Hi folks, I'm new to this forum (but have been lurking around for a long time ). This is probably my favorite forum for ts3.

CC Magic is great, but it has some issues which is unlikely to be fixed since the author has been gone for more than 5 years. So I'm trying to make my own mod manager from scratch, with the main feature being conflict detection, and merging the packages based on the priority set by users by dragging and dropping the order.

The main goal is to end all modding frameworks out there, no more questions about putting in package folder or override folder (or more) and no more manual editing of resource.cfg. The other features includes profile management, so you can have different mod setups and saves setups.

Here are some pictures - https://imgur.com/a/F3iZXd7

On the first picture, the left panel contains 'Mods' which directly shows the mods folder in the application's folder. You can see all the conflicts in the left panel just by the icon with '+' being overwriting other mod while '-' being overwritten by other mod. On the right panel shows all the packages within that mod. The conflict can be told as well. When you hit the build button, all the conflict winners will be merged, overwriting the losers and the merged package will be inside the sims 3 documents folder.

Double clicking the mod will brings up the panel in the second picture. In there you can see which resources are directly conflicting with which mods and the package in it.

Now that the project nearing completion, I would like to ask if anyone has some features you would like to see in a new mod manager? If anyone is interested I can provide a test build.

One question, you mentioned CCMagic, which still works for me, what issues do you mean?
Normally, "real" mods are not merged and should not be, only clothing and stuff.

It would be helpful to get a test or do you have a picture tutorial pdf so we can have a look what it looks like and what it really does?
It is not easy to tell what feature should be in there.

I would like to show some pictures, but not sure how to. It says invalid thumbnail file name. This might sound stupidly obvious but please tell me how.

The reason clothing and cas stuff like hair replacements should not be merged and should be placed in override folders instead is because of those conflicting resource keys. For example I have a hair default replacements with custom mesh and another default replacements with just textures, if two keys exists within the packages in a single priority in resource.cfg, weird things happen where the caspart is using the wrong textures. It's easier to explain with pictures. Merging is absolutely fine (at least with the way I do) because all it does it copy all the data from packages into one (or more) big packages byte by byte.

CCMagic will have all the packages in the same priority of 495 so if you have different default replacements weird things still happen, so manual editing of resource.cfg is required. Plus it's impossible to know exactly which packages are conflicting with each other. Even Delphy's dashboard tool doesn't report conflicting images. Other minor problem is the UI being clunky and all.

The manager is basically recreated version of Mod Organizer for TS3 - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecial ... mods/6194?

I can see the screenshots you tried to upload. It's best to upload screenies to a third party file host like Imgur and post them using that host's forum functions.

I think you're already running into an issue of semantics here. Unlike most other modifiable games in the universe, Sims players classify what would otherwise be called "mods' in different ways depending on the kind of content we are talking about.

CC (Custom Content) = objects, decor, CAS and Build Mode parts, lots, sims, worlds, patterns.
Mods = Tuning (XML), Script, Core Mods and in some cases Scripted Objects. Basically anything running alongside of the game engine that has coding and/or scripting associated with it.

By naming your product Mod Organizer (rather than CC or Content Organizer or something like that) but then demonstrating how it works only for what we call CC, the player community is going to get very confused very quickly. It always has been our advice to never merge mods together even though Tuning Mods and in some cases Script Mods can be merged without loss of functionality because it becomes an unbearable mess to untangle should a mod need to be removed or updated at a later time or an actual scripting conflict needs to be chased down.

But CC is a different matter, of course, and seems to be exclusively what you are working towards helping with.

Thanks for the tips on naming. As someone coming from Bethesda games modding community, I generally just call these mods. But the program is for everything, not just CC. The reason tuning mods should not be merged is probably due to conflicted resource keys. And with the program every single conflict and its type can be seen. Merging it this way is completely ok because it basically throw all the data into a giant package, they are no different than small packages.

This is basically how CCMagic merge packages (but it doesn't tell which files are conflicting), and it's quick compared to s3pe merging. S3PE merging basically decompress every packages and compress it again and for my 1.5 GB of 'mods', that takes more than 10 minutes while this take less than 10 seconds, and potentially cause problem because the data are altered, not to mention the size is also bigger.

