Warzone 2100 Mod Manager

[Buginator]

First I'd like to apologize in advance for stepping on your toes on this, you have done a great job with the mod manager thus far, but as pointed out by some this one only runs on windows. Since 90% of the time I play Warzone on Linux and the other 10% on Windows I cannot use your manager most of the time. This is why I decided to write a new mod manager one that will run on all supported Warzone platforms (Window,*NIX,Mac). It's going to be Qt based and as such will be in C++. It's still very early in the development stage but I will try to have some screen shots up in the next few days or so. One problem i do have thought is that I do not have a Mac to develop/test on so if there are any Mac users here who are willing to help out with that part it would be greatly appreciated.

Nice!

[Odin79]

Here is a preview screen shot of what I'm working on. Keep in mind that the layout may change before I release it.

Here is a summary of not so obvious planned features:

• Mod load order - Customize the loading order of mods.
  Profiles - This will allow you to customize what mods are loaded without changing it every time. Profile definition will be saved to an XML file for easy transport.
  Mod InstallerA convenience tool to install a mod to the proper directory.

The obvious features include; cross-platform, custom command line options.

I appreciate any comments or suggestions, especially before I release it. I will maintain a wish list of feature and will try to include them in the first release (no promises though, I can't make it cook dinner for you. )

The development is going well, I've had it working on Windows and Linux (Kubuntu 9.10 in my case). Still need to write the profile saving/loading and the mod ordering. I'll release an alpha as soon as those features are done.

[milo christiansen]

Looks Cool! Your program fixes my number one problem of windows only.

Version 4.0 is here!

4.0 has almost no code in common with 3.0 so I may have missed a bug or two.

The Readme has all the info.

Wait, how does the .wzmod file contain the ini, the bmp, and the wz file, if not as a ZIP? Is it some other form of archive? TAR?

I decompress it first.
It has to be a .bmp, .gif, .jpg, or if you have gtk+ MAYBE .png.

To use a .wzmod without the manager rename to .zip extract the .wz file, Done.

If Odin79's manager works good I will back that, for its multi platform abilitys if nothing else.

@Odin79 If you need a windows tester just ask.

[Zarel]

To use a .wzmod without the manager rename to .zip extract the .wz file, Done.

So why can't you just do that with a .wz file itself?

[Odin79]

So why can't you just do that with a .wz file itself?

Putting "foreign" files into the .wz won't break anything in warzone itself?

[Zarel]

Putting "foreign" files into the .wz won't break anything in warzone itself?

...no? That's what I've been trying to say the whole time...

[winsrp]

why dont you just use the extension of the file itself instead of making things up?, you already have to put either .wz or whatever in the command line itself.

[Odin79]

Ok here is an alpha version of the mod manager I'm working on. It has not been fully tested yet so there probably be bugs. I used QtCreator to make this so for the developers out there just use that (or qmake) to build your own binary for your OS. QT4 is required for this.

I'm also looking for a Mac developer who can build and package the Mac version. I can build the Windows and Linux binaries. I'm still looking for a cross-platform installer, but if I can't find a nice decent one I will package it up depending on OS (Installer for windows, rpm, deb for Linux, and whatever the standard is for Mac).

I'm still working on the "Install Mod" feature so for now it's disabled. I have to clean up the source code before I do anything else though.

I'll take any comments, suggestions, and questions, and bugs. Hold the flames.

Also if anyone has any feature requests let me know.

Window Binary: http://www.mediafire.com/file/klm2zjz1x ... 1alpha.zip (File is too big to upload to the forums).

[milo christiansen]

To use a .wzmod without the manager rename to .zip extract the .wz file, Done.

So why can't you just do that with a .wz file itself?

Because I dont want to have to extract/recompress the entire contents of the .wz file every time I need to read or write to the mod config file.

I'm going to test odin's alpha tonight, I will post my impressions of it later in the week.

[Zarel]

Because I dont want to have to extract/recompress the entire contents of the .wz file every time I need to read or write to the mod config file.

Erm, you're going to have to extract/recompress the .wzmod file, anyway. What's the difference between doing that with a .wzmod file and a .wz file, other than that the .wzmod file can't be read by Warzone?

Ok here is an alpha version of the mod manager I'm working on. It has not been fully tested yet so there probably be bugs. I used QtCreator to make this so for the developers out there just use that (or qmake) to build your own binary for your OS. QT4 is required for this.

Doesn't work on Mac OS X. You can't select binaries with Mac OS X.

And you should just have good defaults, instead of having to pop up a question.

[Odin79]

Doesn't work on Mac OS X. You can't select binaries with Mac OS X.

That is definately a side effect of not having a Mac to develop on. However that will soon change, maybe in the next day or so. Once I have the Mac up and running I will make the necessary modifications.

And you should just have good defaults, instead of having to pop up a question.

I do plan to have defaults for the locations in the next release along with a search tool for non-default installs. I can't just assume that everyone installed the game in the default location.

[Zarel]

That is definately a side effect of not having a Mac to develop on. However that will soon change, maybe in the next day or so. Once I have the Mac up and running I will make the necessary modifications.

Basically, a Mac user can only select /Applications/Warzone.app when given the selection screen. In the file selection UI (and all other UIs), .app files look like files.

However, the executable binary is in /Applications/Warzone.app/Contents/MacOS/Warzone

I don't know about Linux, but here's Warzone on Windows and Mac:

/Applications/Warzone.app/Contents/MacOS/Warzone
%ProgramFiles%/Warzone 2100/warzone2100.exe

Here's the applicatation data location. I've appended mods/global/ :

/Applications/Warzone.app/Contents/Resources/mods/global/
%ProgramFiles%/Warzone 2100/mods/global/

Here's the default data location. I've appended mods/global/ :

~/Library/Application Support/Warzone 2100/mods/global/
%AppData%/Warzone 2100 2.2/mods/global/

I do plan to have defaults for the locations in the next release along with a search tool for non-default installs. I can't just assume that everyone installed the game in the default location.

If it finds Warzone in the default location, it should just assume that's the right one. Anyone who wants to use a different install of Warzone can use Options or something.

[Odin79]

If it finds Warzone in the default location, it should just assume that's the right one. Anyone who wants to use a different install of Warzone can use Options or something.

I'll still display the dialog with the paths just so the user can confirm them, clicking on Ok button is not difficult after that. I'll clean it up though so only one dialog shows up instead of two. The popup should only show up the very first time the manager starts, after that it should not show up.

[Zarel]

I'll still display the dialog with the paths just so the user can confirm them, clicking on Ok button is not difficult after that. I'll clean it up though so only one dialog shows up instead of two. The popup should only show up the very first time the manager starts, after that it should not show up.

Clicking on "Options" isn't difficult, either. It's not worth inconveniencing 99.9% of users for that last 0.1%.

[milo christiansen]

I like odin's manager very much. It works nice, and, with a little polish will be much better then my efforts.

@Zarel the mod manager extracts the wzmod once then it never bothers it again.