Todo List for v1.4 (feedback requested) - Updated 10/22

    Ooh, ooh, ooh! Last feature request! Could we put some sort´ve global tag into the main script that removed all blank lines after the mod was done appending/replacing/whatever?? IOW: [munition blah blah blah [weapon blah blah blah Would become [munition blah blah blah [weapon blah blah blah <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=37915&amp;forum_id=29&amp;Topic_Title=%2A%2ATutorial%2A%2A++No+more+Trailing+References%21&amp;forum_title=Freelancer+Editing+Tutorial+Forum&amp;cat_title=Freelancer+Editing&amp;M=False´ Target=_Blank>I have researched removing the blank lines from inis,</a> and have found that this greatly improves the efficiency of the FL game engine. Doing this could really improve the performance of mods without destroying FLMM´s functionality (since it would do it after every other step) or making developers need some sort´ve &quot;repacked&quot; SDK.

    Just as a note about the backup/restore problem I discussed in the other thread, I figured out what happened- I had referenced the file as &quot;DATAsomething&quot; in one tag and &quot;DATA/something&quot; in another tag (notice the / instead of the ). The mod worked, but the restore was a bit confused. When I used the same convention throughout, it worked fine. I don´t know if you care or not, just thought I´d mention it <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> I have become one with my computer. It is a feeling of ecstasy...the perfect blend of logic and emotion. I have reached...Nerdvana!

    I have become one with my computer. It is a feeling of ecstasy...the perfect blend of logic and emotion. I have reached...Nerdvana!

    Make it so that index.txt could instead be index.html (if one existed) - which would allow links etc to the sites individual areas. Its just so that you could use a smaller index file, which actually contains more content - like &quot;Click here for problem solving bugs&quot; etc. I know, crap and probabily worthless to most... but just a thought (yeah, you can visit mods homepage, but that means your website would have to be set up for them to immediately find stuff - instead of a simple link clicking for each individual thing). If its really simple, then it would just be a nice addition. If its not that simple - don´t bother <img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> As always Matt - thanks for such a great/useful tool - its awesome! Thanks for continually improving it for no reason other than, well... for no reason <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Argh: I think that´d be a job best left for the unofficial patch/SDK. Overkill: Great find, I really appreciated you giving me those details. Fixed it in just a few minutes <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>. All &quot;/&quot; are now automatically replaced with &quot;&quot;. Chips: Good idea; done <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>.

    One problem that I hope you can fix is where some mods leave crap behind after you have deactivated it (TNG for example) which messes up the game and other mods. Maybe having FLMM create a manifest file before activation in the mod folder and then use that to remove stuff and use it as part of the restore backups thing. Check out the latest beta´s of the <A href=´http://eoa.seriouszone.com/?page=flsdk´ Target=_Blank>Freelancer S.D.K. 1.5</a> and <A href=´http://eoa.seriouszone.com/?page=flexp´ Target=_Blank>Freelancer Explorer v2.x</a>

    <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>Don´t allow mod activation/deactivation while FLServer is loaded (done ) <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> why?I have a mod planned that will pretty much depend on flmm running with the server open for editing mpnewcharacter.fl(actually i don´t even know if flmm can edit this,if it can´t add that please)for altering startup location, ship, loadout, costume....Agh! again,why?

    Oh yeah... and, um... if it´s going to strip comments... can it do that <i>last </i>, or not at all (i.e., with a switch)? My XML Toolkit Mod, which is supposed to be showcasing what your app. can do... will be kind´ve hosed if Comments get stripped by the parser before the end- the Comments are creating context for the XML script searches... so, uh... <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/Download/Download.asp?ID=1753´ Target=_Blank>you might want to take a look at my mod</a> before you unleash 1.4, because it´d be a real pain to have to fix that... and it´s a useful thing for developers. If you´re going to force the parser to strip comments as it goes, instead of at the end of processing the entire queue, my whole approach is going to be hosed if I can´t turn it off with a switch or something.

    Louva-Deus: FLMM should already properly restore every file to its original state (and delete every added file) when a mod is deactivated. I just activated/deactivated TNG v2.7.6 using FLMM v1.3.1, and couldn´t find any changed/left behind files? Cold_Void: I did it because of a request in <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/forum/topic.asp?Topic_ID=38900&amp;Forum_ID=32´ Target=_Blank>this thread</a>. I just changed it to give a warning if FLServer is loaded, letting a user continue the process if they click Yes; would that work? Argh: Ok, I removed the comment stripping code (which actually just stripped comments from inside &lt;section&gt; elements). I added that to reduce conflicts when activating multiple mods (because improperly-placed comments can mess up other mod scripts), but since (as you say) it might actually cause more problems than solve I´m removing it (unless someone suggests a better way to do it).

