Limited Vortex alpha release today, full release soon

[Tannin42]

In response to post #57271506.

nexusmodder1337 wrote: I am happy Vortex is coming, although I would have done things differently (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/). I can not wait to try it! I did not play Skyrim anymore in anticipation of Vortex since managing the 100+ mods I had installed became too much of a hassle. Thanks for your work!

I agree that rewriting just because you don't want to read the existing code is bad, but that wasn't the reason we didn't continue NMM. I had read large parts of NMM code anyway and we did reuse considerable parts of it.

But not every code base is salvageable, not every rewrite is avoidable or unneccessary.

[Tannin42]

In response to post #57268266.

jakejaggedjaw wrote: look what I need is to put mods downloads and plugins all on the same page and the ability to adjust the windows sizes

The mod list already includes mods that aren't installed which is effectively the downloads (although filtered for the current game and with the info focused on mod meta data instead of download progress).
You can open a second page in addition to the open one by ctrl-clicking it on the left.

[FireStar999]

In response to post #57262401. #57266151, #57268076, #57272306, #57272431, #57272636 are all replies on the same post.

FireStar999 wrote: No beef with the new way you want to manage plugins, but, you definitely SHOULD add manual plugin sorting function as an option before releasing this, else its just not practical tbh.

cortex56 wrote: For manually sorting plugins, all you have to do in Vortex is;
Open the Plugins tab, grab the dependencies icon for the esp you want to move, and drag it to the position you want it.
A window opens giving you the rule you are applying. You can either confirm that or cancel it and move the esp elsewhere.
It is very simple and fast.

AND - It will not change position if you run LOOT after you confirm the rule you applied by moving the plugin, until YOU remove the rule.
So you can add mods and run LOOT and not have to re-position any of the mods you have already done.

cortex56 wrote: Just an added note:
To remove a rule is simple;
Open the Plugins Tab, click the dependencies icon of the esp you want to remove the rule from.
A small window opens showing you the rule that is applied, or all of the rules applied if you have set more for that esp,
each rule has a (-) next to it, click that and the rule is removed.
Simple two click process.

It is very fast at loading mods, changing position, and removing the rule.
The more I work in Vortex, the more I like it.

FireStar999 wrote: The rule gets created but the actual load order doesnt seem to move and that will confuse the ... out of me because I have a capped load order + some deactivated mods, which is almost a total of 300 plugins and 255 are active...

FireStar999 wrote: I mean don't get me wrong the UI and all looks pretty fresh and new despite the horrid ads everywhere that don't even go along with the theme and instead use red and orange colors on a Black/Green UI.

But, why remove manual sorting? why take the freedom away from the user? tbh I feel like Vortex was 1 step forward and 2 steps back with these decisions made.

Tannin42 wrote: Manual ordering and rule based ordering are mutually exclusive, we had to pick one. We picked to one that would be best for the largest number of users.
This doesn't mean others can't provide an extension later that will do manual ordering, we put a lot of effort into an extension system so people could customize Vortex to their specific needs, but our standard official plugin management method is rule based.

I see, on another serious question though, it was said that Vortex handles mods exactly the same as in NMM , so does that mean Vortex takes up 3x the space compared to MO as well? if that's the case then what was REALLY the improvement here? I don't mean to be rude in no way but I seriously only see an improved UI and a LOOT 2.0....

[FireStar999]

In response to post #57227931. #57228261, #57231896, #57231991, #57232121, #57237146, #57239481, #57239706, #57240016, #57242146, #57242636, #57245161, #57255431, #57268611, #57269431, #57269851, #57270086 are all replies on the same post.

Robbie922004 wrote: I understand that Vortex doesn't have any method to manually rearrange your load order, and I'm baffled. It's the single most basic feature of any mod manager. I can't imagine ever using this until that's implemented.

It's a shame too, because a lot of the other features sound really great!

Dark0ne wrote: Until you use it properly and actually let yourself try and learn it, you can't judge.

We're talking about the creator of MO, the software that everyone sings the praises of, thinking this is the best way of doing things. I/we certainly haven't told him to use this system, he's decided this system will be the most powerful and useful system moving forward, and you owe it to yourself, and him, to give it a go before you judge it.

