[1.8.x-1.9.x] Kerbal Changelog v1.3.0 (6.14.20)

[HebaruSan]

2 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

idk if its asing too much, or if you already have thoughts about it, but moar options to customize the UI? vOv
ie adjustable window size, but moar-so adjustable font-size & color options?

I know the green is standard KSP color... but that whole wall of it, kinda burns my eyes... also, mebbe breaing up the colors a bit?.. ie have the version numbers/headers a different color from the actual items in the changelog? vOv
Also, since i am on laptop,  the largest I can go with resolution, is 1920x1080... so currently, the text size is a little smol vOv

No, I had not thought about that, but I'll add it to the to-investigate list. I'm reluctant to depart from the visual styles used everywhere else in the game, but arguably a font scaling option makes sense for a dialog where you're going to do a lot of reading.

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Also, is there currently a way to open the UI, other than only when it detects a new change?
ie adding a key combo/button/tiny UI to show during the loading screen, and/or mebbe a way to re-open the UI in-game?
in case peeps want to review changelogs again?

No, there's nothing like that currently. It would probably lose the "just the latest changes" feature, since the mod marks the changelogs as viewed the first time the popup appears. Would you actually use such a thing, or are we fishing for features now?

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also, i dont have any other mods installed that support it, so I cant tell how it displays changes from multiple mods,

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but however it gets and displays that info, would it be out of scope, and too much for it to output combined changelogs, into one text file somewhere?
I now many mods already pacage seperate changelog files, so if someone wanted a changelog for a specific mod, they could root thru and open those individual files, but would kinda be nice, if this mod added all the installed mods changelogs into one, easily accessable text file, and mebbe even had a button open it, or mebbe a slectable list of mods, to open the logs for specific mods?... vOv

Hmm, again I'm wondering whether this is something you would be intending to use. A button to export changelogs into a text file would be easy enough, but what would the advantage of that be if you no longer have a nice UI to organize and display it, and if you lose the context of the game session when it was created?

As I understand it, the goal of this mod is to alert the user to changes as they happen and help make sure they're aware of new features and breaking changes. That would seem to be at cross purposes to generating a more "permanent" record of changes like you're suggesting here; if I later see <KSP>/GameData/combined_changelogs.txt on my disk and open it, will it be clear why those changes are included and not others? Will I know whether it's "current" or outdated?

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And if saving a combined changelog text file is something you would consider adding, might I suggest using <KSP_install_folder>\Logs\ as the location?
It seems many mods save logs there already.. ie ModuleManager, KSP-AVC, Kopernicus, etc...

No, what you're talking about is not a "log", it's just an output file. It doesn't belong under <KSP>/Logs/.

Edited February 27, 2021 by HebaruSan

[Stone Blue]

2 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

No, there's nothing like that currently. It would probably lose the "just the latest changes" feature, since the mod marks the changelogs as viewed the first time the popup appears. Would you actually use such a thing, or are we fishing for features now?

LOL ... mebbe half & half

srsly tho, granted its far & few between, but theres times I just hit the close button, just as I think, wait.. lemme take a closer look at what that popup was trying to tell me?

also, yeah, when I install mod updates, I always like to know what's in the update... with a long list of changes/fixes, I do find lots of times where I dont retain it all, or want to take another quick look at the changes, if something related pops into my head in-game, and over subsequent game starts from freshly installing the mod.

Plus, wouldnt it make it easier to bug test/support issues, if the UI wasnt only a one-shot deal, on fresh mod installs?

11 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Hmm, again I'm wondering whether this is something you would be intending to use. A button to export changelogs into a text file would be easy enough, but what would the advantage of that be....

Hmm... Ok... I'll give you that one, that I might be just fishing for "moar features"...
I'm sure you already know, how I always like to throw ideas and suggestions out, without always fulling thinking it thru...
But thats why I do it... I know if whether its a good idea or not, someone moar knowledgeable will either rightly shut me down, or go "Hey!...Thats not a bad idea" if it hasnt been mentioned/thought off already...

Anyway... yes, you're right... the external stuff now seems quite out of scope

I stand by my request for a way to re-open the UI, tho...

[HebaruSan]

44 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

srsly tho, granted its far & few between, but theres times I just hit the close button, just as I think, wait.. lemme take a closer look at what that popup was trying to tell me?

also, yeah, when I install mod updates, I always like to know what's in the update... with a long list of changes/fixes, I do find lots of times where I dont retain it all, or want to take another quick look at the changes, if something related pops into my head in-game, and over subsequent game starts from freshly installing the mod.

OK, that makes sense, there should always be a way backwards from a regretted click. 

44 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

Plus, wouldnt it make it easier to bug test/support issues, if the UI wasnt only a one-shot deal, on fresh mod installs?

Not for me; I have something set up to automatically reset them for testing on my local system. 

[HebaruSan]

10 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

currently, the text size is a little smol vOv

Do you use the stock UI Scale setting? I notice it doesn't seem to have an effect in this mod's current UI, so maybe fixing that is our way out:

[severedsolo]

Just nitpicking here, but "mod's website" should read "mods website"

On the subject of backing out of a "whoops I clicked it by mistake" or wanting to review the changelogs further down the line. Not to be rude to @Stone Blue but isn't that precisely what the release page is for? If you want to review the changelog you could easily pop over to the mods page and review the changelog there.

From my point of view, as a modder who uses this. I need this to be idiot proof. I'm the sort of modder who will quite happily rip up half the code when I have one of those "which idiot wrote this... oh yeah" moments. Changing major version numbers doesn't help if you aren't the sort of person who understands what that means, or don't notice it's changed (or are used to Firefox, Chrome etc using semantic versioning wrong).

