For anyone getting the "Nexus server unreachable" error frequently when trying to insert Nexus mods, this is because the servers have been heavily overloaded from people constantly downloading the Fallout: The Frontier mod that just released. Modlist Arranger is unable to utilize its automatic Nexus mod-data collection feature while the servers are like this, so the only thing we can do it wait it out. (This is especially a pain for me, as the guy trying to test if his damn program is working right.)
NOTE: As of version 1.21, inserting a mod while the site is unreachable by the program will show the wrong message, showing "Mod data unavailable" instead. While that is technically true while the nexusmods server is down for data collection, it might be a little misleading, so just thought I'd point it out.
EDIT: This problem has been fixed as of version 1.3
So I am playing around with this a bit to see how it works, and so far I am liking what I see. However, is there a way to add an additional column for NOTES or something like that? It would be nice to be able to jot down some necessary notes for the functionality of the mods, say if you have to add something to SkyrimPrefs.ini to make the mod work correctly. Even an additional row below it that automatically indents, or something of that nature. I tend to forget things I need to do.
Also, is it possible to add the ability to highlight a row in different colors? For example, red to indicate you have something you need to do to the mod to get it to work, yellow for espfe/esl's so you know they are light and don't take up a slot, blue for dependencies, etc? Just curious, since that is how I do things on my own typed out list. But this saves me a LOT of typing/cutting/pasting. Speaking of which, is there a way to add a copy/paste/undo function? I just deleted the wrong category because I have fumblefingers this morning. It would be nice if the category you were working on or selected remained highlighted, that way you wouldn't do stupid stuff like me.
Anyway, these are just suggestions, not demands. I like what I see so far, so of course now I want more. Take them with a grain of salt. I'm selfish and old, so I want stuff NOW.
EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see that the descriptions were editable (picture links are broken so I didn't notice and didn't go to the image tab). That will work for the NOTES. Highlighting and copy/past/undo would still be nice though.
EDIT 2: Damn. Sorry again. I'm really not exploring as well as I should be, apparantly. I can see the copy/cut/paste when right clicking on the editable desciption now. So my bad. It would still be nice to have an undo or highlighting capabilty, though. Until I find you already did that, too. Ooh, and drag and drop, since I apparently have issues getting things under the right category. And collapsing a single or multiple single categories as well as the collapsing all you already have. Sooner or later I'll stop adding things. I promise.
I'll look more into whether or not I can implement the things you're suggesting after I go to sleep, For now, though, I'll post some quick thoughts.
Highlighting with preset colors should be easy enough, and so should making things stay selected after a right click.
As for collapsing, currently I've disallowed multiple category selection because of issues I've run into, so there won't be multiple category collapsing until I resolve those. However, you can collapse or expand a single category by double clicking its name. I'll try and make that more obvious
Dragging and dropping categories would be difficult for me to implement, but I could give it a shot. And though the mods themselves can be dragged around from their index numbers, they won't move into other categories this way because of issues. Maybe I could try and get it working, though.
Copying/Pasting/Undoing anything that isn't text will be near-impossible for me at the moment without a ton of work, so that will probably be out of the question. Though undoing the very last thing you've done in the program MIGHT be within my abilities, so I'll look into that.
Anyway, that's what I have off the top of my head. I don't know how quickly I'll be able to get these changes out if I decide to do them, since I'm working on the incompatibility-checking feature someone else mentioned, but I'll try to get an update out soon. Other than that, thanks for trying it out and giving helpful feedback!
Thanks for the quick reply. I just tried double clicking on the title and that collapse works nicely. Probably my fault rather than yours for not noticing the directions. I'm the type of person that likes to jump in and do stuff, not ask directions, etc. I need to slow down and read everything, not just the parts I'm interested in. My wife says I'm like our dog with a squirrel. Always making noise, no attention span, and I have no idea what to do with it after I've caught it.
As for the rest, highlighting would be nice. The rest I can live without as I get more familiar with what I'm doing. They were just ideas that I had with no idea on how difficult they would be to implement.
Thank you for the neat tool. It's going to make maintaining my modlist sooo much easier.
I've added mod display highlighting to preset colors in the latest version. There are only 4 other colors to choose from at the moment, but I could add more later. Hope that helps for now, though!
Thanks for the quick update. I think I'll used a light color to indicate espfe/esl/no esp files. Always bothers me the trouble I have to go through to identify which are lights just from staring at a list, without having to look some of them up. Especially when I'm merging mods that don't really need to be. Vortex helps some, but some modders don't exactly make their esp filenames relevant to the modname.Again, thanks for the update.