Most of the people I've seen commenting negatively about it have instantly decided they don't like it because it does things differently in some areas, without even fully trying it or understanding why it has been done this way. It's rather silly.

Hopefully once we're fully released and we can get some documentation out with it (and YouTube tutorials) people will understand why Tannin has chosen this system. For now, it's actually more important for us to see how people use Vortex without any documentation so we can know what is intuitive, what isn't, and what people are getting stuck on.

ContessaR wrote: Sorry but you don't have to use something to know that taking control away from users is not the way to go. I don't want someone deciding for me what's the best way to deal with my load orders. I do not understand why taking control away from people is seen as a positive. Complicated load orders with merged mods and shaky conflicts require us to manually be able to work with load orders.

And yes he created MO (something I wish had never been abandoned by him but that's another conversation) and in MO we have total control over what files go where and what we do with our load orders... it's a huge reason why people sing the praises of it.

Dark0ne wrote:

Sorry but you don't have to use something to know that taking control away from users is not the way to go

You clearly do, because Vortex does not take control away, it just changes the way in which you can control things in a much more logical way for load orders.

ContessaR wrote: I really hope so. I know I sound negative but I will give it a chance when I can personally. It just sounds really annoying and convoluted when dragging and dropping plugins was much faster and easier to deal with.

Oblitus wrote: > We're talking about the creator of MO, the software that everyone sings the praises of

That is because MO is great, while Vortex is awful in every single aspect. Vortex is kind of usable when you use a dozen of simple mods, but when your mod list counts hundreds of mods, and a lot of them has to be fine-tuned to work together, Vortex just doesn't provide necessary instruments. Add awkward and slow interface, lack of control everywhere and you get typical proprietary application made by people who never actually use it themselves not to be actually good, but to supplement something else. I've honestly tried to use it, and it was straightforwardly painful experience.

Arthmoor wrote:

You clearly do, because Vortex does not take control away, it just changes the way in which you can control things in a much more logical way for load orders.

Maybe people are reporting it wrong, but it's my understanding from folks who have tried it that the only way to adjust load order is to run LOOT and then set manual sorting rules on anything that's not handled correctly. Manually dragging and dropping mods to new positions is not a feature.

If this is the case I can't see this going very far. Being able to manually adjust load order by drag n drop is considered a basic feature for any mod manager. LOOT simply won't cut it because it's not supposed to be the end of the process, merely the starting point.

Lumpyacidfish wrote: Also saying its the creator of MO isnt a valid point. Good inventors have created bad stuff before.

simsrw73 wrote: I don't think it's possible yet to judge how far it will go. When I initially read that you can't manually order mods, my heart dropped. I haven't got to use it yet and am not privy to future directions, but I have begun to rethink it. I think most would agree that the IDEAL would be to simply install mods we want and play without worrying about it. One button install a mod and don't think more about it. More like a package manager such as deb, apt or chocolatey. Vortex seems like a possible path forward toward that goal. Letting users manually change order would preclude that possibility.

I think I read a post earlier that stated that they hoped to build a database of dependencies and relationships that would be the rules to make this a full blown package manager. I manually do this myself lately using XMind, create nodes for each mod with subnodes or relationship lines for Requires, Recommends, Addon, Configures, LoadBefore, LoadAfter, Patches, Compatible, Incompatible, PartiallyCompatible, etc. Those are the rules I use to build my mod configuration. Most of that could totally be automated. But for that to work, users, including me, will have to learn to step back a bit. It's not easy when you love micromanaging the configuration like I do; I didn't even use loot on most of the configs because I like understanding and ordering everything myself.

I don't know if that is the direction this is headed, but just a thought... And I recognize that even a full package manager can't handle all of the processes necessary to building some configs, but it could do a lot.

Robbie922004 wrote:

Vortex seems like a possible path forward toward that goal. Letting users manually change order would preclude that possibility.

I don't see how. Providing the option to rearrange mods doesn't mean that people are forced to use the feature. The automated approach being the default is a good idea, but the option to go in and fine tune without having to set LOOT priorities would be ideal.

Even the games themselves (Bethesda titles, XCOM) let you change your load order manually. I can already change the LOOT sorting rules if that's what I need to do, but without being able to manually re-order my .esps, it just adds an extra step of needing to start the game in order to do it when I need to do that. It could be right there in the mod manager like all the other mod managers! I adjust my load order very frequently during development/testing of my own mods, and when testing others, so this is kind of a deal breaker for me.

