CastParty/History
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As from Zodeus:
danboo
Danboo wrote the original Healomatic, later he incorporated it into what became CastParty. CastParty continued for several versions, until 1.11. CastParty had an official thread in the World of Warcraft forums, where many people submitted several snippets of code, and no doubt e-mailed him the larger pieces too big to fit into a post for discussion. Zodeus participated in these discussions and posted frequently on the forums. Of note the message failures Zodeus submitted never made it into a release until Alleris took over. Other submissions did, such as optional display on the Party Bars. During this time Alleris began work on CastPartyOptions addon. But not being the developer of CastParty itself significanly hurt this project as the CastParty code did not support CastPartyOptions. After danboo left it was natural for Alleris to step in as the next author.
Alleris
Allers was able to make a number of contributions to the code base. To include the first working CT_RA (while the implementation was not the best choice, it wasn’t until later when CT_RA changed the code to support optional addons that happened during the SourceForge time frame). Alleris was also able to finally add rage bars, and energy bars to the code. CastPartyOptions still plagued the project, but was now allowed to start integration into the main CastParty code base to support direct co-operation, but during this time frame there were issues with the use of the original configuration file CastPartyPlayerConfig. Do to school and lack of time Alleris was unable to keep up with the demand.
NathanRobinson
Working in alpha development, in the direction that CastParty was heading. He refactored and rewrote code as newer and better methods were developed and discovered, added new features, and reimplemented those that were present in the old days (CastParty 2.x developer). Nathan was one of the people responsible for the resurrection of CastParty (release 1.5.2)
Which leads us to
Various Authors
Many version of CastParty started poping up all over the place, most died off while some are still out there with rare updates. Of note was an edition from Thrae that added pet support shortly after Blizzard released a patch for pets. Also Thrae jumped version number 1.50. Due to all the confusion created during this time frame, Alleris(current maintainer of the code at the time) allowed the code to be moved to a site that would allow others to more freely give support for the addon.
SourceForge
Thirsterhall started the account on the SourceForge site allowed developers to join the team. Even danboo came back shortly and the project started moving in forward again instead of standing still. The first order of business was to correct bugs that were in the Thrae edition that was mostly based on the last patch from Alleris. Shorty after most of the bugs were fixed from that version, Thirsterhall left. Also danboo was not to be seen, having said he didn’t want to run the project or manage it in any way. Thirsterhall still left him in charge, leaving Alleris with no ability to control the environment. With danboo MIA and Thirsterhall AFK, and Alleris himself not having a lot of time, the project started falling a part.
Zodeus
During this time Zodeus made several posts on directions to go in, several of the developers either ignored them or didn’t respond not knowing which direction to head. In addition it was the desire of Alleris to compeletly remove all healing code from CastParty. During that time when the bugs were being fixed, Zodeus compeletly re-wrote the entire Healomatic code with no guidance, and procced along the path stated by Alleris, which was to remove Healomatic. Another issue the team wanted to address was the main file itself was getting so large that it was getting harder to track down problems. And splitting the file up into more manageable sections was to be the current focus.
Zodeus, in agreement with this began the process of splitting the files up going by the rough outline made by Alleris (with a few changes from Zodeus), figuring functions out of place can be moved later. Danboo helped out also by rewriting the debug code. At this stage of the process, many people on the team starting to have conflicting issues about the proper use of CVS and how to go about which functions go where, so Zodeus undid all of his changes to the project and stopped trying to spilt the files until all parties involved came to some sort of agreement. At this point only about four people were left, none of which worked with major contribution on the code other than Zodeus and danboo. Also it should be noted, several people offered to help out during this time frame, but with Thirsterhall and danboo both gone there was no way to add additional people to the project. Even Thrae who joined the project never managed to make a single commit. It seemed the project was doomed from this point on.
At this time Alleris decided to move the Healomatic code into another branch of its own. And started developent of CastTarget and CastRaid(which seemed to be a lot of request for, as the CT_RA interface was faulty at best) But with Alleris lack of partisapation in the forums, and the seemingly random changes to the code, when there were still more pressing issues to deal with like options in the player config that were unaccounted for in CastPartyOptions, or the continued project of splitting up the files. It was time for Zodeus to leave the project.
QuickCast
Around July 12 2005, Zodeus renamed the files to QuickCast not wanting to restart the whole issue of too many versions and in hopes that CastParty development would resume at some point in the future. With the simple name change users could quickly identify which version of CastParty they had running, but mostly just so Zodeus could keep things straight.
QuickCast continued in private development for some time after Zodeus left the CastParty project, though he probably wouldn’t have left if there was some one left to administer the SourceForge site. With full control of the project, and with out interfering with the brand name CastParty, that project was less restricted on ownership. As in all things, the previous authors deserve a large amount of credit for getting us this far. Zodeus then took full control of the branch to see where it would lead.
CastParty Reignited
In October 2005 fuzzyfonzy took over admin of project and has begun moving it forward. On November 10 2005, the QuickCast code was renamed to CastParty and replaced the outdated CastParty code.
