201 replies to this topic

[L0ki]

Last thread is full, so here's a new one. Previous threads: 1 2.

SourceForge project page
SourceForge project downloads (most frequently updated)
SourceForge project forums
Fallout 3 Nexus page


If you are wondering why I am posting this thread instead of Timeslip, there is a news item on the SourceForge project page explaining the situation. In short, Timeslip has stopped development and passed it on to me. Many thanks to Timeslip for the awesome work he has done to bring FOMM to its current state! I hope that I can continue to build on this awesome tool and work towards making it a one stop mod packaging and handling utility.

The current version is 0.9.15 and can be downloaded from either the SourceForge project page or the Fallout 3 Nexus page. A changelog can be found here, or here for a bit more detail.

If all goes well, 0.9.16 should be ready for release sometime this weekend, so if you have any feature requests / bug reports, now is the time to post them. Here is a preliminary list of changes:

• General Changes
  • Changed: The DLC files that FOMM offers to move are now controlled by an xml file instead of being hard coded.
  • Added: Mothership Zeta now added to list of DLCs that can be moved by FOMM
  • Added / Changed: There is now a dialog presented to the user if one or more DLC files are found that gives the user full control of what gets moved instead of a series of message boxes.
  • Changed: Modified the tab order on most forms so that it doesn't jump in a seemingly random order
• Main form
  • Fixed: If a plugin has multiple masters, they are now correctly displayed as a comma seperated string on the main form.
• BSA Creator
  • Fixed: .ogg voice files should now be correctly recognized by the BSA Creator
• Package Manager
  • Added: The following new items were added to the context menu:
    • Activate
    • Deactivate
    • Edit Info
    • Edit Script
    • Set Groups
    • View Readme
  • Changed: Reorganized the context menu as follows:
    • Activation, Deactivate, Fomod Status
    • Edit Info, Create / Edit Script, Set Groups
    • Delete
    • Email Author, View Readme, Visit Website
  • Changed: The following actions can now be performed on more than one fomod at a time:
    • Activate
    • Deactivate
    • Delete
    • Fomod Status
    • Set Groups
  • Added: There is a new dialog you can use to set the groups for multiple fomods at once
  • Added: A confirmation is now shown when deleting a fomod package via the context menu
• Changed: Updated the solution and project files to Visual Studio 2008 format.

The following is a list of potential features for 0.9.16 that may or may not make it into the release:

• Improved text / readme file handling
• Automatically refresh the main plugin list when the Fallout 3 data directory changes
• Show which fomod package an ESP / ESM belongs to

The following is a list of features planned for a future version:

• Updated .chm readme
• Scripting Guide
• Revamp of the UI to make it more user friendly as well as add additional functionality, including, but not limited to, the following:
  • Rework the Info Editor to make it easier to use by:
  • Grouping fomod data into tabs
  • Adding additional readme functionality to the info editor itself
  • Adding a file explorer for modifying fomod files right from FOMM
• Progress indication for potentially lengthy operations, including, but not limited to, the following:
  • Loading the main plugin list
  • Loading the Package Manager's fomod list
  • Loading the savegame list
  • Compress / Decompress operations
• Improve the fomod file format

I realize that the scripting functionality needs quite a bit of work, as it is practically undocumented as well as difficult to use if you aren't familiar with C#. I have quite a few ideas to simplify it, however, I'd like to hear the community's input before I do anything. I am planning on putting together a document comparing OBMM scripting with FOMM C# scripting, giving examples of common tasks such as checking versions, checking for other plugins, etc.

vista users should either disable UAC or install fallout somewhere outside the program files directory to make sure they can install mods correctly without them ending up in the virtual store. (Setting fomm to run as administrator on the compatibility tab will work too, but make sure you set fallout and its launcher, and every other fallout related utility you use too.)

And finally, a couple of useful snippets from the readme:

If you only have a single, retail DVD install of fallout 3 you can run fomm from anywhere; the only restriction is that it needs to be somewhere that it has write access to. If you have multiple installations, or you are running a downloaded version of fallout from D2D or steam, you will need to either install fomm into the same directory as the fallout3.exe of the game you want to run it with, or either run fomm's setup utility to set the path manually or manually edit the settings.xml file to add the node '<strValue name="FalloutDir">add the full path to your fallout directory here</strValue>'.

