Missing Metadata after Importing from NMM - Can't fetch them automatically

[Kongolan]

I'm not sure if Github is used as frequently by Tannin as i thought it is used (last week there were many commits), so i post it here again:

 

It's a shame that you are the only developer for Vortex, which i still don't understand, i would do some pull-requests if i could understand the structure more and if i see more commits, which add features. I already grabbed the current master build and will soon maybe fix the features myself, which i need.

1. Importing Progressbar and general more responsive Actions

I tired to import all my NMM data into Vortex (which indeed is a long process without a proper loading bar, it seems like being stuck and took me around 3 hours for 150 mods). Also can't cancel it without running into problems and on huge files it just takes too long and looks like it freezed. My suggestion: add a file transfer dialog, so we see what is done by Vortex, actually add it to all "actions" it performs, because most likely it just seems to be stuck. There could be a new window on the bottom like a log files, which tells us what Vortex is doing right now, like copying a file or creating a folder, basically a overview of all progress. It will give the buttons more feedback as well, because sometimes i click "sort plugins" and i don't know if something changed and if the click even worked.

2. Fetching Metadata from NMM

When i try to update the metadata with the import option from NMM, i would like to skip this BIG files, because the overwriting isn't really fast and there is no option to disable the overwrite and just fetching the data, beside of fetching the metadata yet isn't working at all. Maybe you could check if the exact folder is already present (which it already does) and then try to update the files which are not the same like the metadata in the table.

3. Procedural Imports and option to skip files mid-loading

The import feature needs some cleanup, that it doesn't lock vortex fully or maybe make it procedural (it takes like 99% of my HDD performance, when i use other file transferring tools like FreeFileSync they somehow have a lower performance impact, while they are still fast). When the mods are imported procedural, we can see which mod is currently imported and we can skip mid-loading and go to the next or quit out, if we think we add or that mod later manually.

4. Automatic Metadata and Naming fetching, like NMM had

In the end the result was that all mods were imported and it also cleaned the data folder well, BUT no metadata was fetched, so i can't update them and i'm stuck with the horrible mod names. I really like the feature of NMM to change the names when trying to check for updates, because the naming of the mods needs to be fixed when they are not readable like "German Version - 80224" and the categories are essential for me to have a good overview of what i have installed and what can potentially conflict.

So my basic request is to have a way to automatically change the names and fetch the version numbers and metadata, because they are literally missing. I really need to have a better overview of my mods, and i don't want to set all categories manually. If not i at least would like to have the option to grab the metadata from NMM in a sort of pre-import state, so i don't need to copy the big files all the time, when i already have them.

I hope this can be fixed sometime soon, because it shouldn't be a hard fix, as long the core features are already there, and i saw i can already grab the modid automatically and even the nexus page associated with it.

EDIT:

I just saw that it works like a charm if i download a mod and don't put my own archive into downloads folder or import it. That is strange, because i don't see where the metadata comes from. Where is it saved anyways? I don't find it in AppData nor in any of the mods folder... When looking at the code it seems like there is a table which stores them, but i don't exactly find how we could change that.

5. Regular work hours and Github usage

My last question is somehow something personal to you Tannin, since i don't know what exactly are your working conditions with Nexus. Maybe it's just odd, but when i saw that you updated the Github last week from Monday to Friday straight, i checked everyday since Friday, what you currently working at, so i get a overview, if i just wait or want to fix some stuff myself (when i understand how everything is stored and processed). What are you working times for Nexus? Do you have a fixed time from Monday to Friday or when can i check for possible commits? Are you commiting regularly or are you working most of the time offline, so we don't see when you actually done something?

[Ameisenfutter]

In the end the result was that all mods were imported and it also cleaned the data folder well, BUT no metadata was fetched, so i can't update them and i'm stuck with the horrible mod names. I really like the feature of NMM to change the names when trying to check for updates, because the naming of the mods needs to be fixed when they are not readable like "German Version - 80224" and the categories are essential for me to have a good overview of what i have installed and what can potentially conflict.

