pjf

And my sprint report for yesterday is up. Many thanks to all the amazing folks who are providing support on patreon. <3 --- Tracking this on github as we speak. This should be a relatively straightforward situation of indexing this as the new FirespitterCore, which with a KS page will be much easier than what we were doing previously. (And everyone who's already using the FirespitterCore will get the upgrades without interruptions.) ~ Paul

CKAN v1.6.15 aka Europa released Changes since v1.6.13: [bugfix] ckan show better escapes URLs (thanks mgsdk) [Feature] ckan show now displays the cached filename (thanks mgsdk) [bugfix] ckan upgrade --all no longer crashes when encountering unindexed mods (thanks RichardLake) [internal] Version comparisons will no longer depend upon culture (thanks RichardLake) [internal] The relationship resolver can now return more information as to why it failed (thanks RichardLake) [internal] Updated SharpZipLib (thanks RichardLake) [GUI] Users should be less able to install conflicting mods (thanks RichardLake) [GUI] Mods in conflict will be highlighted in red (thanks RichardLake) [GUI] Mods in conflict will show mouse-over text on why they conflict (Windows only, thanks RichardLake) [Performance] The CKAN GUI should start faster and be more responsive (also thanks to RichardLake) [Debug] Clients will produce less spurious messages about not deleting directories when not running in debug mode. Since we marked v1.6.14 as a pre-release, this changelog included everything since v1.6.13. As you can see, RichardLake is a TOTAL HERO and deserves all your praise and adoration! ~ pjf

This is an excellent idea, and I agree wholeheartedly. The resources segment of the metadata exists very much so we can expand it with information like this. It almost certainly makes sense to have fields for bugtracker (to report bugs in the mod itself) and package maintainer (to report bugs in packaging). Getting users to use these may be the challenge, but I agree they should exist nonetheless. Thank you.

Because of all the reports of IR being broken when installing via the CKAN, I've gone and fixed it. If it's still causing issues, let me know.

Just a quick note to say that too many people were complaining about installing IR via the CKAN being broken, so I've gone and fixed it. You should now be able to install and/or upgrade just fine.

v1.6.14 aka Ganymede released Changes since last version: [bugfix] ckan show better escapes URLs (thanks mgsdk) [Feature] ckan show now displays the cached filename (thanks mgsdk) [bugfix] ckan upgrade --all no longer crashes when encountering unindexed mods (thanks RichardLake) [internal] Version comparisons will no longer depend upon culture (thanks RichardLake) [internal] The relationship resolver can now return more information as to why it failed (thanks RichardLake) [internal] Updated SharpZipLib (thanks RichardLake) [GUI] Users should be less able to install conflicting mods (thanks RichardLake) EDIT: Some users have reported issues with the GUI not allowing mods to be installed or removed with this release. It's been marked as a 'pre-release' as we work on diagosing the issue. v1.6.15 will be out tomorrow, and you can safely backgrade to v1.6.14 if you experience issues.

v1.6.13 aka Io released Changes since last version: [Feature] Mods can now also be filtered by compatible (default) and incompatible in the GUI. [bugfix] The GUI should no longer try to save its position as "off-screen". [bugfix] Better start-up arguments when launching KSP on Mac systems. [bugfix] Numerous fixes for mono 4. [bugfix] Long abstracts should now have scrollbars. [bugfix] Auto-update failures should no longer crash the GUI, you just won't get the update. [bugfix] The auto-updater will no longer assume you want updates when you really don't. A huge thank-you to both @RichardLake and @mgsdk, who are responsible for the changes in this release!

v1.6.12 aka Tupan Patera released [bugfix] Fewer GUI crashes when unselecting mods (thanks Richard Lake) [bugfix] Fewer GUI crashes when navigating to the relationship tab (thanks Richard Lake) [Feature] Mods can now be searched by author in the GUI (thanks Richard Lake) [Feature] Space will now toggle the currently selected mod in the GUI (thanks mgsdk)