    that sounds great to me IGx89, having no ability to run with flserver seemed like an extreme solution for corruption problems but this feels just right <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> thanks for listening &amp; programming a great mod manager(i don´t think 90% of mod installers work as well as yours does) <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> p.s. can FLMM run script operations on mpnewcharacter.fl? Edited by - Cold_Void on 5/23/2005 5:08:11 PM

    Thanks IGx89, I was having nightmares about how I was going to have to &quot;re-tag&quot; all of that data <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>Louva-Deus: FLMM should already properly restore every file to its original state (and delete every added file) when a mod is deactivated. I just activated/deactivated TNG v2.7.6 using FLMM v1.3.1, and couldn´t find any changed/left behind files? <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Under normal operation that would be fine but there are many cases where parts of a mod are left behind. Some being if there was an error in deactivating, flmm crashes, someone activates two or more incompatible mods. These are cases in which FLMM can´t tell the difference between the original game files and any new ones added by a mod. How this happens isn´t important, the fact that it does is. Some sort of temporary manifest file should be considered as a static source for recovery rather than relying on program memory, think of it as an install log that is used to reverse the process (restore backups). The log should be appendable so people activating more than one mod don´t mess up the log feature. You don´t have to take my word for it but I have seen this many many times and if the feature can be added without too much difficulty I suggest doing it. This would reduce support/help requests a lot. Check out the latest beta´s of the <A href=´http://eoa.seriouszone.com/?page=flsdk´ Target=_Blank>Freelancer S.D.K. 1.5</a> and <A href=´http://eoa.seriouszone.com/?page=flexp´ Target=_Blank>Freelancer Explorer v2.x</a>

    I´ll look at making the error recovery more robust, but that could take a lot of work so I can´t promise anything. <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> Fix GENERATESTRRES/GENERATEXMLSTRRES line truncation, allow multiple macros per line, and validate macro syntax during test activations (done ) <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Already fixed <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    Copied from the fixed thread: --- So, there is the command line parameter /toggle=&quot;mod_folder&quot; But now, what if your mod has OPTIONS How to tell the FLMM which options it has to select and to activate the mod?!? --- Such a feature would be cool for automated servers that switch between diffrent npc population settings at certain times.

    IGx89: If you start extending the commandline options, I suggest you grab someone´s commandline parser library and start using it. They get ugly otherwise. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> w0dk4, exploiting those options would be very cool; there are a couple of workarounds for this that are also pretty easy to do. One is to have &quot;prepped&quot; XML files or actual ini files that you swap around before toggling the mod. In fact, if the only reason for toggling the mod is to change some particular values, having a WSH script or other tool that can do specific things to files quickly may be a much better option. That´s what I usually do; it also gives you access to a bunch of other techniques for dynamically changing things, and of course if the files are ones FLMM has already touched, if you make mistakes a simply deactivate/reactivate in FLMM will throw them away. I can sympathize with doing things via FLMM, of course. It´s easy to make a shortcut someone else uses and even to distribute instructions without requiring a mess of add-on functionality.

    As has been suggested in Alcander´s recent thread about EXE modifications would it be possible to add a feature to FLMM that lets you change the version numbers of freelancer.exe and flserver.exe through the script.xml file? Since the resources of the exe are not a part of the encoding(or lack of) of the content this would work on any version of the exes a player has installed(vanilla, 1.1patch, Alcander´s stuff, etc). Advantages to this would be 1) no more need to distribute the exe files(which is illegal..) 2) cuts down on download size of mods 3) gives all mod makers an easy option to have their own version numbers which helps to avoid clashing/crashing servers. A possible challenges to overcome with this is where people activate multiple mods at a time and you don´t want the bugger going crazy. Check out the latest beta´s of the <A href=´http://eoa.seriouszone.com/?page=flsdk´ Target=_Blank>Freelancer S.D.K. 1.5</a> and <A href=´http://eoa.seriouszone.com/?page=flexp´ Target=_Blank>Freelancer Explorer v2.x</a>

    Is it possible to change the &quot;prefoptions.ini&quot; with FLMM.This would allow mod makers to preset a difficulty level,rather than messing around with the AI. **shuffles of with a new headache** <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

    indeed,FLMM needs to add support for the user files under my documents/games.Also I´d like to bring matt´s attention to this post<A href=´http://lancersreactor.org/t/forum/topic.asp?topic_id=39445&amp;forum_id=18&amp;Topic_Title=An+idea+for+App+Makers+and+Modders&amp;forum_title=Freelancer+General+Editing+Forum&amp;cat_title=Freelancer+Editing&amp;M=False´ Target=_Blank>An idea for App Makers and Modders</a> and my posts about adding some forward looking support to FLMM for RSS updates.i´m not talking about integrating RSS mind you,just making some accomodations for constantly updating mods through an RSS 2.0 subscription