So my basic request is to have a way to automatically change the names and fetch the version numbers and metadata, because they are literally missing. I really need to have a better overview of my mods, and i don't want to set all categories manually. If not i at least would like to have the option to grab the metadata from NMM in a sort of pre-import state, so i don't need to copy the big files all the time, when i already have them.

I hope this can be fixed sometime soon, because it shouldn't be a hard fix, as long the core features are already there, and i saw i can already grab the modid automatically and even the nexus page associated with it.

 

I'd like to second this. I'm in urgent need of a system for automatic reassignment of mod metadata after importing my NMM mod list.

[Kongolan]

It's still a problem... So please fix this issue, Tannin!

[Tannin42]

a) I'm not going to go into details of individual features because, to be blunt, I refuse to track issues on the forum. feature/change requests and bug reports should be on the github tracker. I'll just reply to the "personal" questions.

b) I'm not the only one working on Vortex, IDCs is a full-time employee working on Vortex, we have recently hired a front-end developer (hasn't made any public commits yet) and Nexus Mods does employ UI designers who don't usually commit code but make decisions in regards to how the UI looks like. Plus of course I have superiors.

c) I'm a regular employee and work fairly regular hours Monday to Friday. Keep in mind though that for one thing, I live in europe and thus may not be in the same timezone as you and also, my job isn't just coding all day, I reply on the forum, discord, the issue tracker, maintain our feedback system, some features have to be planned, other features are developed on a private repo first. Just because you don't see us committing stuff on the public github doesn't mean we're not working.

Otoh I will sometimes work and reply on the forum/discord in my own time so just because you see me doesn't mean I'm working.

d) While we welcome PRs and users developing extensions, please understand that there are limits to how much help I can provide. My primary job is developing myself, not maintain a community of external devs.

e) We do have documentation for developing extensions: https://nexus-mods.github.io/vortex-api/

If you want to fix stuff in the existing repo that is of limited use but maybe it helps you understand how things are organized. If you do make larger changes to our repos though, I would advice you talk to us about what you want to change before you do the work or you risk us rejecting the PR. Vortex is open-source but the core application is not a community project, there may be plans or agendas or limitations (legal or otherwise) that you can't be aware of.

f) In general I would prefer if people didn't address me personally. Again, I'm not the only person developing Vortex and I'm not completely free in decisions I make or how I prioritize work. Please make change requests to the tracker and give us a chance to assign and schedule stuff.

[Pickysaurus]

 

In the end the result was that all mods were imported and it also cleaned the data folder well, BUT no metadata was fetched, so i can't update them and i'm stuck with the horrible mod names. I really like the feature of NMM to change the names when trying to check for updates, because the naming of the mods needs to be fixed when they are not readable like "German Version - 80224" and the categories are essential for me to have a good overview of what i have installed and what can potentially conflict.

So my basic request is to have a way to automatically change the names and fetch the version numbers and metadata, because they are literally missing. I really need to have a better overview of my mods, and i don't want to set all categories manually. If not i at least would like to have the option to grab the metadata from NMM in a sort of pre-import state, so i don't need to copy the big files all the time, when i already have them.

I hope this can be fixed sometime soon, because it shouldn't be a hard fix, as long the core features are already there, and i saw i can already grab the modid automatically and even the nexus page associated with it.

 

I'd like to second this. I'm in urgent need of a system for automatic reassignment of mod metadata after importing my NMM mod list.

 

 

I'm pretty confident that right clicking a mod and selecting "Guess ID" will do a lot of this.

 

You can also do it for all you mods by selecting them all with Ctrl + A and using the button on the multi-select toolbar at the bottom.

[Tannin42]

Guessing the ID will trigger the meta data to be fetched, but only if the ID was actually changed in that process.

If the mod id is set, vortex assumes that the (server-provided) meta data is correct.