Subset Games Forum

Ora_unit_SR388 wrote:I really like this mod manager, but I cannot load .zip files (all of my unstable mods that I make/test are in zips).

Undocumented feature: Open modman.cfg with a text editor, and set this.

Then it'll show both *.ftl and *.zip in the list.

MD5 hash for Star Wars mod:

b4cf1507100628f307a56cc2e4f65234

dalolorn wrote:MD5 hash for Star Wars mod

No need to report updates that are only days old.

The mod manager downloads the latest descriptions weekly.
I have a script that monitors changes to text in every thread linked from the Master Mod List.
Every two or three weeks, I run that script and update the descriptions, eyeballing changed/new threads.

Occasionally, I overlook something. More often, I miss the chance to hash old versions of mods that update frequently. So if a mod's still descriptionless after a month, or you have a previous version of a mod whose current version is covered, that's when reporting will probably be helpful (title+version+hash+url).

Vhati wrote:

dalolorn wrote:MD5 hash for Star Wars mod

No need to report updates that are only days old.

The mod manager downloads the latest descriptions weekly.
I have a script that monitors changes to text in every thread linked from the Master Mod List.
Every two or three weeks, I run that script and update the descriptions, eyeballing changed/new threads.

Occasionally, I overlook something. More often, I miss the chance to hash old versions of mods that update frequently. So if a mod's still descriptionless after a month, or you have a previous version of a mod whose current version is covered, that's when reporting will probably be helpful (title+version+hash+url).

Oops.

dalolorn wrote:

Vhati wrote:No need to report updates that are only days old.

Oops.

Hmm. I'll amend the notice to add the age of the *.ftl's content.

.
v1.1 has been released:

• You can voluntarily extract resources into a folder.
• Better Validate messages.
• A new button that opens the mods/ folder.
• The mods list is resizable (drag the divider underneath it).
• Some bugfixes.

Under the hood, I've also introduced a sloppy XML parser for use in future releases.
For now, it's not involved in patching, but it generates Validate nags.
Let me know if you see it complain when you're sure there's no typo.

I've used this (specifically v1.0) a few times and I gotta say WELL DONE. This is faster than GMM by about 5x on my system and works like a charm. It's made testing tiny iterations of a mod much easier!

A few little niggling things:

Could you combine the "complete!" and "run ftl now" dialogs? Doesn't seem a need for both. Also, could "yes" be the default button (currently there doesn't seem to be one) so I can just smack spacebar and go?

Also, I don't know how hard it would be but the ability to run this from the command line would be awesome. modman.exe -runftl modname1 modname2 modname3 ...

@5thHorseman: Great suggestions!

I'll get right on the first.
The second, I like, but I'll have to think longer on how to go about it...

I just thought of another. I see you support zip files with a config change, what about directories? While modding, I unzip my ftl files and edit them, then have a batch file that re-zips up the ftl and then runs modman (hence wanting command line options) If I could skip the zipping step that'd be just all the more convenient.

And while I'm swinging for the fence, when you resize the window it'd be cool if the program both remembered that for next time and expanded the list of mods instead of the description window.

Me, I think it'd be a lot easier if Slipstream detected the differences between the contents of the .dat file and the corresponding xmls in the various .ftl files, and just appended/removed the appropriate content.

Probably not easy to implement, though.

Edit: Another idea - seeing as the mod manager already updates the descriptions weekly, why not make it capable of updating itself?