Compatibility Popup Blocker

[BrianMcNett]

As a modder that has to handle support fairly frequently this mod terrifies me.

As well it should. This mod solves the wrong problem, which is that you are running incompatible mods. This mod terrifies me in my professional capacity. I do work in computer and network security. The potential harm caused by the attitude expressed here towards buggy code, (namely to just code around the bug rather than work to fix it) is extremely alarming. All because you don't like seeing a dialog box alerting you to a problem whose effects you don't understand.

[Mulbin]

Sorry if this has been covered, a lot of pages to trawl through. But isn't this mod completely pointless anyway? You don't have to click the "incompatible mods" dialogue.... it just disappears when KSP gets to the loading screen. Otherwise I must admit that I would find the "64 bit is bad" popup annoying, especially as the same message also appears above the loading bar anyway... but as I don't need to actually click "ok" then there isn't really a problem that needs addressing.

[Boomerang]

As well it should. This mod solves the wrong problem, which is that you are running incompatible mods. This mod terrifies me in my professional capacity. I do work in computer and network security. The potential harm caused by the attitude expressed here towards buggy code, (namely to just code around the bug rather than work to fix it) is extremely alarming. All because you don't like seeing a dialog box alerting you to a problem whose effects you don't understand.

Aye. As someone who's fairly mechanically handy, I feel like this mod is the equivalent of someone working out of his basement to turn off all of his neighbor's 'Check Engine' lights for them so they don't have to look at the little red light/take their car into a mechanics. You know, because it's really just a hassle and nine times out of ten there's not actually anything to worry about.

Even if someone did that, and most of the time it saved drivers a tiny bit of aggravation and gave them 'more control over their cars', don't you think the local mechanics would start getting pissy when more people started coming in with automotive problems that could have been solved earlier thanks to a little warning/would have been much easier to diagnose otherwise? (ignoring the whole trope of mechanics loving to find extra ways to charge people)

While not the biggest problem in the world, this CC issue is a tangle of subissues, and rather than working with the people who'll have to deal with the fallout of all this, someone got pissy that one person was a bit hostile and decided 'frack it, I'll just let the cat out of the box'.

Maybe there's a way all of the tech un-savvy people who are going to fill mod threads when they don't understand why their .90 game is almost immediately borked can be redirected to this thread. You know, so all the people who are saving hours and hours of their lives not clicking 'Ok' can deal with the mess.

[Beetlecat]

Sorry if this has been covered, a lot of pages to trawl through. But isn't this mod completely pointless anyway? You don't have to click the "incompatible mods" dialogue.... it just disappears when KSP gets to the loading screen. Otherwise I must admit that I would find the "64 bit is bad" popup annoying, especially as the same message also appears above the loading bar anyway... but as I don't need to actually click "ok" then there isn't really a problem that needs addressing.

Wait-- one does not actually have to click any buttons? That places this mod and thread in a whole new light for me.

Besides, who doesn't get up and make a cup of tea when the game is loading? The "valuable time" not clicking buttons is also not spent staring at a loading screen for a few minutes -- barring any actual issues.

[Mulbin]

Sorry, I should have said it disappears when ksp gets to the main menu screen.. not loading screen. But yes, you don't need to click "ok" at all on the compatability warning as the popup just goes away on its own. Not sure if it is the same for the mod update popups... but why wouldn't you want to know there is an update?

[regex]

The hilarity of this thread is pretty awesome now; OP didn't even need to click "OK"... CC is, quite literally, an alert window, and can't even be considered a nag screen. Code confirms, it's not modal and would go away on scene change to a loaded game.

E: I am mistaken, actually, it persists across scenes. Hrm...

Still, that makes probably the most diplomatic solution a simple change of a boolean value in the popup instantiation.

Edited October 25, 2014 by regex

[Beetlecat]

The hilarity of this thread is pretty awesome now; OP didn't even need to click "OK"... CC is, quite literally, an alert window, and can't even be considered a nag screen. Code confirms, it's not modal and would go away on scene change to a loaded game.

E: I am mistaken, actually, it persists across scenes. Hrm...

Still, that makes probably the most diplomatic solution a simple change of a boolean value in the popup instantiation.

Maybe that was too poetically beautiful to be true, then.

[AetherGoddess]

Maybe that was too poetically beautiful to be true, then.

it's close.

[Mulbin]

Odd... it disappears on my 64 bit. Maybe another mod is interfering.

