[WIP] BOSSLOOT Development Thread #5

Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 10:01 am

BOSS/LOOT Development Thread #5

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1457784

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1474045

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1486582

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=1490680

What was BOSSv3 will now known as LOOT (v0.5), and BOSS will be recieving a v2.2 update. This thread is for discussion and testing feedback of both. I haven't gotten around to actually rebranding any of the BOSSv3 stuff yet, so just ignore it where it calls itself BOSS.

https://github.com/loot/loot/wiki/BOSSv3-Beta-Testing
https://github.com/loot/loot/releases/tag/v3.0.0-beta-14
https://github.com/boss-developers/boss/releases/tag/v2.2.0-beta-1
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Manny(BAKE)
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:46 pm

I agree with Freso the v2 syntax is outdated.

I will support Wrinkly and his decisions and I look up to him and respect him a great deal. I respect everyone's input and opinion during these updates and tests. However, I support the BOSS v3/Loot functionality. At one point there were over 8000 plugins to be added to the v2 masterlist. Because of that I am not in favour of synchronizing v2 with v3 in any way. As I mentioned I will update the v2 masterlist to support the Unofficial Patches with a version number instead of a CRC because that is a better way to handle the plugin but, that's about it. My focus is getting back to working on BOSS v3/Loot and Wrye Bash to support Skyrim's plugins.
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Laura-Jayne Lee
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 12:26 am

So you are saying that BOSS v2 and v3 use the same registry entry? AND Wrye Bash will not recognize a load order from v3 even when run through MO?

Yes they use the same registry. Wrye Bash will recognize the load order from either BOSS v2 or v3. What I was saying is that Wrye Bash uses the registry entry to locate BOSS and will freeze or hang if it's using BOSS v2 commands to call the BOSS functions in BOSS v3.

By he, I assume you are refering to Tannin? Or wrinkly?

Tannin. I try to keep MO and Wrye Bash separate in my statement to be clear that Tannin's programming redirects Windows so that it finds your Skyrim files. The Wrye Bash team only programs Wrye Bash. Any updates that need to be made for MO to work with BOSS v3/LOOT or Wrye Bash will have to be made by Tannin and his team.

EDIT: I tried to use Wrye Bash with BOSS v3 prior to WrinklyNinja's updates, 90% of what I am saying is from experience. The MO part (the other 10%) is conjecture because I have no idea what Tannin has and has not updated in MO's source code or the compiled binary files that redirect the Skyrim applications when you run them from MO.


I will have to go to MO discussion pages and look around. I can not see this not already being discussed over there. Though I have not been so....

The focus of what I was saying is that I had previously tried to run Wrye Bash with BOSS v2 support. I attempted to get it to work with BOSS v3 and I'm sharing what happened. I am also sharing that I have had two versions of BOSS installed (v2 and v3 in separate folders) and two separate versions of Wrye Bash installed. One with BOSS v2 support and one with BOSS v3 support. I am sharing that BOSS uses the same registry and since Wrye Bash uses that registry entry also, I had to update the registry entry in order to switch back and forth.

I would uninstall v2.1.1, and install 2.2.x.

Yes feel free to have two separate locations. However, I highly suggest installing BOSS v2 to C:\BOSS, and BOSS v3 to wherever you want. Switching back and forth between comparing Wrye Bash's functionality and BOSS' functionality will be much smoother if you do.
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Harry Leon
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 12:14 pm

I agree with you, also supporting wrinkly's every move. I just thought that because there would be a new version of BOSSv2, some people might be interested in some tools to keep the masterlist easier to update. But as I've already said, I doubt that'll ever happen...

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Gavin boyce
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 7:20 am

LOOT v0.5 Beta 14 = BOSS v3 Beta 14 for those confused and all BOSS v3 Names on LOOT site should be altered to LOOT v0.5 to avoid such confusion now decision is final.

