Vortex Mod Naming Changes

[dizietemblesssma]

Since this topic has reared its head, my tuppence worth; i have a mod - Laboratorium, which has an esp replacer patch on the same file downloads page as the main mod, which insists - in Vortex - on having the same name as the main mod, presumably because the two files have the same name on the download page. Which means I can't choose the main mod with the replacer mod also activated as an override, I can only have one of them, since they show up as:

 

 

you'll see that I tried to rename the update file but it made no difference to the the 'joining' of the mod and its patch. I tried to explain that this was how Vortex behaved to the mod author but no response.

 

Am I missing something about how to separate them?

 

 

diziet

[VulcanTourist]

No, I don't think you're missing anything. Mod authors bear some responsibility for sensible naming (and versioning), and sometimes they make a mess of it. When they do, we should have some means in Vortex to correct their missteps and make separate downloaded mod files distinct and unique if Vortex is confused and wants to treat them as different versions of the same file.

[HadToRegister]

Since this topic has reared its head, my tuppence worth; i have a mod - Laboratorium, which has an esp replacer patch on the same file downloads page as the main mod, which insists - in Vortex - on having the same name as the main mod, presumably because the two files have the same name on the download page. Which means I can't choose the main mod with the replacer mod also activated as an override, I can only have one of them, since they show up as:

snip18.PNG

 

you'll see that I tried to rename the update file but it made no difference to the the 'joining' of the mod and its patch. I tried to explain that this was how Vortex behaved to the mod author but no response.

 

Am I missing something about how to separate them?

 

 

diziet

 

 

You should install BOTH, (If you can) then you should get a File Conflict, and then you tell the PATCH ESP to LOAD AFTER the Original ESP.

 

If not, then add a 1 or some other character to the zip file.

Because this part can be sketchy, because I did an update where it was only the ESP, but Vortex installed the ESP PATCH, but uninstalled ALL of the files (from the previous version, that were supposed to stay installed)

 

Ideally the Mod Author should've named it "Labortorium Update Patch" so it would show up as two separate entries in Vortex

ESPECIALLY when they are just replacing the ESP

[Tannin42]

The naming in this case is almost certainly irrelevant.

There is a hidden flag mod authors can set when they upload a file that says "this file I'm uploading now is the new version of that other file that's already there"

That flag, if it exists, is what Vortex bases its mod grouping and also mod updating on. This mod author probably marked the esp replacer as an update of the main file, not knowing that it would then be treated as a full replacement, not a patch.

 

To be fair here: Yes, mod authors bear some responsibility for this mess but so does Nexus Mods. The versioning of mods is just a mess and tools won't be able to reliably make sense of it.

Be that as it may, the mod authors have to understand that

a) Mod managers honestly, hand to god, can not reliably sort this out

b) Even if Nexus Mods introduced a consistent mod versioning system, it would not retroactively fix all the existing mods

 

So - fair or not - mod authors are the only ones who can maintain a consistent system that mod managers can then actually implement.

[VulcanTourist]

At the least, the publication form could be revised to include more specific direction and information with regard to versioning, that update checkbox, naming, etc. Right now it gives authors too little direction and has no validation checks, e.g. x.x.x versioning and naming that doesn't include the version number.

[dizietemblesssma]

The naming in this case is almost certainly irrelevant.

There is a hidden flag mod authors can set when they upload a file that says "this file I'm uploading now is the new version of that other file that's already there"

That flag, if it exists, is what Vortex bases its mod grouping and also mod updating on. This mod author probably marked the esp replacer as an update of the main file, not knowing that it would then be treated as a full replacement, not a patch.

So to fix it at my end, I'll probably need to take the contents of the 'replacer' mod and make my own zip file to install manually? That way the flag is never encountered?

 

 

diziet

[VulcanTourist]

So to fix it at my end, I'll probably need to take the contents of the 'replacer' mod and make my own zip file to install manually? That way the flag is never encountered?

That might not help. The update flag isn't embedded in the file AFAIK (some authors would have a fit if they knew their files were being touched by the site), it's either communicated when Vortex contacts the site through its API or via one of the values in the downloaded filename. If the former, there's nothing you can do to thwart it; if the latter, then perhaps renaming the downloaded file with the correct flag value and then using Install From File might fix it?

[dizietemblesssma]

I meant to make my own replace mod from the contents of the patch, unzip, extract rezip, keep it locally and drag to Vortex.

 

diziet

[VulcanTourist]

I meant to make my own replace mod from the contents of the patch, unzip, extract rezip, keep it locally and drag to Vortex.

What will you do if the mod receives another update? Vortex won't be able to notify you. This is why I refuse to merge mods. I don't want to forsake updates or patches and don't want to merge the same mods repeatedly.

[Tannin42]

updates are based on the same information so they wouldn't work correctly anyway (for this specific mod).

rezipping the file and changing the name so it doesn't contain the mod id should probably work so the two mods then appear as separate entries you can enable individually.

But you could also just extract it into the staging folder of the main mod, actually replacing the esp, since it's supposed to be a patch anyway. If the main file actually receives an update you wouldn't need the patch anymore.