If fomm crashes on startup with a generic windows error then you likely have a problem with your .NET installation; fomm requires .NET 2.0 to run. Among the other third party gunk that the fallout 3 installer installs alongside the actual game is the original prepatched version of .NET 3.0, which under some circumstances can cause .NET 2 applications to break. In this case visiting windows update and installing the .NET 3 patch it offers you is sufficient to get fomm working.

Edited by L0ki, 08 September 2009 - 07:13 PM.

[MadCat221]

Good luck to you, you have some big shoes to fill.

There is one feature I'd like to see for FOMM: activating mods according to the masters of a save. I know that somewhere in there, FOMM has the ability to read a gamesave's module masters (ESMs and ESPs), as you can do that in the Save Game List.

[Gilg]

Glad to see FOMM getting some updates, especially with a new version soon. I know one of your future updates includes changes to the Info Editor (btw, your entry for it in your post looks incorrect) but I hope one of the changes that can probably be done easily is having the tab order fixed on that window. It's kind of annoying to fill out the information for a fomod when pressing Tab doesn't move you between fields like you think it would.

I remember reading somewhere that you had experience using Timeslip's previous creation, OBMM, which I think is great. OBMM (and Wrye Bash) made Oblivion modding generally pain-free and easy. I hope FOMM will do the same for Fallout 3.

[Nessh]

I was wondering about the shrink textures option in the install tweaker. Does it work? It never seems to move past the 'parsing textures.bsa' part no matter how long I leave it.

If it doesn't work and it can't be made to work, I'd suggest removing it.

And, good luck L0ki.

[L0ki]

Good luck to you, you have some big shoes to fill.

There is one feature I'd like to see for FOMM: activating mods according to the masters of a save. I know that somewhere in there, FOMM has the ability to read a gamesave's module masters (ESMs and ESPs), as you can do that in the Save Game List.

That is quite true. Since I do programming for a living, and I love working on utility type apps for games, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that FOMM lives on .

As for activating mods according to a savegame's loaded plugins, it is on my feature request list, I just forgot to mention it. It will function similar to OBMM, where:

• All active plugins are deactivated
• Each plugin that is active in the savegame is activated
  • If the plugin is not found, it is added to a list of missing plugins displayed to the user when the process is complete
  • If the plugin could not be activated, it is also added to a list to display to the user
• If any plugins were not found / could not be activated, a warning is shown to the user listing all of the errors encountered.

This can be accomplished quite easily, so I'll try to add it for 0.9.16, otherwise it will be available in 0.9.17.

Glad to see FOMM getting some updates, especially with a new version soon. I know one of your future updates includes changes to the Info Editor (btw, your entry for it in your post looks incorrect) but I hope one of the changes that can probably be done easily is having the tab order fixed on that window. It's kind of annoying to fill out the information for a fomod when pressing Tab doesn't move you between fields like you think it would.

I remember reading somewhere that you had experience using Timeslip's previous creation, OBMM, which I think is great. OBMM (and Wrye Bash) made Oblivion modding generally pain-free and easy. I hope FOMM will do the same for Fallout 3.

I have gone through all of the forms in the app and corrected funky tab orders. This will be available in 0.9.16.
As for OBMM, yes, it was an essential part of my Oblivion install. My goal is to improve the ease of use for FOMM so that it does for FO3 mod management what OBMM did for Oblivion mod management.

I was wondering about the shrink textures option in the install tweaker. Does it work? It never seems to move past the 'parsing textures.bsa' part no matter how long I leave it.

If it doesn't work and it can't be made to work, I'd suggest removing it.

And, good luck L0ki.

I haven't familiarized myself with the Install Tweaker portion of the source code yet, so I can't give you a definite answer. If I had to guess, i'd say it is just another case of a lengthy operation that needs better progress indication, as the textures bsa contains a huge amount of data to process. I'll add it to my list of things to check out for 0.9.17.

[L0ki]

How many people run FOMM on Mono instead of .NET? I have some ideas for improving the UI that I have started implementing with ObjectListView, however it appears to pretty much blow up when trying to use it on Mono. By "blows up", I mean that the app stops responding, the UI starts flickering like a slideshow, etc. If this is just going to cause problems for users, I will have to look for another solution.

[LazyMonk]

How many people run FOMM on Mono instead of .NET?

Is there a way to run Fallout3 on another platform other than windows? (I don't think you'll find too many mono users here)

[L0ki]

Well, you can run mono on Windows, so I was just wondering how many people actually do - Timeslip did include a "-mono" command line switch to disable stuff that doesn't work on mono. Truthfully, I'd like to remove it -mono just isn't ready to replace Microsoft's .NET on Windows.