Love the idea (using excel to keep track of my mods today) but it wwill not work for me. Running the .exe and pasting a modlink... nothing. What could it be? Running Windows 10.
Oh, I believe I've screwed something up in the latest version. I'll fix it as soon as possible. Thanks for letting me know, and sorry for the inconvenience!
To anyone that has downloaded or is downloading version 1.1, there is a fatal error that causes the program to not function correctly. Please download the latest version, version 1.11, for the fixed program.
I think that one feature that would be amazing for a tool like this would be to be able to copy and paste URLs into an "Incompatibility" space for each mod. Then, if a mod is added to the list that has a URL that matches any of the Incompatibility URLs for any mod in the list, it automatically informs you that unless you know of a compatibility patch, you've made a mistake in setting up your list.
To be honest, trying to keep up with each mod's recorded incompatibilities over the span of however long I spend planning out a modlist, and making sure that I don't forget one and bring in a mod that looks neat but is incompatible with a previously-chosen mod, is the most difficult part for me. It's frustrating having to go back and double-check 80-100 mods to make sure that not a single one of them mentions whatever new mod I want to add, and then do it again for the next mod because I didn't think of it earlier or wasn't looking for that one as well since I hadn't thought of adding the second new mod yet.
This is actually a very useful sounding feature that I'd love to implement. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier, too. I might be able to make something simple like you propose for this, but I'll have to look into how to do it first. No promises.
I've added an incompatibility checking system that's more or less what you described in the newest version. Manually input urls into a mod's incompatibility list and all that. Checking for incompatibilities automatically might have been resource-intensive, so instead there's now a menu option to scan for any incompatible mods from the incompatibility lists you've created. It will then highlight those mods in grey, display the total number of conflicts found, and add an option in the right-click menu under each conflicting mod to display the mods it conflicts with.
Unfortunately, categories system used by mod managers and Nexus is simply stupid, terrible and useless for mod sets over 1000 mods. But if you have 30-150 mods it should be fine.
Sorry, I went to sleep directly after posting this. The fact that this is happening is concerning, and I will look into clearing that up. I can say for a fact that I don't have any viruses on my computer (to my knowledge at least) and that I virus scan pretty regularly. This seems to be a problem with the way I compiled the exe from a Python script through the pyinstaller compiler. It should be a false positive, but I'll have to find some way to clear this up.
26 comments
EDIT: This problem has been fixed as of version 1.3
Also, is it possible to add the ability to highlight a row in different colors? For example, red to indicate you have something you need to do to the mod to get it to work, yellow for espfe/esl's so you know they are light and don't take up a slot, blue for dependencies, etc? Just curious, since that is how I do things on my own typed out list. But this saves me a LOT of typing/cutting/pasting. Speaking of which, is there a way to add a copy/paste/undo function? I just deleted the wrong category because I have fumblefingers this morning. It would be nice if the category you were working on or selected remained highlighted, that way you wouldn't do stupid stuff like me.
Anyway, these are just suggestions, not demands. I like what I see so far, so of course now I want more.
EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see that the descriptions were editable (picture links are broken so I didn't notice and didn't go to the image tab). That will work for the NOTES. Highlighting and copy/past/undo would still be nice though.
EDIT 2: Damn. Sorry again. I'm really not exploring as well as I should be, apparantly. I can see the copy/cut/paste when right clicking on the editable desciption now. So my bad. It would still be nice to have an undo or highlighting capabilty, though. Until I find you already did that, too.
Anyway, that's what I have off the top of my head. I don't know how quickly I'll be able to get these changes out if I decide to do them, since I'm working on the incompatibility-checking feature someone else mentioned, but I'll try to get an update out soon. Other than that, thanks for trying it out and giving helpful feedback!
As for the rest, highlighting would be nice. The rest I can live without as I get more familiar with what I'm doing. They were just ideas that I had with no idea on how difficult they would be to implement.
Thank you for the neat tool. It's going to make maintaining my modlist sooo much easier.
Running the .exe and pasting a modlink... nothing.
What could it be? Running Windows 10.
To be honest, trying to keep up with each mod's recorded incompatibilities over the span of however long I spend planning out a modlist, and making sure that I don't forget one and bring in a mod that looks neat but is incompatible with a previously-chosen mod, is the most difficult part for me. It's frustrating having to go back and double-check 80-100 mods to make sure that not a single one of them mentions whatever new mod I want to add, and then do it again for the next mod because I didn't think of it earlier or wasn't looking for that one as well since I hadn't thought of adding the second new mod yet.
-Everyone who uses your guide