Thank you for pointing this out, i had suspected it worked like this but never tested it, that's good to know.DestinedToDie wrote:OpenMW.cfg has a load order for these folders. Whichever folder with ExampleTexture.dds is the last is the one that gets used.
Mod Manager Features & Functionality
- openmwfan27
- Posts: 113
- Joined: 23 Apr 2015, 22:11
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
- AnyOldName3
- Posts: 2673
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
As for the Nexus integration, Mod Organizer has it already. It basically pulls the HTML of the mod's page (each mod can optionally be given a Nexus ID, which is the number at the end of the Nexus URL for the mod's page, which it uses to load the right page) and keeps the description page, and the latest version from the page header. When you run a 'check for update' in MO, it reloads the pages of all the Nexus mods you have installed, and checks if the version numbers differ from the ones it has saved. It's not really different from a user doing it all by hand from the Nexus' perspective.
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- Posts: 33
- Joined: 25 May 2014, 19:53
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
If you're still working on this friend, I have one singular feature that I crave more than any other. The ability for the mod manager to take a list of commands that would set up a specific modded environment, and then execute them to get to that environment.
That way if someone wanted to set up not quite a mod pack, but something similar, they could distribute a file that tell the manager what to download, how to order them, and how to resolve conflicts. Thus bypassing the typical issues of everyone in the modding community getting their knickers in a twist over modpacks, while also allowing people to more easily create a big stable and modern experience.
I hope that the end result would be letting someone coming from Skyrim or something like being able to just download the basics, Morrowind, OpenMW, the mod manager. Then they could just hit the "Make Morrowind prettier than Skyrim" button and instantly be entranced by such an amazing game.
That way if someone wanted to set up not quite a mod pack, but something similar, they could distribute a file that tell the manager what to download, how to order them, and how to resolve conflicts. Thus bypassing the typical issues of everyone in the modding community getting their knickers in a twist over modpacks, while also allowing people to more easily create a big stable and modern experience.
I hope that the end result would be letting someone coming from Skyrim or something like being able to just download the basics, Morrowind, OpenMW, the mod manager. Then they could just hit the "Make Morrowind prettier than Skyrim" button and instantly be entranced by such an amazing game.
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
+1 that would be awesome and would put mod packs at an end.MithrilLeaf wrote:If you're still working on this friend, I have one singular feature that I crave more than any other. The ability for the mod manager to take a list of commands that would set up a specific modded environment, and then execute them to get to that environment.
That way if someone wanted to set up not quite a mod pack, but something similar, they could distribute a file that tell the manager what to download, how to order them, and how to resolve conflicts. Thus bypassing the typical issues of everyone in the modding community getting their knickers in a twist over modpacks, while also allowing people to more easily create a big stable and modern experience.
I hope that the end result would be letting someone coming from Skyrim or something like being able to just download the basics, Morrowind, OpenMW, the mod manager. Then they could just hit the "Make Morrowind prettier than Skyrim" button and instantly be entranced by such an amazing game.
- AnyOldName3
- Posts: 2673
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
Supposedly they're adding something similar to Nexus Mod Manager. I'm not 100% sure of its scope, as it would be difficult to make it deal with things like mods which have been taken down and custom merged plugins etc. but it might be a good idea to wait until that's available and then base any system off that to save reinventing the wheel and creating two competing standards.
- openmwfan27
- Posts: 113
- Joined: 23 Apr 2015, 22:11
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
I am still working on thisMithrilLeaf wrote:If you're still working on this friend
So this would essentially be a way to import a profile configuration and also import all the mods with that configuration?MithrilLeaf wrote:I have one singular feature that I crave more than any other. The ability for the mod manager to take a list of commands that would set up a specific modded environment, and then execute them to get to that environment.
