Nexus Mod Manager. Seriously what's the deal?

[OpSnooperfax]

Please don't take this the wrong way, I've used NMM for forever and I love it to death but I got to ask . . . What the hell is the deal with the interface. As far as UI goes NMM has remained pretty much unchanged since the Fallout 3 days, and it's kind of getting sad. There is no way to highlight and apply an action across multiple mods (eg. Endorsing or disabling multiple mods), There isn't even hotkeys for actions so I"m forced to move mouse to the right click mod, move back to the left menu bar click endorse, move back to the right to select next mod etc etc. No options to add or remove the filter categories at the top, no options to rename mods. I could go on and on. Normally this kind of stuff wouldn't bother me but I use NMM alot for a large amount of games, and it pains me to see the ABSOLUTE BEST, most creative, most groundbreaking modding community to ever exist catering to such a featureless Application.

 

Idk maybe I've been using it wrong all these years or maybe I just haven't payed enough attention, but it just seems like the UI and command interface could be more streamlined and intuitive. Just my two cents.

[Ethreon]

Unless you plan on mass downloading and then mass endorsing, the key combo would be pointless, and the extra 1 seconds it takes to move your mouse won't hurt.

You can rename mods same way you do in windows using mouse - click, wait a second, click again.

 

As for the rest, the devs simply lack time. If you're willing to help, the code is public and can be changed.

[tomomi1922]

My biggest complaints about NMM are as follow:

 

- I can't tap a letter and it will scroll through all items starting with that letter.

 

- I can't right click to either "Open file on location" to examine the actual content of the files.

- Need better sub-grouping so all files in the same mod will group INTO 1 entry.

When you have a lot of mods (and mod versions) it can get very confusing. Some authors do not even use the same name, such as this name "Compatibility patch with xxx mod" ... What mod is this? Why no prefix? Sub-grouping from the same mod would solve this issue. Open file on location is a no brainer. As of now, we have to manually find the file to see content. Something like checking to see if a mod is a retexture or has an .esp can be a pain to do, especially the authors do love to use fancy words but omit telling us what the mod really is.

Other than that, mass endorsing and disabling can be unnecessary and sometimes borderline dangerous. After all, it's a free software from a small company. I am glad it is already working well as it is, the UI, as long as it works, there is no need to change. Nexus does have income from ad and premium membership, but I doubt they really make that much to support full development on top of server maintenance. It may cost them hundreds a month to keep Nexus server running. Imo, they should develop into something like Wikia and/or a media company (that has written content, game review, etc...). since Nexus already has a strong user base.

[OpSnooperfax]

Unless you plan on mass downloading and then mass endorsing, the key combo would be pointless, and the extra 1 seconds it takes to move your mouse won't hurt.

You can rename mods same way you do in windows using mouse - click, wait a second, click again.

 

As for the rest, the devs simply lack time. If you're willing to help, the code is public and can be changed.

 

Thanks for the tips on renaming. As far as the mass downloading thing goes though, the issue isn't the need to mass download all the time, but from time to time the need to reinstall all your mods from scratch (eg. recent NMM update made me have to do that) it can become tedious, or for instance your Data folder gets a little messy and chaotic and you want to do a fresh install, maybe drop a few mods or add a few more and want to avoid any conflict between them and corresponding patches and compatability options already selected. And to be honest it didn't really bug me that much until I was attempting to throw endorsements out to all of the fine people who worked so hard crafting the mods I am using.

 

I was just curious if it just me being picky or if there was a general consensus. Thanks for your imput!

[SirTwist]

My first complaint of NMM is that it infests the data folder with all the mods. This has been an issue with me since Fallout 3, as well. I find this a massive problem. If you have installed a lot of mods, you may not be able to tell which one caused your CTD, and have to guess at it. This is really a problem. It's supposed to use a virtual file system, and yet it doesn't want to. At least with Mod Organizer, and MO2, I have clean, pristine, and very vanilla data folder, and all my mods elsewhere, and in their own little homes. I use Mod Organizer for New Vegas, Skyrim, and MO2 for Fallout 4. Belive me, it is a dream to use. And if you have Loot installed on your system, it will find it, and help you use it. And it can sort, well the older MO can, your mods to be more effective, and tell you, easily enough, when you are missing masters. I do recommend it for those who are dissatisfied with NMM.

[Ethreon]

My first complaint of NMM is that it infests the data folder with all the mods. This has been an issue with me since Fallout 3, as well. I find this a massive problem. If you have installed a lot of mods, you may not be able to tell which one caused your CTD, and have to guess at it. This is really a problem. It's supposed to use a virtual file system, and yet it doesn't want to. At least with Mod Organizer, and MO2, I have clean, pristine, and very vanilla data folder, and all my mods elsewhere, and in their own little homes. I use Mod Organizer for New Vegas, Skyrim, and MO2 for Fallout 4. Belive me, it is a dream to use. And if you have Loot installed on your system, it will find it, and help you use it. And it can sort, well the older MO can, your mods to be more effective, and tell you, easily enough, when you are missing masters. I do recommend it for those who are dissatisfied with NMM.

IF you get CTDs with a certain modlist, whether you use MO or NMM will change absolutely nothing. You still need to test and discover the culprit (unless obvious which mod is). However, NMM could do with a cleaner environment in the Data folder..

[tomomi1922]

My first complaint of NMM is that it infests the data folder with all the mods. This has been an issue with me since Fallout 3, as well. I find this a massive problem. If you have installed a lot of mods, you may not be able to tell which one caused your CTD, and have to guess at it. This is really a problem. It's supposed to use a virtual file system, and yet it doesn't want to. At least with Mod Organizer, and MO2, I have clean, pristine, and very vanilla data folder, and all my mods elsewhere, and in their own little homes. I use Mod Organizer for New Vegas, Skyrim, and MO2 for Fallout 4. Belive me, it is a dream to use. And if you have Loot installed on your system, it will find it, and help you use it. And it can sort, well the older MO can, your mods to be more effective, and tell you, easily enough, when you are missing masters. I do recommend it for those who are dissatisfied with NMM.

 

NMM does tell when you are missing Masters. There are times when I CTD at start, I went into Plugins tab and it will tell me in red if a master file is missing. The problem here is lack of linkage: it tells me that abc.esm is missing, but doesnt tell me whose mod that belongs to. Because not all authors have good naming ethics, it makes things kinda hard to trace sometimes.

 

I wish things can be more organized on Data Folder, but that is with the game, I think, not NMM. I haven't tried migrating all the .txt files (batch files) to another folder so they don't have to swim in the same place with .esm files. But that is more Bethesda than Nexus' fault. Someone told me NMM uses symlinks to do virtual installs. But I can tell if there are symlinks, and there aren't any symlinks. Maybe hardlinks?

 

Regarding mod order and everything, it has to do with how the game works too. NMM just can't have a log file of which you install first and second to last .... to just do a mass reinstall for you. Maybe that order did cause you problem. So due to the interest of a stable gaming experience, Nexus would make you reinstall everything manually. It's a pain, but that's Bethesda's incompetence for you. They decide to support modding, but at the same time they don't bat an eye out to see what modders suffer through and make things easier for them. Even through Skyrim, they always walk all over the modders, with no communication. Modders always have to find ways around their awkward implementations.