really...command-F should be "Find" like it is on almost every Mac application with a search feature. Please use standards. :-D