I just installed and tried this for the first time. I'll be endorsing it as soon as the one hour limitation is up. This is a great utility! With this manager, I was able to easily install and uninstall the different versions of the ENB I wanted to try until I found one that worked well with my older laptop and didn't slow it down. I'll definitely be trying it on my gaming desktop as well! Thanks a lot!
To anyone using ENBs in packages that ENBManager doesn't support such as True Vision or Countervibe, sorry. I'm trying to get the last release of ENBManager out and then I'll work on making support packages. If you'd like to use an ENB that ENBManager doesn't support (you'll know if it doesn't install it correctly or you can't see it in the menu), please let me know and I'll be sure to make a package for it.
when installing an ENB, the current RealisticLighting.ini is sent to the backup directory (ENBM_FileBackups) as RealisticLighting.ini_Pre-X, where X is the name of the ENB installed. When you uninstall X, the manager looks for a backed up RealisticLighting.ini and, if found, moves it to RealisticLighting.ini in the data folder.
This sounds like an absolutely perfect solution to me! I'd definitely prefer this one over any line-by-line tweaking for RL anyway.
[EDIT] Something else has come to my mind in this context: I've seen that several ENB distributions contain older versions of RL. I am assuming this, because some of them still contain the Realistic Lighting - Addon.esp, which (AFAIK) has been deprecated in younger versions (hope I am right in this). Wouldn't it be necessary then to also backup the RL esp files as well, alsongside with the ini (as I've done in my original quick & dirty scripts below)?
Ello again, I still love and support this, adding my endorsements to the list and such. I've managed to get it working the most part now, carefully read through the read me a few times. :3
Just wanted to thank you for putting forth the effort on such a wonderful project.
Ah, I should have been more clear. The "by-line" INI tweaking occurs only for the Skyrim and SkyrimPrefs ini files (indeed, you should see an on-screen message detailing the changed entries if you have the ENBManager_Instructions.txt script for that ENB). This is because I thought that allowing Realistic Lighting.ini tweaks from multiple ENBs would result in having Realistic Lighting settings that neither of the ENBs anticipated. Instead, when installing an ENB, the current RealisticLighting.ini is sent to the backup directory (ENBM_FileBackups) as RealisticLighting.ini_Pre-X", where X is the name of the ENB installed. When you uninstall X, the manager looks for a backed up RealisticLighting.ini and, if found, moves it to RealisticLighting.ini in the data folder.
I can, of course, enable line-by-line tweaking for Realistic Lighting in the next release (probably within 2 - 4 days; I want to include everything I have in mind so that I can stop release spamming) if presened with a logical reason to do so.
edit: now that I think of it, if you install ENB X and then ENB Y, then uninstall ENB X, it will revert to the default RL ini. If you then uninstall ENB Y, it will revert to X's RL.ini. I'm still not convinced that line-by-line tweaking is called for here, but I will at least add a check for installation order and only revert the RL.ini if it's from an older ENB than what is being installed. Fortunately the settings file already keeps track of installation order so it shouldn't be too hard.
Great to see that this is going on. I had almost forgotten to give kudos to you, so here you are!
And here's one more thought about the previously discussed question of backing up/restoring Realistic Lighting.ini tweaks:
1: the .ini gets backed up to your libaryENBM_FileBackups folder. This stores ONLY the previous version of the .ini. The backup is not used during uninstallation; it's only there in case something goes horribly wrong during ini editing and you need to restore.
2: the changes are recorded to the ENBManager_Settings.txt file. The original values and tweaked values are recorded so that uninstallation is modular; if you have multiple sets of ini tweaks stored under different ENB folders, it will uninstall each set individually.
If I understand it correctly, this sounds perfect! To be sure, just an sample scenario: I have an existing RL ini file (prior to installing ENB) and then start using ENB Manager to install several ENB profiles (one over each other), where more than one of these ENBs comes with its own Realistic Lighting.ini. Now (after some playing and enjoying ENB), I decide to uninstall all of these ENBs again. What will happen then? Will the uninstallation revert to my original Realistic Lighting.ini settings, or is there a risk that it might accidentally revert back to one of the ENB settings (because of the stacking of several ENBs)? As I understand your description, ENB will handle this correctly, but I am not sure whether I am right. The complexity of such stacked configuration tweaking is the main reason why I decided (in my scripts) to completely back up my original Realistic Lighting.ini and then completely restore it in my ENB deactivate.bat script.
