The Mana World Forums

It seems we have a big technical debt and many design issues with our way to download a client for TMW Classic.
An user has to go through classic.themanaworld.org to wiki.themanaworld.org to manaplus.germantmw.de and then choose from a list of file the right folder.

We should trigger the right download directly from classic.themanaworld.org as any extra step might just confuse any new players and drive them away.

For that we have to modify some JS code, it seems none from the active development team know this language and would require some extra help!
If you think you can help you can directly contact us on Discord/IRC or answer this thread for more info!

Reid wrote: ↑31 Mar 2023, 15:46

It seems we have a big technical debt and many design issues with our way to download a client for TMW Classic.
An user has to go through classic.themanaworld.org to wiki.themanaworld.org to manaplus.germantmw.de and then choose from a list of file the right folder.

I'm not updating ManaPlus since a lot of time but I always managed to get it from: https://manaplus.org/
I even compiled it from source years ago.

Reid wrote: ↑31 Mar 2023, 15:46

We should trigger the right download directly from classic.themanaworld.org as any extra step might just confuse any new players and drive them away.

Maybe some advanced user agent detection can point to the "right" download link. Try to think to many devices manufacturers sites that use that trick. I personally dislike that but it works many of the times.
The problem to me is that pages are badly organized as if people are expected to know what ManaPlus and Manaverse are. I'd put a bigger button/link/image/whatever to directly download the only mature and tested client that worked nicely for years and it's known to work for anyone. Then I'd put the other choices for those ones who would like to try other clients or compile their own.

Reid wrote: ↑31 Mar 2023, 15:46

For that we have to modify some JS code, it seems none from the active development team know this language and would require some extra help!
If you think you can help you can directly contact us on Discord/IRC or answer this thread for more info!

Why is JS required?

Livio wrote: ↑23 Apr 2023, 18:34

I'm not updating ManaPlus since a lot of time but I always managed to get it from: https://manaplus.org/

Manaplus is deprecated and no longer the official client since 4144 left TMW. He hasn't updated it since 2021 and I don't think he will ever update it since he was pretty much done with TMW.

https://manaplus.germantmw.de/ < that's where you can find the latest builds of the client we now call Manaverse or just TMW client. It hasn't diverged much from M+ yet but it's the project that is actively supported and accepts contributions.

WildX wrote: ↑23 Apr 2023, 19:36

Livio wrote: ↑23 Apr 2023, 18:34

I'm not updating ManaPlus since a lot of time but I always managed to get it from: https://manaplus.org/

Manaplus is deprecated and no longer the official client since 4144 left TMW. He hasn't updated it since 2021 and I don't think he will ever update it since he was pretty much done with TMW.

https://manaplus.germantmw.de/ < that's where you can find the latest builds of the client we now call Manaverse or just TMW client. It hasn't diverged much from M+ yet but it's the project that is actively supported and accepts contributions.

Uh... That's confusing.
The official and supported client is Manaverse now right?
Why https://manaplus.germantmw.de/?site=3 is pointing to https://gitlab.com/themanaworld/manaplus/manaplus.git then?
Do the fork retained old application name?

https://gitlab.com/themanaworld/manaplus/manaplus is a mirror, so old links remain working.

The official repo is at https://git.themanaworld.org/mana/plus

But to be honest, you should be fetching the client from https://themanaworld.org/Downloads ─ that frontpage exists mostly if you need something specific (e.g. source code) or if something went wrong. It haven't been maintained in a while; the former dev leads always said we have more important things to do (i.e. add new hats!!) than fixing bugs anyway :>

(But yes, currently almost everyone is assigned to a task or have a backlog of tasks to fix, so unless the dev lead shows up and says "hey people could X be prioritized over the rest?" it will likely remain outdated for a while) (for the record, the rest here might be just keeping the websites up sometimes XD)

If I try to think like a n00b I find hard to seek a link that allows me to skip all the boring chattering, things, stories, whatever and go downloading a working client immediately as I enter themanaworld.org.
There's no shortest path from search engine to start playing.
I understand that this project has more important priorities but, well... Contributors usually come out from client users.
Another thing to be nice to have is hash value of binaries.