Actually, not what I meant at all, my feeble effort at explaining. I'll try again

  • BSA's Mod Organizer has unique feature tick checkbox on Archive Tab for any BSA and Mod Organizer treats BSA as if Loose files
  • ESP's with Dummy ESP (one with sole purpose of opening a BSA) Mod Organizer indicates these on Plugin Tab with Broom Icon. Disable (untick) ESP and enable (tick) BSA on Archive Tab. Making ESP uneccesary and removable or just leave unchecked.
  • So HighRes Packs and a few others as indicated with broom icon done and LOOT works as expected ESP's unchecked and ignored, No Problems so far
  • Unofficial High Resolution Patch - UHRP also indicated as Dummy ESP, same process applied
  • LOOT when run states 3 errors, namely UHRP requires the 3 HighRes Pack ESP's even though all ESP's are unchecked and should be ignored by LOOT

That is the issue I'm reporting, but I suspect the core problem is UHRP and not LOOT

Some Relevant History, It's no secret that UHRP Author is Wrye Bash Supporter and has provided code for it, this is not a problem his choice, a healthy Wrye Bash is good for Mod Organizer which can use any wanted feature of Wrye Bash via opening with Mod Organizer, Bashed Patch is used this way.
The BSA feature above was planned for Wrye Bash but never implemented, only due to lack of active developers, as stated on Wrye Bash Nexus page (MIA is term used).
When Unofficial Patches were ESMified v2+ an issue with Dragon Soul Scripts (Separate Issue caused by not being adapted for Dragonborn DLC I believe, not usually considered required for Skyrim though which USkP is patching - see first spoiler) was exposed by this BSA feature and reported on USkP Nexus page, the Author of which started blaming this feature, calling it a bug and that Mod Organizer was a poor program, this he has done before also, the Mod Organizer support community rallied to it's defense inundating USkP page with counter arguments to these unfounded claims, finally resullting in Tannin, Mod Organizers Author joining the debate and he showing more tact and consideration than was warranted, much to his credit, agreed that Mod Organizer would warn about this issue with a tooltip, an issue only exposed by the BSA feature not caused by it.

In fact hes still refuses to acknowledge this BSA feature as such

Spoiler

Basically, he says here if a feature is not in vanilla they won't support it if that feature is in Mod Organizer. Also the whole point is BSA's are not unpacked just made to appear loose and when have loose files not been part of the game and modding anyway.
Does he mean no Mod with Loose Files is supported or only if you use Mod Organizer.
That he doesn't personally like loose files is clear, that loose files expose this Dragon Souls Issue thats still exists but is hidden with BSA's is also clear.
His argument is all files must be in BSA's and never loose because this makes his mod use easier. If this feature had been implemented in Wrye Bash as planned, would it be unsupported I think not.


I apologise for raising this here, but I now suspect this is the cause even though this file is marked as inactive and therefore should be ignored completely, it causes unneccasary trouble for Mod Organizer users, because they are given a choice.

I would post a link to the debate on USkP Forums but it no longer exists, he has deleted it. The only thing there about it I can find now, is a summary I made of my opinion of his attitude and his response where we both refer to the now missing posts, but have completely different views of the debate, only one of us deleted it though.
Spoiler

Which was a reply to this one above it
Calling a Mod Junk with no evidence is not reasonable, even with evidence, it would be inappropriate in such a context where the author cannot defend their reputation.
Paraphrasing such an insult with Apparently is a common technique used in an attemp to justtify such words. It does not.
  • I doubt, over a year after Skyrim came out, that you didn't know Mod Organizer used a virtual data folder, the main feature after all and as such no mods are installed in Skyrims Data Folder. Thus the most likely cause of an empty papyrus log is it looking in wrong place for Data.
  • Even if you knew nothing of Mod Organizer, a quick read of its Discription page would be enough to show the most likely cause.
  • This could be overlooked as a bad day you were having if this was just once.
  • This BSA "Problem" shows it is more than that. Nothing is broken, it is a feature that Mod Organizer has, the user can choose how BSA's are prioritized. The key point is User Choice decides this, by default Mod Organizer's the same as vanilla.
  • Picking out unique features, that give the user more options and labelling them faults, because they work differently, does not make them faults.
  • Claiming BSA's are becoming "more popular" is dubious. Steam Workshop requires BSA's to be used, therefore it becomes easier for mod authors to use the same Archive for Nexus as well. Easier is not the same as popular and popular is not the same as better.
  • Loose Files load quicker in game than BSA's which must be unpacked then loaded, this will always be true. Advanced Modders tend to prefer loose files because of this and they can manipulate them, to change whatever they wish.
  • The Advantage of BSA's making mod management easier does not apply to Mod Organizer. When each Mod is in one Folder it does not matter if it has 3 files inside or 30,000, you still just have 1 folder to delete, whatever is inside it goes as well.
  • I am sure if Wrye Bash had such features that were being mislabelled as faults you would rush to its defense pointing out that the so called faults were nothing of the sort but choices for the user to make or not as they wished.
I expect loyal Wrye Bash users to promote its good features and avoid mentioning the poor ones, I expect Mod Organizor users to do the same with it.
I expect loyal Wrye Bash users to highlight the shortcomings of other managers and avoid mentioning the good points, I expect Mod Organizor users to do the same.

