SS2 Zee Mod Manager v0.1

[6740ac8061045Zeebok]

ZMM is a mod manager I started way back when the outline for a new SS2MM thread popped up. Similar to Blue's it is used to activate/deactivate mods, all while keeping them in separate folders avoiding file overwrites. In addition, I tried to make the process a little simpler with ordering of the active mods and with the installation of mods.

Requirements
- Windows XP or newer (I don't have an XP machine to test, so let me know! I do know it will at least open in Wine on Linux)
- System Shock 2 v2.4 or newer

Installation
For this initial release, place the program in the same folder as your SS2 executable

Usage
- This mod manager stores all mods in a SaltedFries folder. ZMM will allow you presently extract mods there for you by using the Install button or menu option. The name of the mod that appears in the program is determined by the name of the folder that resides in SaltedFries (e.g. SaltedFries/SHTUPv999 appears in the mod manager as SHTUPv999).

- If you extract a mod while the mod manager is open simply click the Scan button to rescan currently available and active mods.

- Activating a mod can be done by selecting a mod in the Inactive Mods list and clicking the Activate/Deactivate button, or by clicking and dragging the mod from the Inactive Mods list to the Active Mods list. Deactivating is done similarly but with the Active Mods list.

- The priority of the mods, which is important, is from top to bottom of the Active Mods list and can be reordered by clicking and dragging the mods to their desired spot.

- When you are set with your mod selection, simply click Apply, or when you close the window it will ask you to save.

Notes
- Currently it only supports mods using .zip compression (even .zips renamed to .ss2mod) but I do want to add 7z support.
- When you install a mod through ZMM, it will simply extract the zip to a folder of the same name in SaltedFries/ so some of the mod names may look a little messy, such as in the image with the underscores.
- This project is open source, with the code here: https://github.com/zeebok/SS2MM

[6740ac8061206pix]

Image: http://i.imgur.com/2k0xZ3S.png

I'm running 64-bit Windows 7.
Steam SS2 with SS2Tool 5.1. Mod manager files are in the root SS2 directory.

[6740ac80612f3Zeebok]

Ah yes. When I cleaned up the directory to zip it a DLL got cleared out as well. Updated the zip.

[6740ac806147eTricky]

Hi. I reinstalled SS2 yesterday and I'm trying out your mod manager under Wine (Linux) because I have no problems running your program through Wine (tried the SS2 Blue Mod Manager, but I ran into trouble installing Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 in Wine).

So the program runs, it creates a SaltedFries directory and put the mods I selected neatly in there (SHTUP and Arcaniac Graphics Pack Reduxed). I ran into two issue.

• I won't set more than one mod to 'active', it's always one or the other.
• The activated mod doesn't actually appear to work

Any idea what might be the problem? I understand if this is a little too far out of your ballpark.

[6740ac8061564Tricky]

I got Blue's to work after all due to an oversight, so I guess it doesn't matter. 

[6740ac8061684Zeebok]

That is an interesting problem. I don't have SS2 installed but running the mod manager in wine seemed to update the cam_mod.ini file correctly and I was able to activate more than one mod (although click and drag was not working correctly). Any more info you can give me to narrow down what was happening?

[6740ac806179bTricky]

I didn't run it through the console, so sadly no.. I got no feedback. I did check out file permissions, but all the files involved were correctly set.

It's a good idea to have a mod manager that doesn't require any additional programs to be installed. I may not have any use for it now, but I imagine your mod manager could become invaluable to the Wine community if those .dlls you need for Blue's version ever become unavailable.

[6740ac8061878Zeebok]

Alright, I will keep playing around to see if I can recreate the problem (and fix the click and drag).

[6740ac8061964Tricky]

If it helps, I use Wine 1.5.30 on XUbuntu 13.04. The only, really anomalous thing about my setup is my old, internal Ati GPU, which generally makes games not run so well. But it shouldn't affect this of course.

[6740ac8061a5eZeebok]

Alright thanks. I will create a new empty wine prefix and see if it may be because I have a certain dll component installed. If you want I can put up the mod manager compiled in linux and see if you can run it natively (I believe you would only need to have Qt5 installed which is in the Ubuntu repos).

[6740ac8061b57Tricky]

Well I'm good now because Blues Mod Manager worked with those extra .dlls from his thread. But if you really want to, I can still help you test this of course. No problem.

[6740ac8061c48Mr. X]

When I attempt to install a .zip file, it states "Could not open the file. It is likely not a currently supported format".

[6740ac8061d5eZeebok]

That is likely due to the zip file actually being compressed with 7zip, or some other compression method, which I have not had an easy time getting working correctly. I may try to take a look into getting it working again this weekend if time allows. In the mean time (if you haven't fixed it or started using blue's mod manager) you can simply unzip the file to a folder of the mod's name, in the SaltedFries directory.