Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

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ModdingOpenMWdotcom
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by ModdingOpenMWdotcom »

Hey all- RavenWing reached out to me via email and I wanted to hop into the conversation here.

Earlier in this thread a "bespoke database" was mentioned, and what I've got is essentially some form of that. I'm happy to work with you folks to do whatever it takes to improve the content and inter-operability between the site and your documentation (or any other ideas.)
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Ravenwing
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by Ravenwing »

So good new! M'aiq should be joining us here shortly to talk a bit more about it.

My general thoughts are, since you already have a tag system going on, you could just add "compatible", "incompatible", and "needs testing" tags along with some kind of "last tested: version X.XX" metadata. Then all you'd have to do (hopefully) is create a page that populates with all incompatible and needs testing mods. Unfortunately organization is the easy part.

What is going to be more of a problem is gathering results from other people submitting their test information. Maybe if there's a form for submitting information about mods? I don't think it will be overwhelming now, but it has the potential to become overwhelming as more people start using OpenMW.

Just spitballing ideas here, but perhaps a form with the following fields:

Code: Select all

Mod Name: required
Mod Author: required
Download Link: required
Version of OpenMW: required
Compatibility: <drop-down>
Submitter's email: required (probably don't need to follow up with people, but hopefully it will cut down on trolls)
Testing Notes: not required?
Captcha: (who needs bots)
Perhaps have the mod name and data autopopulate for things already in the database as they're typing to reduce duplicate entries. I imagine at this point, the effort to create this feature is higher than the effort of just personally checking. Or perhaps just have a button on existing entries for reporting compatibility problems and have the first few parts of the form autopopulate from that entry? I do worry about people just thinking a bug is actually a compatibility problem and reporting on that.

Anyway, all of this is up to you, since you're the one who would be doing most/all the work. I don't know how much time you have and more importantly how much time you're willing to spend. I'm sure the others have ideas and some of us would probably be willing to help in whatever ways we can. We appreciate any help you're willing to give!
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by ModdingOpenMWdotcom »

Thanks Ravenwing. Adding a metadata field for the "testing status" as it were is a good idea. I've been wanting to track mod version information too, but not every mod has a consistent version scheme which makes this tricky. I should just bite the bullet and make up versions as needed. I also like the idea of a form where users can submit test data, and that'd be good as a way to flesh out my current reporting system (having folks email me though the contact form, which is admittedly crude.)

So it sounds like one the primary goals is to have some way for users to report on mod compatibility status, be it updating an existing status or submitting something new. I'm on board with this idea, it should be doable without a lot of extra work.
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psi29a
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by psi29a »

Is there support for tagging, as in assigning tags to a mod?
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Ravenwing
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by Ravenwing »

ModdingOpenMWdotcom would be able to give a better answer than I (duh), but yes. For example: https://modding-openmw.com/mods/caldera-mine-expanded/
Are you asking if we'd be able to recommend particular tags as submitters? That all depends on what ModdingOpenMWdotcom puts together. As it stands, they have to add the tags manually. The only way users can give input is through a basic contact us form, which just sends an email.
ModdingOpenMWdotcom wrote: 21 Jul 2018, 22:50 I've been wanting to track mod version information too, but not every mod has a consistent version scheme which makes this tricky. I should just bite the bullet and make up versions as needed.
Honestly, I wouldn't bother with mod versions. Like you say, everyone uses different schemes and half the time they aren't consistent themselves. I remember always being annoyed using Mod Organizer because it would tell me to update things because they were using different versioning schemes. Maybe once Zini and the devs have had a chance to revamp the omwaddon format and have more built in features. I believe having a version number was planned in some capacity, so it should help keep things more uniform. Versions of OpenMW, especially at this stage are what's probably most important.
ModdingOpenMWdotcom wrote: 21 Jul 2018, 22:50 So it sounds like one the primary goals is to have some way for users to report on mod compatibility status, be it updating an existing status or submitting something new. I'm on board with this idea, it should be doable without a lot of extra work.
It's really up to you since you'd be hosting, but we found crowd-sourcing the work of mod testing to be helpful, especially for mods we wouldn't necessarily try ourselves. Thanks for being willing to help out!
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Thunderforge
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by Thunderforge »