However, I would hope that the more knowledgable and respected members of the community would promote good features and highlight shortcomings of all mods and on the support site of that mod, not elsewhere, for the benefit of all of us,
I do not expect insulting of mods and authors on other mods pages, especially without even trying to find out the facts, it is this sort of attitude that destroys the communities where it is common.

You make good mods and are thus a prominent member of this community, you should set yourself higher standards of behaviour because of this fact, not lower.
I admire your mods and give you credit for that and have endorsed every mod of you've made or been involved with.
I have defended USkP from unfounded accusations on the Nexus forums and will do so again if required.
Constructive critisism will be welcomed on Mod Organizer Support Forums, almost certainly with vigorous counter arguments, but it will become an open debate and if you have valid point, that can improve Mod Organizer, you will advance the programs capabilities.
Respect must be earned it is not a right, you have not earned it yet.
I hope you will change and thus earn my respect, you are very knowledgable, and should use that knowledge for improving the shortcomings of all mods.
I must with regret say, I do not respect you.


His response (the other response was to me trying to edit the above post on Nexus Mod Page Posts Tab, not a good idea it totally messes with formatting done on Forum)


To be perfectly blunt, your respect is not required so it phases me not that you are attempting to use this as an insult to force a behavior modification out of me that I'm not prepared to provide.

You may not realize this, but my opinions are my own and I have every right to express them when I feel it's appropriate.

What I see here is one mod management tool which is intentionally bucking the trend with Skyrim modding and it's causing people problems. I will point out the source of said problems whether other people like that or not. You may have noticed that even though he probably didn't intend to, the author has confirmed everything I already suspected about how Mod Organizer works. You might have noticed we even discussed it already, even both arriving at the conclusion that there can be no perfect solution and that both MO and Wrye Bash are up against a problem neither of them is well suited to deal with - and quite possibly never will be.


I don't know where you're getting your data from, but it's been debunked in several discussions around the community.

I never bothered sending my reply to this because it's poiontless to argue with the man on his forum.
I will only reply to this statement now
What I see here is one mod management tool which is intentionally bucking the trend with Skyrim modding and it's causing people problems.
And my reply
If you call not being a Jack of All mods and master of none like Nexus Mod Manager "the trend", yes,it's intentionally bucking that trend.
If you call the narrow limitations and auto update like it or not of Steam Workshop "the trend", yes, it's intentionally bucking that trend.
If you call the stagnation of Skyrim Wrye Bash where only game breaking updates are done "the trend", yes, it's intentionally bucking that trend.
In fact it's intentionally bucking all the old trends and forging new trends, it is the best Skyrim Mod Manager by far and even STEP now recommend it over Wrye Bash on merit alone, they were Wrye Bash Enthusiasts.
That Wrye Bash in Skyrim has not been the goto manager it used to be is very sad, I am not a supporter of Wrye Bash in Skyrim because, to my outsiders view, both it and Nexus had a fear induced reaction to Steam Workshop, Nexus became a Multi-Engine mediocrity with their knee jerk reaction
Wrye Smash, as far as I can tell Skyrim's Wrye version until then, which just like all other Wrye versions was game specific, became Wrye Bash, the one Bash to Rule them All, Skyrim developement ceased and merger developement became the priority, another knee jerk reaction,
Mod Organizer intentionally bucked the trend, besides there were no more knees left to jerk. Now, only Bashed Patch gives it any point and that's been feature frozen, only this year with LoJack's return do we see any movement there at all, so now theres a chink of light, some hope Wrye Bash might buck the Trend.

So as for Bucking the Trend, Damn right, Trends of that sort need bucking. if Wrye had not bucked trends, Wrye Bash, Mash Flash woudn't have become what they were, if it stays in the trend of 2012-13, it will never even return to its best, never mind beyond.

