there are several addon i have to "tweak" the code a bit, and others that just have lua based configuration. of course when i do this, curse client flags them and i have to toggle ignore on them, thus effectively making auto-updating useless for them. my question, is there a trick to have curse client "look the other way" when i make very small changes, without paralyzing its ability to detect updated versions?  thanks =D

You can make changes and such while not having ignore on, you only need to go into Options at the top of Curse Client (Tools > Options) and choose the option "Check for updates, but let me confirm their installation"

They should be flagged as having local modifications, and I believe the default behaviour is to ignore them when it comes to updating.