[Timeslip]

I haven't familiarized myself with the Install Tweaker portion of the source code yet, so I can't give you a definite answer. If I had to guess, i'd say it is just another case of a lengthy operation that needs better progress indication, as the textures bsa contains a huge amount of data to process. I'll add it to my list of things to check out for 0.9.17.

The progress indicator may only update once per bsa, but it would have been a bit stupid of me; it stands to reason that 99% of the work is going to be in processing the main textures bsa. I know it used to work, (I used to use it myself to speed up loading times, since I was restarting fallout a lot but never playing long enough to care what it looked like,) but it's been a long time since I looked at it.

Well, you can run mono on Windows, so I was just wondering how many people actually do - Timeslip did include a "-mono" command line switch to disable stuff that doesn't work on mono. Truthfully, I'd like to remove it -mono just isn't ready to replace Microsoft's .NET on Windows.

In my experience, the more recent versions of mono are a very good replacement for .net, as long as you avoid winforms. I've used it for linux development over the past year without noticing any nasty holes or bugs.

I was making some effort to make sure it wouldn't be impossible to move to linux if/when wine can play fallout 3 well. I don't think supporting mono on windows is too important; there were a lot of .net haters around in obmm's time, but they've mostly gone away now. (mono was awful back then; I never did get it to work properly with obmm. Pity that it didn't work just when I needed it...) I don't think that -mono switch actually does much, there was only one thing it disabled iirc. In any case, there's probably no need to keep supporting it; it's possible to install the real .net in wine these days, and presumably run fomm that way. (I haven't actually tested if that's possible. You might want to before dumping mono support for good.)

Edited by Timeslip, 11 September 2009 - 07:49 PM.

[Vaulimere]

A feature I would like, and haven't seen mentioned, is setting a default load path for the 'Create package from folder' function, as well as for the 'set screenshot' portion of the Edit info dialog. I keep a TON of files & mods in my download folders, and all of them are divided into subfolders based on type (over 8GB of mods just for Fallout3 on my HD currently... know of any Data Packrats Anonymous groups? ). To help manage things I always extract a mod I'm going to check out into a temp folder, review its contents, then make it a FOMOD to load it up. Having FOMM set to always look in that same path when I create the packages would be helpful.

On the note of the FOMOD format, I personally would not like to see it change from a renamed standard archive format (ZIP, rar or 7z). With the current format we can always rename & extract the fomod file if needed, and the original download can be deleted without concern.

Many thanks for working on this, and to Timeslip for all the work you've put in previously. FOMM makes checking out mods and keeping a clean game after removing them much easier!

Cheers,
Vaul

[Tubal]

I have a problem where FOMM crashes when trying to create a FOMOD from archives downloaded from the Fo3 Nexus. It's no use listing which ones, it goes for all of them. If I repackage the files into an identical archive it works, and files from other sources also seem to work (ie the newest DarnUI).

crashduump.txt:

den 5 oktober 2009 - 22:54:53
Fomm 0.9.15
OS version: Microsoft Windows NT 5.2.3790 Service Pack 2

ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipException: Cannot find central directory
   at ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipFile.ReadEntries()
   at ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.ZipFile..ctor(String name)
   at ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.Zip.FastZip.ExtractZip(String zipFileName, String targetDirectory, String fileFilter, String directoryFilter)
   at Fomm.PackageManager.PackageManager.AddNewFomod(String oldpath)
   at Fomm.MainForm..ctor(String fomod)
   at Fomm.Program.Main(String[] args)

(duump? )

[markb50k]

can FOMM compile scripts that have FOSE functions in them? I am trying to compile a script with GetEquippedObject in it and it is erroring out

I started thinking about editing the ScriptFunctions.xml but was a bit scared to do so

[Marlboro Man]

Noob question here. When I launch the game using FOMM it does not seem to be using the graphics settings that I have set in the regular FO3 launcher. Why is that? And why does FOMM skip that part? Another thing, do you have to launch the game using the FOMM launcher for it to run the mods correctly that I installed and "arranged" correctly in FOMM?