I am starting to realize by now that my situation (let's call it my Use Case), is probably a bit specific: I don't needto be able only to switch between different ENBs, but also to easily disable ENB as a whole, thus reverting to all my non-ENB settings in one go. I am not sure whether everybody needs that, though I believe that it raises acceptance of ENB a lot if one can be sure (e.g. by using your ENB Manager) that there's always an easy rollback option. I am only adding this because it might explain a bit why I am so picky about all these details... ">
Thanks for using my utility . It sounds to me like your directory structure isn't quite what it should be. For the manager to recognize your ENB, the ENB's folder must CONTAIN a folder named "data". So, for example, your directory structure should look like this:
\ENBlib\MyENB\Data
And all of the loose files like d3d9.dll, enbbloom.fx, enbseries.ini, etc. should by in MyENB (not Data).
If you already tried that and I'm misunderstanding, please post the full directory structure of this ENB and I'll see if I can figure out why it's giving the manager a hard time.
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edit: The only link I've found is this one:
skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=17672
and I get a "mod not found" error when I click it.
This sounds like an absolutely perfect solution to me!
I'd definitely prefer this one over any line-by-line tweaking for RL anyway.
[EDIT]
Something else has come to my mind in this context: I've seen that several ENB distributions contain older versions of RL. I am assuming this, because some of them still contain the Realistic Lighting - Addon.esp, which (AFAIK) has been deprecated in younger versions (hope I am right in this). Wouldn't it be necessary then to also backup the RL esp files as well, alsongside with the ini (as I've done in my original quick & dirty scripts below)?
Just wanted to thank you for putting forth the effort on such a wonderful project.
I can, of course, enable line-by-line tweaking for Realistic Lighting in the next release (probably within 2 - 4 days; I want to include everything I have in mind so that I can stop release spamming) if presened with a logical reason to do so.
edit: now that I think of it, if you install ENB X and then ENB Y, then uninstall ENB X, it will revert to the default RL ini. If you then uninstall ENB Y, it will revert to X's RL.ini. I'm still not convinced that line-by-line tweaking is called for here, but I will at least add a check for installation order and only revert the RL.ini if it's from an older ENB than what is being installed. Fortunately the settings file already keeps track of installation order so it shouldn't be too hard.
I had almost forgotten to give kudos to you, so here you are!
And here's one more thought about the previously discussed question of backing up/restoring Realistic Lighting.ini tweaks:
If I understand it correctly, this sounds perfect!
To be sure, just an sample scenario:
I have an existing RL ini file (prior to installing ENB) and then start using ENB Manager to install several ENB profiles (one over each other), where more than one of these ENBs comes with its own Realistic Lighting.ini. Now (after some playing and enjoying ENB), I decide to uninstall all of these ENBs again.
What will happen then? Will the uninstallation revert to my original Realistic Lighting.ini settings, or is there a risk that it might accidentally revert back to one of the ENB settings (because of the stacking of several ENBs)?
As I understand your description, ENB will handle this correctly, but I am not sure whether I am right.
The complexity of such stacked configuration tweaking is the main reason why I decided (in my scripts) to completely back up my original Realistic Lighting.ini and then completely restore it in my ENB deactivate.bat script.
I am starting to realize by now that my situation (let's call it my Use Case), is probably a bit specific: I don't needto be able only to switch between different ENBs, but also to easily disable ENB as a whole, thus reverting to all my non-ENB settings in one go. I am not sure whether everybody needs that, though I believe that it raises acceptance of ENB a lot if one can be sure (e.g. by using your ENB Manager) that there's always an easy rollback option.
I am only adding this because it might explain a bit why I am so picky about all these details...
Thanks for using my utility
\ENBlib\MyENB\Data
And all of the loose files like d3d9.dll, enbbloom.fx, enbseries.ini, etc. should by in MyENB (not Data).
If you already tried that and I'm misunderstanding, please post the full directory structure of this ENB and I'll see if I can figure out why it's giving the manager a hard time.