Oblitus wrote: Fully automated package manager could work, but it won't without enforcing some rules to modders.
- No incremental mod updates or a system to do it automatically. Different main files should only be used to handle different standalone branches of the mod (like lite and full). Every mod should be downloaded in one click and updated in the background.
- Fully automated compatibility patch handling. Patches should be deployed by Vortex, not by the scripted installer (it can only handle specific install order) and not manually (it's a mess). Optional files should not exist at all.
The current implementation of Vortex is terrible in handling this, and it is a very common case. That's a bare minimum since there would also be a lot of cases where you still have to change things manually. Handling conflicts, making own patches, etc.

kanisiba wrote:

Dark0ne wrote:

 

You clearly do, because Vortex does not take control away, it just changes the way in which you can control things in a much more logical way for load orders.

Logical way is not best way, It seems to merely take away from user freedom of choice . If its attitude doesn't change, Vortex won't be alternative to MO.

madpaddy wrote: I'll be honest to me it seems like tannin is trying to reinvent the wheel, he had it pretty much spot on with MO all it needed was tweaking with some new aspects required for the Nexus a more robust basic front end for the masses but the real meat of MO still there for those that want it. But its a miss match of new ideas that leave it short and the removal of most the features that made people love MO like file by file sorting, the left-hand window to insta fix a conflict, no manual sorting have made it leave a bad taste for many. I'm guessing this is the reason its taken so long its a completely different thing to either of the mod managers people are used too, yes change is good but not all change is good.

Brabbit1987 wrote: @madpatty
I would hardly call it reinventing the wheel.
Majority of users don't need to manually do a load order since we have a program that can do it for you. All you have to do is make corrections that program does not catch, which you are capable of doing in Vortex just fine. Eventually, those rules will likely find their way into Loot meaning the more you use it, the less you have to manually do anything and the more accurate it becomes. Why would you need to manually do your entire load order when you have such a program?

This isn't one of those situations where it's a feature everyone must have. It's a situation where there is a group of people who are so stuck in doing it the old way they can't seem to come to grips with the idea that their way just is no longer required. In fact, they may even believe they are capable of sorting better than the program, and while that might be true at this very moment, the more people who use it and the more rules that get integrated into the program, the more accurate it becomes. Eventually, it will be far more accurate than any single person could achieve in such a short period of time even for the most advanced users. This is the same situation where a chess player might scoff at a machine "Bah! it doesn't have the capability to feel a situation and I have such and such years of playing experience", chess player proceeds to get beaten easily by the program.

Literally, at this point, the only reason you could want or need to manually adjust load order is if you are a developer and need to run some tests. But considering all the other programs still exist that allow you to do this, under such circumstances with how little people would need to do that, just use those old programs, they do exactly what you need. For those who swear up and down, they need to sort every individual mod in their load order manually and don't rely on things like Loot, well ... you are being ridiculous and stubborn.

cortex56 wrote: Vortex does handle Manual load ordering.
I have written it in previous posts, it handles it in several easy ways.
Single esp positioning, bulk esp positioning.
Rule sets or global's.
In most cases positioning an esp is a two click process, removing the rule for an esp is again a two click process.
If you want to position your entire load list of esp's you can. I don't know why anyone would, but you could do it in Vortex.
I like it. It is very fast and flexible.
I know some people posted here as soon as they opened Vortex and ranted how horrible it was. They didn't take the time to move around in it and see what they could do.
There is a learning curve. Be ready for that, but it's a small learning curve.
All I can say is the same thing your mother used to tell you when she put that green stuff on your plate at supper, "Try it, you just might like it". :)

Fuzaki wrote:

That is because MO is great, while Vortex is awful in every single aspect.

And Vortex is being helped developed by Tannin who made MO; so maybe give it a chance first and see where it's going before ruling it out just yet, even with it's current problems.