The only difficulty i see with the mod manager getting the files by downloading them at the time of import, for example as far as i know you cannot download large files (10mb+ i think the limit is?) from the nexus without being signed in, i could build in checks for the built-in web browser to see if it has authentication cookies from nexus, but then that's only one site. Other sites, including sites which may come up in the future would also need to have code written to look for their authentication cookies.
Although the Nexus is one of the best site's for TES & FO3+ mods i don't want to tailor the mod manager towards one service, NMM could achive this functionality but would also run into the same difficulties if they allowed downloading mods from sites other then their own in this way.
If the mod files were packaged with the profile configuration this becomes a simpler task, if someone setup their profile in the mod manager and hit an 'export' button, the mod manager could look at the load order of all the enabled mods and 'rebuild' what the data directory would look like in this configuration, taking files from all the seperate mods and putting the correct one's in place, then that 'rebuilt' data directory could be zipped up along with an XML file to hold the mod manager profile configuration. When this mod is 'imported' into someone elses mod manager, there should in principle be everything in that zip file that's needed to rebuild that profile configuration on someone elses PC.
The 'core' game files would have to be ignored though so people don't accidentally redistribute bethesda's IP, this should be trivial though as the mod manager already knows which files are part of the core game and which are not.
This is true, it would be good to see how NMM handles this, i think if you're going to build a 'modpack' to re-distribute though, it should also come with the mod files rather then *all* the mods being re-downloaded each time, instead you could package up just the 'end result' of all those mods being setup in the correct orders to simplify things.AnyOldName3 wrote:Supposedly they're adding something similar to Nexus Mod Manager. I'm not 100% sure of its scope, as it would be difficult to make it deal with things like mods which have been taken down and custom merged plugins etc. but it might be a good idea to wait until that's available and then base any system off that to save reinventing the wheel and creating two competing standards.
The mod manager is still in an early state at the moment, something like this would probably come towards the end, it needs to get to the point where it's a good 'basic' mod manager with a handfull of simple extras. Once that's stable we can build onto it from there.darkbasic wrote:+1 that would be awesome and would put mod packs at an end.
So far installing mods is now working, you can also change the sort order of the mods now and un-install mod's too. There's still a number of bugs to solve and some quirks with the OpenMW engine to work around, one of which results in the OpenMW Template / Example Suite not having it's custom font and thus, all dialogs in-game have no visible text, i've tried to keep a clean seperation between game data, engine data and mod data across multiple games,engines and mods, so nothing can cross contaminate with other files and say, overwrite a core game file with a mod file.
The font issue above is because the font's are part of the engine configuration, but they are, in the way it's currently distributed, part of the game data really.
If someone makes a game on openmw with a custom font right now, they will need to overwrite some of the engines configuration files just to play it, if you then went to play morrowind on the same copy of the engine, you'd need to put the default font's config back in place which isn't ideal.
I could 'make it work' as it is at the moment, but i'm looking for a better solution at the moment before i commit the time to it, for the moment though i've got plenty to do with the mod manager related functionality so plenty of time to think about things
I've been caught up with stuff IRL over the past week or so, and probably will be for at least another two weeks although i'll continue to chip away at it when i get a moment, so far it's looking really good.
- AnyOldName3
- Posts: 2673
- Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
A couple of points:
- You can't just go downloading other people's mods and re-releasing them as a bundle without their permission, and most mods sites will go to a reasonable effort to enforce this. It's fine to downloads things that already have a URL, though.
- If I were in your position, I'd make an abstract class to represent an arbitrary mod site, then scan a folder when the mod manager is launched to find implementations, so not only would that make it possible to add support for the nexus, but also support for other sites at a later date (and if you release the necessary headers, it should be possible for anyone to make a plugin for any site).
- One possible way of doing all the (nexus) downloads together is to have a folder containing all the nxm files from the 'download with manager' button, and then have a separate script to say where to put them.
