Mod installer & auto-update tool - would you use it?

[ItchyFlea]

Since I now have access to a Win 8 machine, I was able to make my modpack use the launcher so players could enable/disable any mods in the pack they don't want to use.

I'm definitely looking forward to future updates to this tool.

[mipen]

After finally returning home, I got to open your launcher, and boy is it beautiful! I feels so nice and I love how the ui looks. Just letting you know, you might want to update the original post with the download link

[KingOfAwesomnia]

Just noticed this and haven't yet had time to read the entire thread yet, but I have to echo mipen's statements that this look really helpful and promising. I will definitely be looking at adding support for my Enhanced Defense mod and plugging it on my mod thread.

Since I now have access to a Win 8 machine, I was able to make my modpack use the launcher so players could enable/disable any mods in the pack they don't want to use.

I'm definitely looking forward to future updates to this tool.

After finally returning home, I got to open your launcher, and boy is it beautiful! I feels so nice and I love how the ui looks.

I'm so glad you all like it

[Evul]

Project Armory will be 100% compatible with the Launcher

[Hayhorse]

If people want to be on the mod launcher then we might be able to get a few people working on modifying the mods that either (due to popular demand) are changed to work with the launcher or if someone asks to have it worked on if they are too busy to update it. (Sorry if its confusing, listening to a confusing video that is confusing me as I type!)

[mipen]

I've just updated my mod and included full compatibility with this launcher it works like a charm, so so good. The modular option thing is so useful and well done,  you should be very pleased with yourself!

[Igabod]

I'm wondering, will this have a download counter for each mod so mod makers can see how many people are using their mod? I'd like a download count total for all versions as well as a download count for each individual version if possible. It might be interesting to see a statistic for how many people roll back to a previous version of the mod too.

And an unrelated suggestion, maybe add a feature in so that users can rate a mod with a simple 1 to 5 stars system. This would also be nice to have for each individual version as well as an average rating for all versions.

[denu]

Wow your modistaller is just awsom but give it a Chance that you add somthing like a Crashwarnig or collisionwarnig maby seperatet in parts like Texturcolision, id colission and AI collision??.

Nice work Denu

[Hayhorse]

With ID collision the launcher would just have to change a few ID's to fix it, when a trader has to have a certain ID weapon from a mod that got changed, modify the id of the item it has requested to ask for the right one.

[KingOfAwesomnia]

Project Armory will be 100% compatible with the Launcher

I've just updated my mod and included full compatibility with this launcher it works like a charm, so so good. The modular option thing is so useful and well done,  you should be very pleased with yourself!

Awesome to hear that you guys already like it so much The mod options thingy was more of an afterthought, it wasn't in the original plans, but it seems to be a very welcome feature so I'll be sure to prioritise my future plans for the options window accordingly.

If people want to be on the mod launcher then we might be able to get a few people working on modifying the mods that either (due to popular demand) are changed to work with the launcher or if someone asks to have it worked on if they are too busy to update it. (Sorry if its confusing, listening to a confusing video that is confusing me as I type!)

The process of adding launcher support to a mod is rather simple, although it may take some time if you have a large mod. If a mod maker doesn't want to do it himself, he can of course ask for it on the forum or something, and there may be someone else willing to do it for him. But, I don't want people adding launcher support to a mod that isn't theirs when they're not asked to by the creator. The main reason for this is simply that I don't want to pressure mod makers into adding launcher support if they don't want to, and by having a version that does have launcher support, this may be the case. But, if a mod maker asks someone else to add launcher support, that is of course completely up to them

I'm wondering, will this have a download counter for each mod so mod makers can see how many people are using their mod? I'd like a download count total for all versions as well as a download count for each individual version if possible. It might be interesting to see a statistic for how many people roll back to a previous version of the mod too.

And an unrelated suggestion, maybe add a feature in so that users can rate a mod with a simple 1 to 5 stars system. This would also be nice to have for each individual version as well as an average rating for all versions.

I'm still working on the download system, but yes when this is done it will have a download counter. More stats like number of views in the mod gallery, and a rating system (still undecided whether to use 5 stars or thumbs up/down) are also planned for a later release, together with the full mod gallery.

Wow your modistaller is just awsom but give it a Chance that you add somthing like a Crashwarnig or collisionwarnig maby seperatet in parts like Texturcolision, id colission and AI collision??.

With ID collision the launcher would just have to change a few ID's to fix it, when a trader has to have a certain ID weapon from a mod that got changed, modify the id of the item it has requested to ask for the right one.

Incompatibility warning with other mods are in the roadmap yes, also planned for release along with the full gallery. However, this will work with a 'flag incompatibility' button where users have to flag two mods as incompatible, and the warning will then appear when the mod creator confirms it. The launcher will not automatically check for incompatibilty, since this would mean it'd have to check all files of all mods continuously, and this would make for a very resource-heavy program. And it will definitely not change any mod files, not even to fix conflicts. Fixing it will be up to the creator.

Now I don't know much about making mods in itself, so I don't know what kind of incompatibilities there could be, but I imagine (as mentioned) that conflicting IDs are the main problem, so I am thinking now I may have the launcher analyse a mod before uploading it, and then storing a list of all the used object IDs in a database on the server, so mod makers can easily check their mods against the other uploaded ones, to see if there are any conflicts. But, for now this is just a thought and not an actual plan, I've added it to the ideas list but I'll revisit it once I'm ready with the main program.



