Does xEdit break the hardlinks in Vortex?

[Jebbalon]

Tannin,

I have Vortex set up. I have SSEedit set up to run through Vortex as well as the Creation Kit. I have only a few mods installed currently.

 

Back when i used ModOrg - running xEdit (or CK) from MO the edited files would show up in the overwrite directory of MO and then I had to move them to the mod's individual folder in MO and this would actually overwrite the previous version of the file.

 

With Vortex - my questions are ...

- How does this work with the hardlinks?

- Will xEdit, with the way it saves backup files, end up breaking the hard link? This is described here in the Example section.

- - I did a quick xEdit change and saved with backup - the files in Data and Vortex mods folder are different (checked CRC using 7zip)

- There is no overwrite folder so how can I confirm that I'm editing the correct files in the vortex mods folder?

- Would using Symlink deployment be better for this situation? (although that option did not show up for me during setup)

 

I'm new to Vortex so if I'm doing anything wrong let me know.

Thanks,

-Jebbalon

[Jebbalon]

Okay, now I just got the External Changes dialogue window. It asked to apply changes and confirm. Does that only happen when trying to re-deploy the list of mods? I guess I had not done that after making the edits.

 

Learning bit by bit here!

[Jebbalon]

So, to answer my own questions, Yes it does seem that xEdit breaks the hard links with the way it saves backups. Luckily Vortex recognizes the changes made when re-deploying mods and prompts to apply the changes permanently.

There is no need for overwrite folder because we're not using the VFS which needs to preserve the changes somewhere.

 

This seems like it will make modding easier in that you can just manage the one mod folder while developing and zip its contents for upload.

 

Again, I'm new to Vortex so if anyone wants to correct me on stuff please do.

[Tannin42]

Yes, with vortex the modified file will simply be saved in the regular data directory and the link will be broken.

Next time deployment runs, vortex will notice that a file that it linked before is now not a link so it will offer to import the change back into the mod.

Only thing to be careful about is that you don't accidentally select the wrong option on the external changes dialog.

[Jebbalon]

Right, I noticed that.

There is the Per File option - if multiple files are changed in a mod?

 

 

For files you create in CK - like Scripts including the compiled file - you have to copy them to the vortex mod folder you are working on. That way vortex can track future changes correct?

 

Edit: For scripts that are already in place - when you edit them and save then compile using NotePad++ or CK - this does not break the hard links and changes are immediate in the Vortex/mods folder. Thus Vortex will not bring up the External Changes dialogue.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Jebbalon

[Tannin42]

yes, the External Changes dialog will by default show entire mods grouped, if you toggle to show individual files you can select a different option (apply or undo) for each, but if there are a lot of changed files (say a few thousand because you ran a texture optimizer or something) the dialog may become very very slow when listing individual files.

 

and yes, Vortex will only track files that were in one of its mods and deployed by it, if you don't copy your custom files to a mod vortex won't touch them at all.

[tomtheclone]

Is there any way to keep TES5Edit and/or the CK from breaking the hardlinks?

[HadToRegister]

Can people stop necroing almost year old threads?

[tomtheclone]

Can people stop necroing almost year old threads?

Well, its still a valid concern.

[Jebbalon]

My take away was that this is normal and desired behavior.

You make changes outside of vortex and when you go back vortex will confirm with you to make the changes permanent.

 

I'm not sure with the CKit but with xEdit the way it happens is with the backup save. You can try to disable the backups (in the save dialogue)

Otherwise what it does is moves and renames the file you are working on as a backup then writes a new file as the current save version.

Vortex sees the hard link as broken because the file gets moved like that. With same file name it knows to ask if you want to keep changes.

 

Working on scripts in Notepad++ this doesn't happen because the files are only being saved and updated not moved for backup. Deployment is still necessary to sync the links but vortex won't warn for these changes. As long as the files are in the mod staging folders. If you are in CK and writing new scripts you have to manually copy them to staging folders.

 

CKit also has the backup feature.

 

You can try not having the backups saving and see if vortex is ok with that.

- personally I like having backups cause I know the 2 or 3 times I actually needed them it was nice to have.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Jebbalon