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- Posts: 33
- Joined: 25 May 2014, 19:53
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
You know that, and I know that, but there's a whole massive can of worms that having real mod-packs opens up. If you try suggesting a mod pack on most of the common haunting grounds there'll be plenty of people who will come out and tell you exactly why you're a lazy terrible piece of shit for wanting a mod pack instead of doing it by hand every time you ever want to mod anything. Enough of my aggravation with modder elitism though, having you download the mods for the pack off the sites they are hosted at lets you get around a lot of these issues. There could well be a better solution though.openmwfan27 wrote: If the mod files were packaged with the profile configuration this becomes a simpler task, if someone setup their profile in the mod manager and hit an 'export' button, the mod manager could look at the load order of all the enabled mods and 'rebuild' what the data directory would look like in this configuration, taking files from all the seperate mods and putting the correct one's in place, then that 'rebuilt' data directory could be zipped up along with an XML file to hold the mod manager profile configuration. When this mod is 'imported' into someone elses mod manager, there should in principle be everything in that zip file that's needed to rebuild that profile configuration on someone elses PC.
*SNIP*
The 'core' game files would have to be ignored though so people don't accidentally redistribute bethesda's IP, this should be trivial though as the mod manager already knows which files are part of the core game and which are not.
This is true, it would be good to see how NMM handles this, i think if you're going to build a 'modpack' to re-distribute though, it should also come with the mod files rather then *all* the mods being re-downloaded each time, instead you could package up just the 'end result' of all those mods being setup in the correct orders to simplify things.
- openmwfan27
- Posts: 113
- Joined: 23 Apr 2015, 22:11
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
Maybe someone should build a openmwmodpacksdl.onion
One idea i have been playing with is enabling bittorrent support in the mod manager, although if this ever did happen it would be waaaaay later down the line. When it comes to broken / taken down download links, authentication with 3rd parties etc a torrent client could come in handy... what if you could export your profile and mod configuration and inside that configuration have a 'magnet link' of sorts so anyone who imports your mod pack can initially get the files from you directly, and when enough people have installed it new users can download it from existing users of the mod pack.
This would of course still have issues with 3rd party sites not wanting users to re-distribute files they host, but thinking a bit further down the line when there are other games built on OpenMW and mods for those games, a feature like this could be quite useful?
One idea i have been playing with is enabling bittorrent support in the mod manager, although if this ever did happen it would be waaaaay later down the line. When it comes to broken / taken down download links, authentication with 3rd parties etc a torrent client could come in handy... what if you could export your profile and mod configuration and inside that configuration have a 'magnet link' of sorts so anyone who imports your mod pack can initially get the files from you directly, and when enough people have installed it new users can download it from existing users of the mod pack.
This would of course still have issues with 3rd party sites not wanting users to re-distribute files they host, but thinking a bit further down the line when there are other games built on OpenMW and mods for those games, a feature like this could be quite useful?
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- Posts: 1
- Joined: 15 May 2016, 19:00
Re: Mod Manager Features & Functionality
@openmwfan27 You, sir, are a godsend ! I was looking for a mod manager as soon as I finally decided to go for OpenMW, and saw all the possibilities implemented for modding. I'm excited to see how this is going.
I have one suggestion though, that I don't think anybody else mentioned yet, which is conflict managing. OpenMW already allows for relatively easy load order managing. Like in Mod Organizer, it would be nice to be able to see which files are overwritten by which mod, and drag the mod up or down the load order to change it.
This is especially useful when managing dozens of different texture mods, it soon becomes overwhelming. Even more so with mods that change texture names with custom meshes.
When can we expect a working release of your mod manager ?
I have one suggestion though, that I don't think anybody else mentioned yet, which is conflict managing. OpenMW already allows for relatively easy load order managing. Like in Mod Organizer, it would be nice to be able to see which files are overwritten by which mod, and drag the mod up or down the load order to change it.
This is especially useful when managing dozens of different texture mods, it soon becomes overwhelming. Even more so with mods that change texture names with custom meshes.
When can we expect a working release of your mod manager ?