Making Adding and Updating mods even easier

[Vjrcr]

Adding mods has got quite simply with the whole "merge GameData folder" bit but, when updating mods sometime you have to delete old versions or even in the case of Roverdudes mods (in which I would get Tac-LS errors whenever I updated MKS/OKS) it can get annoying. My suggestion is to do something like Farming Simulator does, use a mod folder (conveniently called Mods) where all you had to do was drag and drop the zip file you downloaded into (unless the download had multiply mods), and to update you just override the older version, this way so long as the mod author did change file names between updates.

Anyone agree?  Am I just asking for something that can no longer be done? Or is this just a terrible idea and I should just stick to Poorly managing both my farms and my space programs?

Homer to your mobile.

[Snark]

I don't see that it would really gain anything... "replace this zip file with that one" seems about the same as "replace this folder with that one."

[Vjrcr]

@Snark The thing is a .zip file will replace any other .zip file with the same name where as folders will try to merge which can cause conflicts and/or errors if the .dll or other configs changed names in the new version, thats why some mods will say to delete the old file first.

 

[Snark]

 

4 hours ago, Vjrcr said:

@Snark The thing is a .zip file will replace any other .zip file with the same name where as folders will try to merge which can cause conflicts and/or errors if the .dll or other configs changed names in the new version, thats why some mods will say to delete the old file first.

 

Well, yes. That's why you always delete the original folder before putting in the new one. You'll note that in my last post, I said "replace," not "merge".

So how is using a zip file any less work? Looks about the same to me. I don't see that it would be any less work at all, let alone *enough* less work to be worth the large amount of added complexity that the program would have to handle in order to implement such a feature.

[jlcarneiro]

I think that better than moving from folders to zip files, an update system (a la KSP-AVC) would be nice!

[juanml82]

And additional loading times as all the mods have to be unzipped while starting the game

[Sir_Robert]

You are literally talking about skipping a SINGLE action (clicking delete on the old folder). There is no way that is worth development time.

Use CKAN if you don't want to keep track of your own mods, that's what it's for

[BloodDusk]

13 minutes ago, Sir_Robert said:

You are literally talking about skipping a SINGLE action (clicking delete on the old folder). There is no way that is worth development time.

Use CKAN if you don't want to keep track of your own mods, that's what it's for

However, not all mods are present in CKAN. Do you use only CKAN mods? What if I want a mod that's not listed?

[Tex_NL]

CKAN is for wimps. It does serve a purpose but you do not need it.
Dropping entire mods as a zip or any other compressed format would make things only slightly easier. All it does is forcing mod makers to conform to a unified standard file formatting. It will not eliminate people from dropping mods in the wrong location.

[Sir_Robert]

7 minutes ago, BloodDusk said:

However, not all mods are present in CKAN. Do you use only CKAN mods? What if I want a mod that's not listed?

I manually install mods that aren't in CKAN, and have a notepad file to keep track of them. And I tend to forget to update them. I don't use CKAN for its ease of installing, that is easy enough. It's great for keeping track of mods and updates

Though there are very few mods that I am interested in that aren't on CKAN. It's mostly texture packs for texture replacer

[BloodDusk]

9 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

CKAN is for wimps. It does serve a purpose but you do not need it.
Dropping entire mods as a zip or any other compressed format would make things only slightly easier. All it does is forcing mod makers to conform to a unified standard file formatting. It will not eliminate people from dropping mods in the wrong location.

The problem is not installing mods. The problem is removing them.

[jlcarneiro]

58 minutes ago, BloodDusk said:

The problem is not installing mods. The problem is removing them.

I, myself, think the main problem is not knowing which of my "n" mods has been updated. Not all of them are KSP-AVC compatible...

Edited February 14, 2016 by jlcarneiro

[BloodDusk]

12 hours ago, jlcarneiro said:

I, myself, think the main problem is not knowing which of my "n" mods has been updated. Not all of them are KSP-AVC compatible...

And since, people have learned how to make mods by hacking, there's no standard on how you should make them.