[Khatharr]

The point is: I am willing to compromise, but I'm speaking only for myself. Are you willing to compromise with the others?

Please review the popup blocker 1.0.2 behavior and let me know what you think.

If you need something to test it with:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55625-0-25-In-game-notes-notepad-checklist-v0-10-26-07-14

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66881-0-25-In-game-scientific-calculator-Kalculator-v0-2-27-07-14

These mods, despite claiming 0.25 compatibility and functioning perfectly, trigger a CC warning. (The author is aware and is working on an update.)

Edited October 25, 2014 by Khatharr

[Guest]

Would you be willing to tackle another "anti-feature"? A lot of mods are disabling themselves in 64bit KSP. This is especially problematic, as it includes RSS and other mods necessary to run it. RSS-based installs, due to it's nature as a high-memory mod, could use 64bit the most. And it's bloody disabled. Could you try to find a fix to this annoying behavior? It prohibits me (and everyone else) from using 64bit KSP to experience RSS in full visual glory. It's probably going to be harder than killing off compatibility warnings, but I think it'll be useful. Also, unlike CC, forking all those plugins and fixing them individually isn't really an option, there's too many of them and they're updated too often. An across-the-board enabler is pretty much unarguably necessary here.

[Ippo]

Please review the popup blocker 1.0.2 behavior and let me know what you think.

I will see to it tomorrow, or most likely on monday.

Would you be willing to tackle another "anti-feature"? [...]

Let's try not to heat up a discussion that is finally stearing towards reasonable grounds, please. Just use the -force-opengl option and mod win32 to your heart's content.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Would you be willing to tackle another "anti-feature"?

Removing the warnings is one thing - actually re-enabling things that the mod authors themselves have decided aren't suitable for release is another thing. Sure, the thing might work, but enabling it would increase their workload by quite a lot and they aren't willing to put themselves through the hassle of it, especially now this mod exists.

Yes, it's annoying, yes, it means some excellent mods aren't available for some people, but Squad themselves have recommended not using x64, it's more unstable than 0.24 (even more so than the community hack before it) and mod authors have recommend both users and KSP devs to pull its release - there's no reason at all to use it instead of OpenGL 32bit.

For the record, I have B9, EVE, KWR, KerbinSide, KSC++ and a load more memory using mods - with OpenGL, the usage is barely over 2GB and that's without ATM (actually, to be truthful, it is installed, but is doing no compression. It's only there for the decreased load time).

Edited October 26, 2014 by ObsessedWithKSP
grammar is hard

[RoverDude]

Would you be willing to tackle another "anti-feature"? A lot of mods are disabling themselves in 64bit KSP.

<snip>

An across-the-board enabler is pretty much unarguably necessary here.

Sorry, you just made my 'Do not ever support or answer questions for again for any mod I author or curate' list. It's probably better that way.

Edited October 26, 2014 by RoverDude

[Boomerang]

Oh, good, more short-sighted people who can't see past their own minor inconveniences.

Please, for the love of whatever you love, look into *why* authors have chosen to disable their mods for x64. And as I believe Ferram said, if you're tech savvy enough to edit a mod so as to re-enable it for x64, you're probably clever enough to deal with the myriad problems inherent to that version of the game. Or at the very least clever enough to not go around blaming the author for your x64 problems.

[Guest]

Except I don't always have a bloody half an hour (it's, on average, what it takes) per plugin to fix that particular annoyance. That's assuming I even have a compiler handy. RSS uses quite a few plugins, and this practice is spreading like plague among them. Practically every single one does it, and of course when one of them updates, it'd have to do that again. No, thanks. I'd rather take my chances with all-round fixer plugin. I know the reason mod authors disable their mods for x64, and I say it's a stupid and invalid reason to do such a thing. Oh, and -force_opengl doesn't fix everything on a 32bit, and it'll kill your performance when using RSS due to huge textures (not to mention it messes up LoD, which is nice for speeding up loading and reducing part memory usage). I'd rather use 64bit, it at least has a chance of working. Finally, it won't increase anyone's workload, assuming modders stop caring about idiots who can't read a simple disclaimer (it helps that those generally don't play RSS. You need to at least be able to read in order to get to orbit in there).

IMO, this is very much within the spirit of this plugin, and a very needed functionality. This mod is great for people who, like me, don't care about idiots and want this "idiot-proofing" (that doesn't work anyway) killed off for improved experience. Forking and fixing one plugin wouldn't be a problem, but there were 5, last time I checked. It's simply not feasible to fix and distribute all of them individually. It's not a minor inconvenience, it's something that, were I to do it myself on an individual basis, would consume most of my (or anyone's would would attempt this) free time. The one and only feasible way of dealing with 64bit lockout is a plugin to lock the lockout.