So, now all that's out of the way.. Let's move on to some progress updates! I have a bit of good news, and also some bad. But then there's a good bit again. And I end it all with a question so be sure to keep reading

I'll start with where I am right now.

• I've created a new section of the launcher app, called "Modding Tools" where I will put all tools and features for a mod creator to use. This is mainly so they don't clutter the screen of other players. But look at it this way: you guys get your very own window! Isn't that something
• I've developed a way to efficiently upload files to a web server. Unfortunately I only have access to a basic PHP web server so the uploading process will be limited and not very responsive (i.e. no uploading progress bar or fancy percentage, just a wait screen while it's busy uploading), but at least it will work. Or so I hope.
• I'm busy developing the rest of the server system, this is quite a bit of work because I also have to develop a complete user and log-in system so that people can have accounts to manage their mods. Yes I know, yet another account you need, I'm very sorry but this is the best way to do things. I also could tie them to the launcher, but then if you change devices or your pc crashes or something, your mods would be... *pause for dramatic effect* lost forever!

So the good news is, the mod uploading and downloading is almost done. The bad news, however, is that Steam decided to do a Civilization: Beyond Earth free weekend. And I'm a big Civ fan, but I haven't bought BE yet. So I'll be taking some time away from my code editor this weekend, in order to conquer the entire known (and unknown) universe. Or at least attempt to. *screams and runs away from siege worm*

But here's the other good bit: our all time favourite awesome person here on the forums, Evul, sent me a message telling me he has a server running that I could use to store the mods. This means that there will be enough disk space to store a big amount of mods and data, and that it won't cost me a fortune to pay for hosting it all in an actual commercial data center.

So, to recap: I have made a lot of progress but I'm a bit limited by the fact that I can only make a PHP server (because while PHP is my main area of expertise, it doesn't work too well together with desktop tools). I could have made more progress, but I've had to go out for some interviews and stuff over the last couple of days, because I just got a job (signed the contract yesterday)! I'm now no longer "that unemployed dude living with his parents", you're now talking to the new "Software engineer Sharepoint" at KBC, one of Belgium's largest banks. Oh and don't worry, I'm only working 3 days a week so I'll still have time to work on other projects like this one

That's all the news for now, but I promised you a question earlier, and here it is. If you have added launcher support to your mod, I would like it if you make a screenshot or two of your mod in the launcher, and link to the screenshot here so I can see how it looks inside the launcher. I'll also add the supporting mods on the site when I get around to updating it (probably right before the next release), and I'll use some of the screenshots I'll hopefully get to replace the two I have up there now (which are just the mod I used for testing).
Hint: If you don't know how to make screenshots (or you find it too much work), try this. I use it all the time and it's super easy.

So.. I think that was it. Well it should be, the post sure has gotten long enough

[ItchyFlea]

For the checking for mod conflicts, all you need to do is check for duplicate definition names (<defName>Something</defName>) for each section. (RecipeDefs, ThingDefs, etc)

[mipen]

Congratulations on the job! sounds really fancy
I'm really excited for the mod uploading / downloading, it will be so great for me because I'm always making little fixes and uploading them and then doing something else heh. That is going to be such an amazing feature!
Have I said before that I really like to look and feel of the ui? Probably, but there it is again
Just a question about the mod options thingy, would it be possible to be able to add an option to define a folder path to be disabled? I remember reading somewhere in the forums that you can have subfolders in each Defs folder. If that is still a thing then we could put each part of the mod into sunflowers. For instance if we have twenty xml files in the ThingDefs folder, we could put ten in a sub folder called eg "junk", five in another called "stuff" and the last five in "feet". Then in the mod options, we could say disabled all the files in the folder "junk" instead of adding each file separately. I'll have to check that using sub folders still works, maybe someone else reading this thread knows more about it, but it would be much quicker and easier to add a large number of files into the mod options.
Anyways, hopefully I managed to explain my thoughts at least somewhat coherently amazing work on this! It is so so good

[KingOfAwesomnia]

Congratulations on the job! sounds really fancy

It is quite fancy haha, and apparently I'm really good at it. First thing on monday they gave me a small project "to get started those first couple of weeks". So we're two days later now and it's pretty much finished. I showed them what I made already. Everyone was shocked. I was awesome. As usual
But, today's my day off, so now instead of going to work and programming all day developing various highly sensitive top secret undisclosed projects (oh who am I kidding, I'm working on a signup page XD), I can now just stay at home and program all day making the next great version of RW Launcher.

I'm really excited for the mod uploading / downloading, it will be so great for me because I'm always making little fixes and uploading them and then doing something else heh. That is going to be such an amazing feature!

In the next version the mods won't actually update automatically yet, so the user would still have to download the new files manually. But once the auto-update function is finished this will go a lot easier.

Have I said before that I really like to look and feel of the ui? Probably, but there it is again

Well what can I say, I'm an interface designer and a perfectionist. So I have a very good reason to make awesome interfaces since I would pretty much hate myself if the ui I made wasn't good

Just a question about the mod options thingy, would it be possible to be able to add an option to define a folder path to be disabled?

I hadn't thought of this, but it's definitely a good idea. I've added it to the ideas list.

Also,

we could put each part of the mod into sunflowers

Autocorrect or you just reeeally like sunflowers? xd

[mipen]

Erm, I meant subfolders xD although sunflowers are pretty cool....

[akiceabear]

+1 - will be a great tool once it has the auto-update feature. If there was a good mod browser (e.g. sort by popularity) I'd enjoy that too, I find the forums list overwhelming.