To me this mod is my defence against "I just installed your update on CKAN and didn't read any changelogs, so now my save is busted".  This means that I need my changelogs to be visible just once, right after the user has installed an update. I need the user to be under no illusions that loading their save right now WILL break their save. I don't need my users not being entirely sure whether they just installed a game breaking update, or if Changelog is informing them of an old change.

To that point, I'd suggest three things (if this feature happens at all).

• Default behaviour should not change, the user should only see a popup if a changelog has changed, the changelog should go away if it hasn't.
• If you allow the user to recall the changelogs that just popped up because they dropped them by mistake it should pop up the changelog they just dismissed (that is, don't show everything just replicate what would have happened when the changelog automatically popped up)
• If the ability to recall all changelogs is added (and again, I don't feel it's needed as per above) make it an obscure keypress that you absolutely darn sure have to push on purpose, and can't trigger by mistake (say, Ctrl-Alt-F6 for example) - so there is no way you can mistake this for anything but something you've triggered.

Sorry if that sounds a bit, condescending towards users, but like I said, this mod is my defence against the lowest common denominator, and anything that reduces that effectiveness is bad IMO.

[HebaruSan]

10 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Just nitpicking here, but "mod's website" should read "mods website"

Should it? Why do you say that?

Maybe you're German. If so, take heart: localization will probably be in my next release.

Edited February 28, 2021 by HebaruSan

[Spaceman.Spiff]

12 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Just nitpicking here, but "mod's website" should read "mods website"

Ah, nope. 
It is the possessive. “Visit the website of this mod”

Not “visit this website with mods”

[severedsolo]

Alright - apparently the way I know that rule is wrong... just ignore me, nothing to see here.

[HebaruSan]

10 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Alright - apparently the way I know that rule is wrong... just ignore me, nothing to see here.

It's right in German! 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback about the re-open button. It will take some doing to present the same info the second time the user opens the window, but I'm convinced it's the right approach. (And there will probably be a "Show old updates" checkbox somewhere for users interested in a deep dive into history.)

[VoidSquid]

12 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

It's right in German! 

And then you see in German speaking countries more and shops with advertisements like "Peter's Laden"  

[HebaruSan]

Why am I re-typing all this stuff, specifically for this mod?

https://github.com/HebaruSan/KerbalChangelog/releases/tag/v1.4.1

Additional ongoing feedback is still welcome. The remaining major idea I have is a single combined display option, now that we no longer show the full history of each updated mod by default, but I wanted to get the current set of changes working well before starting that.

Edited February 28, 2021 by HebaruSan

[HebaruSan]

I had to make five PNGs for Planning Node recently, which depleted all my aesthetic energy, hence what you'll see in the space center is this generic disgrace:

If anyone feels like doing better, contributions are welcome.

Edited February 28, 2021 by HebaruSan

[Stone Blue]

6 hours ago, severedsolo said:

Just nitpicking here, but "mod's website" should read "mods website"

On the subject of backing out of a "whoops I clicked it by mistake" or wanting to review the changelogs further down the line. Not to be rude to @Stone Blue but isn't that precisely what the release page is for? If you want to review the changelog you could easily pop over to the mods page and review the changelog there.

Not be rude back @severedsolo , true, with the "mods website" button, i can get there quicker now, (one clic vs opening browser, typing in "kerbal"+mod name, hopefully clic a top result, then mebbe having to scroll the page to top or bottom to click link for 1st page, then skim OP...), but wait..whats this?... *the dev did not include or update the changelog*... :face_palm:

Also, granted, any dev that supports this mod in the first place, would likely have done that.. but.. vOv

But i wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post...
Also, let me clarify a detail in your one point, related to the post below:

5 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

 (And there will probably be a "Show old updates" checkbox somewhere for users interested in a deep dive into history.)

Oh, you two.. I never meant to show *all* past change logs for whatever mod I just got the current changelog popup for... I mean, if there was a hard-to-find way to deep-dive it, yeah, sure...
no, i meant just to show exactly what was shown the 1st time I get the popup... when I said *all changelogs*, I meant if there was moar than one, from multiple mods, that I may have just installed/updated all at once... so, I meant *just* the current changelog, for *each mod that may have displayed one in the popup.* 

[HebaruSan]

19 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

Not be rude back @severedsolo , true, with the "mods website" button, i can get there quicker now, (one clic vs opening browser, typing in "kerbal"+mod name, hopefully clic a top result, then mebbe having to scroll the page to top or bottom to click link for 1st page, then skim OP...)

I don't think he was nitpicking the existence or functionality of the button, just its grammar.

19 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

I never meant to show *all* past change logs for whatever mod I just got the current changelog popup for... I mean, if there was a hard-to-find way to deep-dive it, yeah, sure...
no, i meant just to show exactly what was shown the 1st time I get the popup... when I said *all changelogs*, I meant if there was moar than one, from multiple mods, that I may have just installed/updated all at once... so, I meant *just* the current changelog, for *each mod that may have displayed one in the popup.* 

Don't worry, I didn't design anything based solely on your feedback; I actually thought about it first . The button in the space center does show the latest changes only, just like at the main menu... unless there are no such changes. Most of the time when you launch the game, there will be no changes since last time, and hiding the button completely or showing a blank popup would make no sense, so in that one case it starts out into historical mode; otherwise you have to check the "Show old changes" checkbox at the top. You're welcome to try the release to see for yourself. 

[HebaruSan]

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