Portmod - Mod/Package Manager

[bmwinger]

Portmod
Homepage: https://gitlab.com/portmod/portmod
Wiki: https://gitlab.com/portmod/portmod/-/wikis/OpenMW/OpenMW (OpenMW-specific info and guides)
Documentation: https://portmod.readthedocs.org/ (specific to the portmod tool itself)
Release page: https://gitlab.com/portmod/portmod/-/releases (for installation information, see the guide on the docs)

OpenMW Packages: ​https://portmod.gitlab.io/openmw-mods/

Portmod is a package manager for Linux, macOS and Windows, targeting game mods. It's been under development since the beginning of 2019, primarily targeting OpenMW, but now also provides support for a few other games.

It's currently CLI-only, though work on a GUI is in-progress.

What Portmod Does

To try and describe it in a way that distinguishes it from other mod managers available for Morrowind, Portmod supports fully automated installation of individual mods and their dependencies, including automatically patching and configuring them to work with other mods already installed.
This is accomplished through package files which describe the structure of the mod in detail so that portmod knows how to install and configure it, though the downside is that these package files require continual updating as new versions of mods are released.
Packages may need to be fetched manually depending on their source, as direct download links are not always available.
The general idea is that while mod installation is still just as complicated as manual installation through another mod manager would be, with portmod it only needs to be done once, documented in a package file, and shared with the community, after which point installation becomes reproducible by anyone else by simply running a single command in a terminal.

As there are far more mods in existence than could possibly be packaged by the developers of portmod, portmod relies on community contributions from users to keep the mod package repositories accurate, up to date and relevant.

Original Morrowind Engine

Portmod does not currently support the original morrowind engine, largely since there has been little interest expressed, though admittedly I've never really advertised portmod outside of the OpenMW community in the past. Support may be relatively straightforward (assuming we can set up a BSA vfs like what was used for Oblivion/Fallout 4/NV, otherwise it's more complicated), and many mods already packaged for OpenMW could work without changes. The main thing lacking, assuming that there is sufficient interest, is that we would need volunteers to test packages and mark them as stable on morrowind (as well as contributing packages for any morrowind-only mods which are wanted).

Edited April 23, 2023 by bmwinger

[bmwinger]

The 2.6 stable release is out.

This release notably includes an optional read-only GUI which can be used to view installed packages and search for some new packages. This is I think the largest feature developed by someone other than me (thanks poperigby!). Note that the GUI is in its early stages, so more will come, and feedback is appreciated on what has already been done, particularly in terms of any issues you run into getting it to work.
It also introduces support for versioned game engine stability, making it possible to mark packages as stable/testing/masked on specific game versions.

For full details, see the release page: https://gitlab.com/portmod/portmod/-/releases/v2.6.0, or the changelog.

[Dragon32]

Looks interesting.

 

How many mods have been packaged for this? I had a quick look around the linked pages but couldn't see a library.

 

I maintained the mlox ruleset for a decade or so and there were very, very few other people contributing properly formatted rules. Like three. I think things are better now but I'm pretty out of the Morrowind loop.

[bmwinger]

There's a web version of the package repository that includes a package count and is a little nicer to browse than the git repo here: https://portmod.gitlab.io/openmw-mods/. It's linked from the repo page, but that's a few clicks away from the links I'd posted above, so I'll add the link directly to the original post to make it more visible.

 

There are roughly 400 mods packaged at the moment (note that some packages are infrastructure stuff rather than actual mods, so the package count is a little higher than the reality).

 

I can't say there have been tons of contributors, but there have been a reasonable number. There's a full breakdown of contributors by frequency for the package repository here.

[Dragon32]

Cool, that's good to hear. Thanks for posting, bmwinger.