Swampfox92 wrote: I have a feeling you don't need to manually drag and drop esps, because vortex will handle it in such a way that you'll never have to. If this rule system behaves how I think it will, this is gonna make manual load order sorting a thing of the past. If you give a bunch of esps rules that they need to load after other specific esps, vortex will handle the load order so that all of the rules are met. This is essentially all you are doing when you are drag and dropping everything manually, except in a much less intuitive manner. I have faith this will be the new standard.

Dark0ne do you love to spend hours TRYING to apply some rules to a list of 255 plugins having to go through each and every one of them one at a time, not being able to see the progress at all or if its even doing what it is supposed to be doing because visually the load order wont change? How am I supposed to keep track of it, its just impossible for large load orders to use this new method no one will want to spend hours tinkering with settings we barely understand when you can simply let us drag and drop them from the list in the first place, plain and simple, why, its just.... VERY non practical to keep it gentle.

[Skybroom]

I am used to MO. The only thing I can't get used to is when you change your profile you get 90 % of loosing your mod list and load order data.

[Dark0ne]

In response to post #57269631. #57270631 is also a reply to the same post.

mccauleykevinj wrote: I am somewhat astonished that Vortex has no support for downloading mods from Nexus Mods. This would seem crucial. I tried copying the link and manually typing it in, still no go. I have to download a RAR file to my machine, and then attempt to import the mod. After doing that, I have to then go thru and attempt to install the mod, but Vortex often times will not actually activate/enable the mod. I am afraid that I will be going back to NMM because at this time, with all the things that Vortex can't do, it has just become a darker themed version of LOOT, and even that it gets wrong often times.

cortex56 wrote: @mccauleykevinj,
What exactly did you have issues with? I uninstalled all active mods from NMM and purged loose files.
I am currently downloading all 156 mods I normally use and am about 40 mods into it with no issues yet.
Click the download with NMM button on the website, get a notification in Vortex under the mods tab, that x mod has been downloaded and an Install button next to it. Click the Install button, it installs and the notification updates telling you it installed with an Enable button next to that. Click the enable button and move to next download.
esp's are showing enabled. Looking into the game folders, loose files are installing into the proper folders.
If you can be more specific, I volunteer to try to reproduce it and send a feedback report into the team.
I will continue installing through Vortex and see if I can get an error or something weird to happen. I'll also be able to see if the game looks right when finished.

I am somewhat astonished that Vortex has no support for downloading mods from Nexus Mods.

It does. Click the "Handle Nexus Links" button on the dashboard so it says "Yes" (or change this in your settings) and the "Download with manager" button should now use Vortex instead of NMM.

[StrikeVixen]

Can I actually get my hands on this so I can test it and report back in detail rather than x dosen't work lol.

[jgraffius75]

I CAN'T WAIT TO TRY THIS BABY OUT

 

[Tannin42]

In response to post #57262401. #57266151, #57268076, #57272306, #57272431, #57272636, #57273336 are all replies on the same post.

FireStar999 wrote: No beef with the new way you want to manage plugins, but, you definitely SHOULD add manual plugin sorting function as an option before releasing this, else its just not practical tbh.

cortex56 wrote: For manually sorting plugins, all you have to do in Vortex is;
Open the Plugins tab, grab the dependencies icon for the esp you want to move, and drag it to the position you want it.
A window opens giving you the rule you are applying. You can either confirm that or cancel it and move the esp elsewhere.
It is very simple and fast.

AND - It will not change position if you run LOOT after you confirm the rule you applied by moving the plugin, until YOU remove the rule.
So you can add mods and run LOOT and not have to re-position any of the mods you have already done.

cortex56 wrote: Just an added note:
To remove a rule is simple;
Open the Plugins Tab, click the dependencies icon of the esp you want to remove the rule from.
A small window opens showing you the rule that is applied, or all of the rules applied if you have set more for that esp,
each rule has a (-) next to it, click that and the rule is removed.
Simple two click process.

It is very fast at loading mods, changing position, and removing the rule.
The more I work in Vortex, the more I like it.

FireStar999 wrote: The rule gets created but the actual load order doesnt seem to move and that will confuse the ... out of me because I have a capped load order + some deactivated mods, which is almost a total of 300 plugins and 255 are active...

FireStar999 wrote: I mean don't get me wrong the UI and all looks pretty fresh and new despite the horrid ads everywhere that don't even go along with the theme and instead use red and orange colors on a Black/Green UI.

