Wabbajack 3.0 Development Update (Patreon)

Time for another update on the progress of the massive 3.0 update. In the past few weeks, the remaining backend systems have been completely moved over to the new 3.0 codebase. Thanks to the power of modern C# and WASM this means that we are now running the same codebase on all our backend servers, the CDN, the wabbajack.org website, and the new discord bot. That's right, if you go to https://www.wabbajack.org the code that loads the modlists and displays their contents is exactly the same as what runs in the desktop app.

The one remaining thing to convert now is the app itself. Progress there is moving along. As part of this rewrite we're switching from CEF (custom Chrome build you have to bundle with the app) to WebView2 (custom Chrome build that comes with Windows) meaning a reduced app size. As a bonus WebView2 is *much* faster of a browser and just works better all around. It should be noted, this new UI is really just a port of the old WPF UI to run on the new 3.0 code. Work is still continuing on the Blazor backed, cross-platform UI, but that's slow work involving a lot of time by other people who have a lot on their plate at the moment. My plan here then is to get the existing UI working with the new 3.0 code so we can continue to improve the app, drop the 2.5 code and allow the Blazor devs to breathe a bit. A flashier UI will come in time, but I don't want to rush that work.

Using the new UI app I've successfully installed several lists, and am now in the UI polish phase. This unfortunately is rather grueling work. It involves loading up the app, writing down everything I see wrong with it, fixing one thing, loading the app again to make sure it's fixed, fixing it *again* when I realize it didn't work, and then moving on to the next thing.

Just for fun, I've attached a photo of the checklist I have running in my home office for the things I need to fix yet. It's that classic, fix three things and two more pop up. But I'm slowly working through the list.

In the next two weeks I'd like to get a beta build out the door and into the hands of people. There's no rush in getting this new UI out, but it's a bit of a drain on me emotionally to have to implement every bug fix into two codebases, 2.5 and 3.0, so it'll be nice to get this done and out the door. At that point we can focus on getting new updates out, like Bethesda CDN support, some installer optimizations I have planned, and other such things.

As always, thank you for the support, both emotional and financial. The support from people like you make this work all worth it in the end.