Request: Detect Mods for which 100% of Files are Overridden

[Emer78]

Synopsis:
I have a habit of installing tons of conflicting texture packs. Many of them only affect very specific textures, while others are more general replacements. I have enough now, that I am certain that some of my texture packs are being overridden to such an extent that they aren't even being used. However, with over 300 mods and thousands of files, it would be impossible to manually discern which mods aren't actually being used. This is a problem for two reasons:

1. It slows Vortex down, since it has to process more data than is theoretically necessary.
2. It wastes disk space.

If the unused mods are large texture packs, then the wasted disk space can be on the scale of several gigabytes and the slowdown to Vortex can be substantial.

 

Proposal:

Since Vortex is the mod deployer, it would be the most sensible place to check for such obliviated mods. While I am not familiar with Vortex's source, the concept is as simple as adding the following counter and if statement:

• While deploying a mod,
• count the number of files we actually deploy from it.
• If the count is 0,
• then notify the user to uninstall the mod.

Once the above basic functionality has been implemented, you might want to add some additional checks to make it more useful. For example, you could, while doing the count, ignore certain filetypes (such as .doc, .pdf, .bak, etc) and files with certain strings in their names (such as 'readme'). This way, unused mods won't escape detection just because they have documentation. (Alternatively, you could use a whitelist, and only count files of a certain type, eg .nif, .dds, etc.)

Thanks for your time and for developing such a great tool.

[Tannin42]

The best way to make proposals is through the feedback system or github, forum posts may disappear behind other threads and be overlooked.

IIRC this has already been proposed on github though and we'll almost certainly implement it at some point. Your reasoning is correct

[rmm200]

What a good well organized post, good idea, and good response!