I didn't know they were out yet. You're quite right that anything with a GUI involves extra care under mono, and we're already seeing reports that the CKAN GUI hits issues under mono 4.0.If you're If you're installing the .NET frameworks this weekend, then *please do* keep us posted on how they go. One of the reasons for using C# is the ability to write once and run anywhere, and it would be great if that were actually the case. In particular, both the GUI and the core need to work around a number of mono bugs, and not having to do this any more would allow us to drop a lot of complexity and obtuse ways to doing things. ~ pjf

First of all, a huge thank you to Daz for continuing to be friggin *amazing* at fielding support queries. Secondly, I've written my monthly report for all things CKAN, including development we've done over April, plans for May, stats on how many mods have been indexed, and more. Many thanks! ~ pjf

New release - v1.6.11 aka Vesta https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/releases This fixes the bug that causes the GUI to crash on start-up.

Thank you. It's certainly changed how I play KSP. Oh my goodness. I want so much more than that. I want there to be nagios monitoring or equivalent on all NetKAN indexing operations, so we can see immediately if anything breaks, for any reason. I want a million more tests on all our code. I want hooks into my exobrain that alert people (preferably not me, but probably me) if something goes wrong. I want many things. Of course, the CKAN is an effort that's very much built on volunteer labour. There's *more* than enough work for it to be someone's full-time job. Indeed, the initial sprint (which is *very* noticeable in my github contributions graph) was about 300 hours over 10 weeks. I took a break at the start of this year, and so I'm still catching up with all the changes. One of my current goals is very much to streamline and improve our workflow, testing, and automation. Too late! You've sent us pull requests. We have your name. Mwahahaha! There's a good chance I'll take you up on this, although it may be a few weeks before we're ready. However if you've ever set up an Ubuntu ppa, written a Debian control file, made an .rpm, or written a script for homebrew, then let me know now. As the CKAN accumulates more dependencies we very much want better ways to do installs on non-Windows systems. You are *awesome*, thank you. The fact that folks are willing to support CKAN development financially is a pretty big motivator for me, and the CKAN sprints especially mean that I can knock over some of the more difficult issues that would otherwise not get handled otherwise. Many, many thanks! ~ pjf

v1.6.9 aka Ikraos is out. This version disables certificate checks on ksp.sarbian.com, and is otherwise identical to v1.6.7.

I'm building a new release now which should fix our *new* SSL options. My version of Firefox thinks that sarbian's cert is indeed valid, but unfortunately the CA isn't recognised by libcurl on most systems (including mine), and ironically libcurl doesn't look at the mono CA list. To get things working again ASAP, I'm telling libcurl to just *trust* us on this. No, I'm not happy with that as a long term fix either. To fix things long-term, we should get libcurl to look at the mono CA store. ~ pjf

New release - v1.6.7 aka Ceres Just a quick note to say that CKAN release v1.6.7 is now live. This release contains an overhaul of how we handle downloads on Mac and Linux systems, meaning they should be much more responsive, less prone to errors, and come with more accurate download reports. A huge thank you to everyone who supported my patreon drive, which has allowed me to integrate CKAN development into my work schedule. For those of you want to keep up to date with CKAN progress, you can subscribe to my patreon updates; only the backer reports and special rewards are non-public. I'm planning for my future sprints to work on improving the overall user experience, including making installing easier (homebrew, apt-get, and yum options), better workflow for contributors (this will give myself and others extra buffs going forward), the ability to load the CKAN core into KSP itself, and especially a better workflow for handling issues and questions (we've tens of thousands of users!). Thanks again for all your help, and keep doing awesome things in space! ~ Paul

New testing release solves the problems with Taurus HCV and SpaceY lifters installing for me. I'll consider you awesome if you download this and lets me know if it looks like everything is working as intended, especially if you include your OS details (Mac/Linux/Windows) when doing so.