But, why remove manual sorting? why take the freedom away from the user? tbh I feel like Vortex was 1 step forward and 2 steps back with these decisions made.

Tannin42 wrote: Manual ordering and rule based ordering are mutually exclusive, we had to pick one. We picked to one that would be best for the largest number of users.
This doesn't mean others can't provide an extension later that will do manual ordering, we put a lot of effort into an extension system so people could customize Vortex to their specific needs, but our standard official plugin management method is rule based.

FireStar999 wrote: I see, on another serious question though, it was said that Vortex handles mods exactly the same as in NMM , so does that mean Vortex takes up 3x the space compared to MO as well? if that's the case then what was REALLY the improvement here? I don't mean to be rude in no way but I seriously only see an improved UI and a LOOT 2.0....

No, neither NMM nor Vortex take up more space than MO.
I'm not super-familiar with NMM but with Vortex you have the original archive (.7z), the extracted mod and a bunch of links.
You can delete the archive after you installed the mod, same as with MO and the links don't take up space (well, a few bytes per file bytes per file).

The usual confusion is that when you look at the link in a file explorer it shows the size of the linked file, but that's not the size it takes up on disk.

[FireStar999]

In response to post #57262401. #57266151, #57268076, #57272306, #57272431, #57272636, #57273336, #57274571 are all replies on the same post.

FireStar999 wrote: No beef with the new way you want to manage plugins, but, you definitely SHOULD add manual plugin sorting function as an option before releasing this, else its just not practical tbh.

cortex56 wrote: For manually sorting plugins, all you have to do in Vortex is;
Open the Plugins tab, grab the dependencies icon for the esp you want to move, and drag it to the position you want it.
A window opens giving you the rule you are applying. You can either confirm that or cancel it and move the esp elsewhere.
It is very simple and fast.

AND - It will not change position if you run LOOT after you confirm the rule you applied by moving the plugin, until YOU remove the rule.
So you can add mods and run LOOT and not have to re-position any of the mods you have already done.

cortex56 wrote: Just an added note:
To remove a rule is simple;
Open the Plugins Tab, click the dependencies icon of the esp you want to remove the rule from.
A small window opens showing you the rule that is applied, or all of the rules applied if you have set more for that esp,
each rule has a (-) next to it, click that and the rule is removed.
Simple two click process.

It is very fast at loading mods, changing position, and removing the rule.
The more I work in Vortex, the more I like it.

FireStar999 wrote: The rule gets created but the actual load order doesnt seem to move and that will confuse the ... out of me because I have a capped load order + some deactivated mods, which is almost a total of 300 plugins and 255 are active...

FireStar999 wrote: I mean don't get me wrong the UI and all looks pretty fresh and new despite the horrid ads everywhere that don't even go along with the theme and instead use red and orange colors on a Black/Green UI.

But, why remove manual sorting? why take the freedom away from the user? tbh I feel like Vortex was 1 step forward and 2 steps back with these decisions made.

Tannin42 wrote: Manual ordering and rule based ordering are mutually exclusive, we had to pick one. We picked to one that would be best for the largest number of users.
This doesn't mean others can't provide an extension later that will do manual ordering, we put a lot of effort into an extension system so people could customize Vortex to their specific needs, but our standard official plugin management method is rule based.

FireStar999 wrote: I see, on another serious question though, it was said that Vortex handles mods exactly the same as in NMM , so does that mean Vortex takes up 3x the space compared to MO as well? if that's the case then what was REALLY the improvement here? I don't mean to be rude in no way but I seriously only see an improved UI and a LOOT 2.0....

Tannin42 wrote: No, neither NMM nor Vortex take up more space than MO.
I'm not super-familiar with NMM but with Vortex you have the original archive (.7z), the extracted mod and a bunch of links.
You can delete the archive after you installed the mod, same as with MO and the links don't take up space (well, a few bytes per file bytes per file).

The usual confusion is that when you look at the link in a file explorer it shows the size of the linked file, but that's not the size it takes up on disk.

I meant the virtual install thing, NMM places the files in both my game's directory and the virtualinstall directory in NMM folder, that eats up a lot of space, glad to hear vortex wont do this but I simply can't find myself with the new method :( I have too many plugins as i have said before.