As for causing people problems that's you not Mod Organizer even deactivated your mod demands attention, No, you can mod your game how you want, but don't tell me I cant extract BSA's. Vanilla Textures work better when extracted and DDSOpt(imized). I'll do the same with mine and I only need the Loose Files from UHRP your unreasonable demands from a switched off UHRP's ESP have resulted in its deletion, I could just leave BSA but I think I'll have Loose Files, because that's not your choice to make or Bethesdas either that's my choice on my game and every other modder can make their own choice on their own game.

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Tinkerbells
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 2:48 pm

Thanks for correcting me. Just keep in mind that MO may have that configuration but Wrye Bash doesn't. It will use the registry. I think it looks for the registry entry first, and then a folder. Not sure if that was a script for making something or Wrye Bash itself. However, like most programs it usually stops once one condition is satisfied. In this case once it finds it via the registry it stops and uses that location.

I agree. Most of the previous posts were based on how the load order looked at first glance. Also many comments suggested certain mods needed to have a different location based on potential conflicts. I don't think that people remembered that when someone else used a plugin, with different mods, the plugin may load in a completly different location because of how BOSS looks at the records that are changed. What concerned me was that I saw no TES5Edit comparisons.

Also agree.

Even though I don't use MO, my first question would be--is that achieved through programming in Python with a list, in a DLL with a list, or by looking at the plugin itself. I would think it will only work as intended and expected if the programming for MO supports it.
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Hope Greenhaw
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 12:49 pm

Yes, BOSSv3 -> LOOT. I'm not entirely sure what MO is doing from your description, but I guess you're asking if the "not active" error message can be restricted to if the plugin requiring them is active?

What do other people think of this?

...
Yes, BOSS v2 and the v3 beta use the same registry entry. LOOT will use a different one.

To those reading my posts about my own experence comparing BOSS v2 and v3, Wrye Bash, and Skyrim's preformance and how I needed to change the registry entry to do that. In regards to the registry entry, my results/comments won't matter once this change takes place.
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Soku Nyorah
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:56 am

As I hinted at, the move from Google Code to GitHub alone makes contributing to the masterlist a whole lot easier, since anyone can now clone/fork the masterlist repositories, make changes to them, and create pull requests for inclusion "upstream" - all without leaving GitHub! (Well, I assume without leaving GitHub - not sure if the files are too large for GitHub's text editor to handle. :/)

https://github.com/loot/loot.github.io/issues/15
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Quick draw II
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:52 pm

Ugh. Sorry to all, but there's some stuff that needs to be addressed that I can't let go unanswered any longer.


Your suspicion would be incorrect. The UHRP was given the 3 masters it needs exactly so that LOOT could sort it correctly. I realize you have some kind of agenda of hate to spread about me or something, you're not doing a very good job of hiding it, but you should at least have the balls to hate me using truthful evidence based reasons instead of inventing cockeyed ridiculous theories about it instead.


I fail to see why my being a Wrye Bash supporter is relevant to fixing the UHRP's masters to conform to the system LOOT is proposing.

Let's get something straight right now. You appear to believe I came here to sabotage the effort that LOOT is seeking to develop. This is patently untrue. Your entire belief seems to be based on a flawed read of some concerns that I raised earlier in the thread. Concerns you might note that have been taken to heart and some tweaks and changes have been made as a result of it. So you might do yourself a favor and stop trying to stir up trouble as a result of the things that I and others have said.


No. The only BSA feature that was planned for Bash, and has been implemented in fact, was to be able to detect conflicts within BSA files in addition to being able to detect them between BSAs and installed loose files. There was never any plans to include a feature that would allow people to unpack them willy nilly in random order so as to cause themselves more grief than necessary.


Get your facts straight before you spew nonsense. The distortions you've got here aren't worth addressing because your understanding of them is utterly flawed.


It's pointless to claim things that never happened too. The entire stupid exchange on the USKP Nexus page is still there, and no such debate ever took place at "my forum".

I don't know where you're getting your information, but Wrye Bash has never had a reaction of any sort from the Steam Workshop other than to move away from timestamp based file management for Skyrim, similar to how BOSS itself had to adapt to that. The only reason for this being that interfering with the timestamps could cause Steam to update mods when they didn't need to be, thus making users have to reclean them and other such things that are mostly annoying.