I've updated the ticket on github, and written a patch which I hope will be merged shortly. The CKAN GUI tries to install a MIME handler so you can click on ckan:// links in your web-browser, and have the CKAN GUI handle them. For some reason the .ini parser (which is part of mono) seems to have issues with the .mimeapps.list file under Linux, although I'm not exactly sure why. The good news is that the warning is essentially harmless (you just don't get the ckan:// URL handler), and so in 1.6.7 it'll be much less scary looking. Aside from this, I understand and share your frustrations. The CKAN has proven to be *very* popular (which is great), but it also means that keeping on top of everything is a really hard task, especially as I took a much-needed break at the start of the year, and our build and release processes also changed during the same period. Our contribution base has also changed, with some of our most active long-term contributors now having significant time commitments in running their own successful start-ups, dominating the modosphere in other games, or jumping out of airplanes. Likewise we've got some newer faces who have been *amazing*, Daz in particular has been utterly fantastic in this regard. The good news for me is that I've been able to put the CKAN on my work roster, meaning I can take time out from work to work exclusively on the CKAN. The first sprint meant we were able to sort out a number of SSL issues on Mac and Linux (which means we should see a new release today), and my next priority is to work through our structural processes in term of workflow, support, and development, as improvements here will give buffs to all future work for everyone assisting with the CKAN project. We also see a lot of questions and issues we see repeated regularly, and so focusing on those will also be a priority; we *really* want to be the CKAN to something that's as hassle free for users as possible. So please, do stick with us while we're going through our current growth phase, we very much want to fix our current batch of issues too! ~ Paul - - - Updated - - - You rock. I can reproduce this using CKAN, and the underlying libcurl library. It looks like the library expects URLs to be fully encoded (spaces -> %20) before being passed, whereas the .NET web client doesn't care. Writing patches now.

Ahoy everyone! Thanks me spending 12 hours today in a code sprint, I've got what I hope to be a build which fixes the troubles on Linux and Mac where we see certificate errors, timeouts, long install times, and the like. If you'd like to test it you can find it here. On Windows it should work exactly the same as before. On Linux/Mac it should be much faster when it comes to installing multiple mods at once. If it all works out (please tell me if it does, along with your operating system) then I'll do the official release dance and release it for real. I am alas behind on the forums again, but hope to catch up soon! Keep being amazing, ~ Paul

Release time! v0.30 - Static Cat Electric charge is now free! (You still have to pay for the batteries) (thanks awang) Avionics no longer locks when a craft meets its minimum crew requirements. (thanks chrisl) Avionics from non-command parts now count towards total avionics. (also thanks chrisl) Download from our releases page, or via the CKAN. ~ pjf

For everyone who's reported that the CKAN index hasn't updated recently, you're right, it hasn't! I've tracked the problem down to the indexing bot looking for the new libcurl libraries that netkan uses for talking to KerbalStuff, and not finding them. I've installed the libraries on our new server, and have sprung our indexing bot into action. All the updates are in place, but I'm still working on migrating the automatic updates over to the new server, so updates may be a little slower than usual for the next day or two. Thanks again to all my patreon supporters, your support and well wishes in particular means I'm catching up on everything CKAN for this weekend's coding sprint, including filling in my knowledge of the infrastructure and its workings. Many thanks, and all the best, ~ Paul

So, first of all, a huge thank you to everyone who's supported me on patreon! Time for me to catch up with as many questions as I can! The CKAN is a free and open source project that's run entirely by volunteers, but very few of the most active ones own Macs. I would *love* to see a more friendly implementation, and while I'm not at all familiar with what's required to make an `.app`, I'd absolutely appreciate any guidance you might have. I'd also love to see the CKAN installable via homebrew, which can ensure we've got all the dependencies required, too. Gosh dang it. We're in the process of shifting infrastructure now that we have sponsorship from AWS, but I'm not 100% sure of where the indexing bot is at. I've shot nlight an email, as making sure my head is wrapped around the current state of play is pretty important for my coding sprint this weekend. The resulting error from this looks like an SSL unhappiness, which is the big thing I'm working on fixing this weekend. Make sure you've got the latest client (1.6.6 at time of writing) and either apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev or yum install libcurl-devel as appropriate for your operating system. I know Ippo has made some mileage towards Debian packaging, but it seems like we're at the stage that we'd do well to get the CKAN incorporated into a few of the major Linux distros out there, which I hope shouldn't be too hard given how many folks play under Linux. All the very best, and keep being amazing! ~ Paul