As for the untangled mess, this mod does not delete the original mods. All of the files are inside the program's mods folder. The merged file goes directly into documents folder. And because the mods are in the app's mods folder, you can just find the folder and replace the file inside. This is also CCMagic's weakness where it's very tricky to replace the package.

And that is another reason for the existence of this program. User do not have to think about what can be merged or what cannot be merged. This will streamline the modding process into 'just put these packages or whatever into this folder, it just works'.

Since the game runs so much better if it has less packages to load, having a Manager to merge them sounds useful.
And having the unmerged Mods seperately sounds very usable. Will it be possible to still have them in ordered folders or does you App need them all in one folder together?

So this sounds great. I am currently merging stuff together by hand (including Mods that are older and therefore unlikely to get an update).
I had a bad experience with CC Magic some time ago, which is why I don't use it anymore.

I would definitely use your new App if it runs well in Wine (since I am on Linux).

I can imagin that a thumb preview of the CC item, if existing, would be helpful like CCMagic has.

Another feature that is often used in CC Magic, that you probably don't have on your radar if you come from Skyrim, is the ability to create your own collections ingame to find items faster.

KittyTheSnowCat wrote: ↑

June 21st, 2022, 3:12 pm

And having the unmerged Mods seperately sounds very usable. Will it be possible to still have them in ordered folders or does you App need them all in one folder together?

It's one of my problem with CC Magic where it just dumps all packages in a single folder and "organize" them in program. There is zero way to alter to reorder or to examine the mod setup because all its data are in binaries. So you don't actually organize them physically. For my program, all the packages are inside individual mod folder, and all the mod folders are inside the application's mods folder. You can still organize them in file explorer by changing the name, but it won't affect the mod/build/"load" order of the program, the order is stored in a modlist.txt under different profiles, just like MO2 for skyrim, if you have used it since you mentioned it.

KittyTheSnowCat wrote: ↑

June 21st, 2022, 3:12 pm

I would definitely use your new App if it runs well in Wine (since I am on Linux).

Hate to tell you but it will only works with windows, unless I know how to port .Net project to mono which is cross platform. I assume you were using CC Magic in windows? Since CC Magic only works with windows.

KittyTheSnowCat wrote: ↑

June 22nd, 2022, 2:37 am

Another feature that is often used in CC Magic, that you probably don't have on your radar if you come from Skyrim, is the ability to create your own collections ingame to find items faster.

To be honest, I didn't think much about collection. I'll keep that in mind.

C-Dark wrote: ↑

June 21st, 2022, 7:32 pm

I can imagin that a thumb preview of the CC item, if existing, would be helpful like CCMagic has.

Great suggestion. I have actually thought about it a couple times. But the problem is that I couldn't decide what data to pull from the package. Say if a package has multiple cas parts, or multiple thumbnails, I don't know which one to choose. I guess that's when CC Magic decides to just put a question mark thumbnail. But at least it show what kind of stuffs are inside with text. My plan is to show a list of all the resources when you double click on the package alongside with the showing the conflicts. That way the user knows exactly what's inside, just like how s3pe the stuffs. That's definitely something I will add.

g0kur wrote: ↑

June 22nd, 2022, 4:23 am

You can still organize them in file explorer by changing the name, but it won't affect the mod/build/"load" order of the program, the order is stored in a modlist.txt under different profiles, just like MO2 for skyrim, if you have used it since you mentioned it.

That sounds great and yes I have used MO2.

g0kur wrote: ↑

June 22nd, 2022, 4:23 am

Hate to tell you but it will only works with windows, unless I know how to port .Net project to mono which is cross platform. I assume you were using CC Magic in windows? Since CC Magic only works with windows.

There is no need to port anything, Sims3 does not have a Linux version either. It runs in Wine which is a translation layer between Windows and Linux libaries.
As long as I can get the Mod Manager to work in Wine (most programs just work nowadays) I will try it out.