Having ModdingOpenMWdotcom become the "official" list of OpenMW mod compatibility would be awesome! I think that would be able to do things better than anything we could do on the GitLab wiki. I agree though: some way to submit mod reports would probably be necessary.
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by ModdingOpenMWdotcom »

psi29a wrote: 22 Jul 2018, 00:17 Is there support for tagging, as in assigning tags to a mod?
If you mean can a user add a tag -- at present no, in fact the site is currently read-only for visitors save the ability to send me contact messages via a simple form. That said, Ravenwing and I have been discussing how I could move in the direction of enabling to submit feedback (or even apply a tag, or some metadata.)

Aside from that, as Ravenwing pointed out I do have tags that I apply to various mods for categorization purposes.
Ravenwing wrote: 22 Jul 2018, 17:01 Honestly, I wouldn't bother with mod versions. Like you say, everyone uses different schemes and half the time they aren't consistent themselves. I remember always being annoyed using Mod Organizer because it would tell me to update things because they were using different versioning schemes. Maybe once Zini and the devs have had a chance to revamp the omwaddon format and have more built in features. I believe having a version number was planned in some capacity, so it should help keep things more uniform. Versions of OpenMW, especially at this stage are what's probably most important.
Cool, glad we're on the same page here. Enforcing a version scheme of any kind seems impossible. Do you have any thoughts on how I could represent OpenMW versions? Right now I implicitly support whatever the latest release is.
Ravenwing wrote: 22 Jul 2018, 17:01 It's really up to you since you'd be hosting, but we found crowd-sourcing the work of mod testing to be helpful, especially for mods we wouldn't necessarily try ourselves. Thanks for being willing to help out!
No problem, honestly I made this site for fun so it's a privilege to be working closely with you all!

Regarding the feedback form I mentioned above: I've created a task in my private issue tracker for the site which outlines the work for adding a simple feedback form (similar to what you and I've discussed, Ravenwing.) Right now I'm planning to have this ready for the next major release of the site which is tentatively going to be next weekend or so. Once I've got a working prototype, if you don't mind I'd like to link to it here for feedback from anyone who wants to give some.

I figure this is a good start on developing a better user feedback system, with an eye towards various improvements in the future.
Thunderforge wrote: 23 Jul 2018, 02:42 Having ModdingOpenMWdotcom become the "official" list of OpenMW mod compatibility would be awesome! I think that would be able to do things better than anything we could do on the GitLab wiki. I agree though: some way to submit mod reports would probably be necessary.
Thanks for the comment and vote of confidence, Thunderforge! :D
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Thunderforge
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by Thunderforge »

ModdingOpenMWdotcom wrote: 23 Jul 2018, 14:29 I figure this is a good start on developing a better user feedback system, with an eye towards various improvements in the future.
Would you consider moving your code to GitHub/GitLab, that way improvements can come in the form of code enhancements, rather than solely from user feedback?
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by ModdingOpenMWdotcom »

Thunderforge wrote: 23 Jul 2018, 15:52 Would you consider moving your code to GitHub/GitLab, that way improvements can come in the form of code enhancements, rather than solely from user feedback?
Now that there's a larger interest in the site and its codebase -- absolutely. I've started thinking about how I could share the site code so that anybody could submit a patch with changes if they wanted.

The code consists of 1) the application code that powers the site (Django/Python), and 2) Ansible-based scripts that I use for deploying the code and provisioning the server. If/when I open the code up, I'd like to make all of that available.
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Re: Is there a better way to document mod compatibility?

Post by psi29a »

Is there a backend competent?
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