Doc_Ruby, you are *AWESOME*. I started a rather poor FAQ a while back. If you want to extend/expand/be the FAQ tsar, then I would be *delighted* with that. I can make sure the FAQ gets a prominent spot in the top-post so people can find it, too. (Free github account required to edit the FAQ, but no special knowledge otherwise needed.) If you need a hand at all, let me know, and I'll be delighted to help. (PMs will reach me quicker than forum posts.) Thank you again, you are AWESOME! ~ Paul

Hey folks, just a quick note to say that the CKAN indexing bot was surprised by RealFuels changing its directory structure, and so hadn't indexed RealFuels v9.0, resulting in a number of the bugs reported in the last few pages. This is now fixed. If you've installed RealFuels via the CKAN, you can use it to update to RealFuels v9.0 and rejoice! Much thanks, ~ Paul

The Past and Future CKAN It's been almost five months since the first version of the Comprehensive Kerbal Archive Network (CKAN) was released. What started as a desire to make it easier to install and manage Kerbal mods has now turned into a system that's used by tens of thousands of users, along with hundreds of contributors to our metadata and code. The CKAN has been a huge success. Last month, I posted saying that we were looking for an infrastructure sponsor to help us with our growing needs, and I'm delighted to say that search has been successful. We're very grateful to Amazon Web Services for their ongoing support. With the help of AWS, we're not only ensuring that mods are indexed quickly and our code is continuously tested, but we're also mirroring thousands of past and present mod releases. We're looking forward to future CKAN clients being faster and more reliable than ever before. Our biggest challenges at the moment are not technical, but instead time pressures faced by many of our key contributors. All the CKAN developers work on the project in their spare time, and we have some outstandingly talented people. However that means they're also starting companies, running successful businesses, jumping out of airplanes, or having rich and varied lives that compete for their time. In order to ensure the continued development and support of the CKAN, I'd like to move it out of the things I do when I have spare time, and instead into the things I do as part of my job, with regular code sprints, scheduled work days, progress reports, and accountability. I run my own software consultancy, so having the CKAN as part of my job is entirely possible, but it means turning down other projects to make time for it. To see if this is possible, I've created a patreon page to support my CKAN development efforts. I've already got co-working space and a huge amount of coffee booked for the 12th April, so if we hit our first funding milestone by that time, it will be the first CKAN sprint. Regardless of whether we make the funding goals or not, I still intend to work on the CKAN during my spare time as I always have. However if successful I'm looking forward to being able to devote more and regular hours to CKAN development and support. For everyone who has contributed to the project, thank you for helping make it the incredible success that it is today. It's been a pleasure working with you, and I look forward to doing even more of the same in the future. If you'd like to support me in developing the CKAN, or simply learn more about my plans, please visit my patreon page for more information. Many thanks, ~ Paul (CKAN project founder)

New release time! Latest Changes (v0.29 Thomas the Tank Tweak) RealFuels v9.0 recommended Fewer Null Reference Exceptions in the editor Avionics messages are more likely to appear Certain tank types require tech unlocks to use, including: Service modules unlock with early orbital rocketry. Life Support tanks unlocks with survivability Balloon tanks unlock with general rocketry (TL1) Cryogenic tanks (balloon and regular) unlock with the first set of hydrolox engines Electric propulsion tanks unlock with electronics Structural and fuselage tanks (which are heavier) are available from the start. Default tanks are always available. Requires RealFuels v9.0. (Earlier versions will still work, but all tanks will be available from the start.) Download from our releases page, or download/update via the CKAN! ~ pjf