Edited October 26, 2014 by Guest

[avivey]

Thank you Khatharr, This is useful and needed!

Right now, both Firespitter and Notes keep falsely reporting "incompatible", despite both being on the very recent versions, and that makes me jump to the forum every single time I see it, and look again and make sure again that yes, I do have the right versions of everything, and no, there's nothing to update.

[Leszek]

(I hope this wasn't already said. I did read through some pages but this thread is difficult to read.)

I find CC convenient. When .25 came out, I had more mods then I can remember. The CC just wasn't all that in the way and it doubled to remind me what mods I have. If all my mods used CC it would have been easier. Especially since not every folder in game data maps to a mod. Some (like triggertech, Klockheed Martin) have more than one.

I really don't understand why someone finds CC so in the way. It is a click and gone. It is not like it kills that cat. It doesn't take hours to skip through. It doesn't eat all my RAM so that I can't run mods.

If I had an abandoned mod that uses CC and is always getting in my way, that I might find that mildly annoying, but not really.

[AetherGoddess]

On Winx64, practically: This isn't really feasible, as each of those mods have their own disabling code, usually within their own classes. this trick with this was that Khatharr was overwriting the CC class, which lots of plugins call. in order to do this for FAR, for example, an author would need to replicate all of FAR with that one line disabled. while this is technically possible, and even doable for some mods with permissive licensing, the workload would be DRASTICALLY higher, and it's a much much more direct F-U to the mod maker, who is 1) largely doing it to improve the game for you in the first place and 2) now much more likely to lock down their licensing to prevent rogue editions they have to support (Ref: Treeloader in .25).

On Winx64, Philosophically: there is a reason these mods disable themselves, and it's WAY bigger a deal then a compatibility warning. the CC warning was a "FYI: we don't know what's gonna happen. you're on your own". the Winx64 shutdown is "we KNOW this doesn't work. you ARE going to experience issues. IF you want to take your life into your own hands, you need to disable the safety features in a way that proves you understand the potential risks and problems". to extend a previous analogy: breaking CC is disabling the check engine light on your neighbors car for their convenience, enabling Winx64 is like removing all the control and throttle limits, so if they steer too hard or push the gas too hard the undercarriage or engine will shake themselves apart, for your neighbors convenience.

[rifter]

Right now, both Firespitter and Notes keep falsely reporting "incompatible", despite both being on the very recent versions, and that makes me jump to the forum every single time I see it, and look again and make sure again that yes, I do have the right versions of everything, and no, there's nothing to update.

An updated firespitter comes with B9 5.2.6, if you can afford to download the 62mb for it.

[Master Tao]

Or you could just download the latest version of the plugin from Snjo's GitHub. That's the normal place to download the just the plugin. Link in the Firespitter OP.

[NathanKell]

For the record, I offer unlocked RSS by request by PM, same with all my mods.

Edited October 26, 2014 by NathanKell

[Khatharr]

Thank you Khatharr, This is useful and needed!

Right now, both Firespitter and Notes keep falsely reporting "incompatible", despite both being on the very recent versions, and that makes me jump to the forum every single time I see it, and look again and make sure again that yes, I do have the right versions of everything, and no, there's nothing to update.

I don't use firespitter, but I do have some mods that use the dll. AFAIK there's an up-to-date dll for it, because I'm not getting warnings from it. I'll see if I can find it.

Oh, right. snjo has it on the firespitter github. It's kind of a pain in the butt, but if you go here:

https://github.com/snjo/Firespitter

On the lower-right there's a 'download' link. It will download the whole 40mb thing because github.

The updated dll is in the "For release/Firespitter/Plugins" folder once you unzip the downloaded file.

Note that I have no clue whether or not it will work correctly with the release version of firespitter, but it works correctly for other stuff like Nothke's service compartments or infernal robotics, etc.

Edited October 26, 2014 by Khatharr

[Roadkill]

Dragon01, I offer unlocked RSS by request by PM, same with all my mods.

I think you just lost your opportunity, however.

It would be nice if you would post that info in your RSS OP. It might help smooth relations with the community. Or you could be a .... and post crap like this.

[slumpie]

Maybe he doesn't want people spamming his messages inbox?

Edited October 26, 2014 by slumpie