This "trend" you're referring to, the one you say needs bucking, well, it doesn't. Quite the opposite. You're referring to the widespread adoption of easy to use BSA files thanks to Bethesda finally fixing load ordering bugs with them. When I referred to MO "bucking the trend" this is what I was getting at. Not your distorted version of it. BSA files are neat, clean, and eliminate any need to worry about cluttering up your Data folder. They were ALWAYS intended to be the favored method but couldn't be adopted in prior games due to various issues. So in this respect, thank the Steam Workshop for finally getting Bethesda to fix all the problems they had. So I stand by my assessment that any utility which is actively working AGAINST this is bad. Intentionally allowing the entire load order system to be overridden only causes more problems, not more solutions.


You have yet to establish what problems I've supposedly caused except for an annoyance that you have rightly solved in your own way. In all honesty, you strike me as the kind of person BOSS/LOOT/MO/Wrye Bash/etc is not intended for. Fixing the UHRP to require those masters fixes it so that LOOT will properly assign its position based on the data it needed. It had no other motivation. It does not impact manual installers one bit. It does not impact NMM at all. It does not impact Wrye Bash at all. That you claim it has an impact on MO should be quite telling.

Going forward, you ought to expect more of this sort of thing to begin happening as mod authors realize that explicitly setting their required masters is a good thing for the long term health of the community. If this ends up only causing problems for MO, then perhaps that should be taken into account by MO's team rather than being thrown back in mod authors' faces as some kind of terrible problem.

Now then, so we don't clutter up this thread with useless stuff, if you have anything more to ask/say/yell/whatever at me about this, I'd ask you do so via PM instead of trying to force some kind of public spectacle based on half truths and misrepresentations.
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Donald Richards
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 12:41 am

Well, the end result is that you have 4 plugins, one of which depends on the other 3, none of which need to be active, and LOOT is showing an error for the one because the other 3 are not active. Is that right? In which case, only showing that error if the one plugin was active would solve the problem, no?

EDIT: And please keep the he-said-she-said out of my thread, will you? What Arthmoor may have said or done is irrelevant to the issue, so posting that was not helpful. He's had his chance to respond, and that's fine by me, but any further posts on the same lines will be reported to the mods, OK? (That's for both of you.) It's just not the place for that sort of thing. My little outburst in the last thread was bad enough...

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Scott Clemmons
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 7:28 am

@WrinklyNinja I wrote about the crashed after pressing the "Sort Plugins"-Button yesterday. I found the problem myself by now. The bluescreen while sorting corrupted the setting files in AppData/Local and after deleting them Boss, err LOOT :D, was fine again. Apparently the installer is not deleting the User Data even if the checkbox is ticked. You should probably revisit the installer script on this. Anyway, I'm glad that my "LOOT" is finally working again and I'm able to play skyrim. :smile:

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jadie kell
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 9:02 am

Apologies for that, as I said. I've already asked him to take it to PMs in the future.

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A Boy called Marilyn
 
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Post » Tue Mar 04, 2014 3:45 am

I misunderstood you. This has been an issue since BOSS v2 as well. The masterlist has code in it to indicate a condition. If the condition is met then the message is displayed. Currently the v3 masterlist has no conditions for 'Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp' which is what you are talking about right?

Spoiler

- name: 'Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp'priority: -400after:- 'HighResTexturePack01.esp'- 'HighResTexturePack02.esp'- 'HighResTexturePack03.esp'

That just means to load after.

A condition that the plugin is active would look like this.
Spoiler

[/code]
- name: 'HighResTexturePackFix.esp'
msg:
- type: error
content:
- lang: en
str: 'Delete. Already included in Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp.'
- lang: ru
str: 'Удалите. Уже включено в Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp.'
- lang: es
str: 'Borrar. Esta incluido en Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp.'
condition: 'active("Unofficial High Resolution Patch.esp")'
[/code]


Just for the sake of argument can we assume you were talking about the "HighResTexturePackFix.esp" if we may, just so we are on the same page. The condition in the masterlist does not have syntax that will account for when the user runs BOSS from a shortcut, the windows explorer, or from Mod Organizer. Without a way to detect when MO runs BOSS how can the condition be treated differently? The condition says if it's active, do this. It can't really say, if it's active do this, unless you are run from MO then do this.
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Chenae Butler
 
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Post » Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:50 pm

Oh good, I was going to suggest that, actually. I don't suppose you still have the old file to see what the difference was?

LOOT also gives generates warnings if a plugin's master is inactive, which is what he's talking about - it's unrelated to what you posted.

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Calum Campbell
 
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