[markb50k]

Noob question here. When I launch the game using FOMM it does not seem to be using the graphics settings that I have set in the regular FO3 launcher. Why is that? And why does FOMM skip that part? Another thing, do you have to launch the game using the FOMM launcher for it to run the mods correctly that I installed and "arranged" correctly in FOMM?

not sure about the graphics question, but once you "arrange" the mods in FOMM, you can just go into the game directly from the FO3 shortcut and it will use your FOMM order

[Marlboro Man]

Thanks, that's good to know. Because I was worried about the files listed in the DAT files section loading instead of the FOMM ones. BTW, do I "uncheck" those there? Or can I just ignore them.

[Tubal]

Don't even open the Data Files section of the launcher, as it will murder your load order. Ignore it.

[Marlboro Man]

Thanks for the help guys.

[OnmyojiOmn]

Hi,

I really miss the colored icons in OBMM's omod list that showed you whether an omod will overwrite existing files. Is there a way to do this in FOMM that I'm missing?

Thanks

[Zumbs]

Does anyone know if tuturials on using the package manager and constructing fomods exist? If not, I'm thinking on making some, but if they are already there, I would rather point to them ...

[Psymon]

OK so yay me I have my first FOMM crash.

OBMM crashes are what made me embrace and advocate so much for BAIN, because when OBMM crashed it always lost all information as to what was installed. Very much a royal -entire gaming time or longer to fix- pain.

It didn't exaclty crash as much as froze indefinitly prompting me to open task manager and close it. I waited abut 30 minutes for it to complete whatever loop it was stuck in.

I was trying to make a fomod out of the new DCInteriors combo edition. I make FOMODS of everything, so I'm practiced at it.

The good news it that re-opening it the mods seemed to be in the right order (unlike what would happen with OBMM), but when I open the package manager I get this message:
error loading desktop.fomod cannot find central directory

::sigh::

that does not look good. the package manager does then open, but am I to take this to mean that it has lost all information on what is installed?

Should I:
1. just uninstall and reinstall all my fomods?
2. wait for an answer here?

no L0ki or Timeslip for over a month so it looks as though this is abandoned.

What would you do?

=========

[edit 1] seems that disabling a fomod via package directory does remove the plugin form the load list, so then what does that error above mean?

Edited by Psymon, 07 November 2009 - 04:59 PM.

[Timeslip]

<snip>

It means that you have a corrupt fomod called 'desktop.fomod' in your mods folder. (Cannot find central directory is the message the zip library gives when fomm tries to open it.) Delete it manually with windows explorer and the error message will go away, but while it's there it won't cause any problems apart from being annoying.

If you accidentally selected your desktop when creating a fomod, that might go some way towards explaining why fomm get stuck.

[Psymon]

Yeah that must have been what happened. Don't know how but that was it I guess.

Thanks for the reply retired one.

Having to do a ctr+alt+del on OBMM was a dreaded thing. I guess FOMM is much more sturdy in that regard. In fact it really is much more user friendly and stable all around compared to OBMM.

thanks very much.

[Zumbs]

I have written a couple of FOMOD tutorials:

FOMM and FOMODs for Dummies
1: Installing mods
2: Making FOMODS
3: Basic FOMOD Scripting I
4: Basic FOMOD Scripting II

I plan on writing at least one or two more. Comments are appreciated!

[Timeslip]

Since loki seems to have gone AWOL, I've made a 0.9.16 release with the two most vital changes. (mothership zeta support, and including the readme.)

Is there anything else that needs to be fixed urgently? I'm not intending to pick fomm back up again, but I can make any quick changes that are required.

[Breeze582000]

Since loki seems to have gone AWOL, I've made a 0.9.16 release with the two most vital changes. (mothership zeta support, and including the readme.)

Is there anything else that needs to be fixed urgently? I'm not intending to pick fomm back up again, but I can make any quick changes that are required.

Since you're looking for quick things to fix... any chance of checking the exceptions that get throw when using the texture manipulation functions in the release version of FOMM (which worked fine in the debug version)?

Thanks

[Zumbs]

Since loki seems to have gone AWOL, I've made a 0.9.16 release with the two most vital changes. (mothership zeta support, and including the readme.)

Is there anything else that needs to be fixed urgently? I'm not intending to pick fomm back up again, but I can make any quick changes that are required.

Thanks for the new version

If you have time, could you add a way to open fomm.chm from the UI? The help button directs to the sourceforge forums.

[Timeslip]

Since you're looking for quick things to fix... any chance of checking the exceptions that get throw when using the texture manipulation functions in the release version of FOMM (which worked fine in the debug version)?

Can you provide an example fomod that crashes you, with the simplest script and least files you can recreate the problem with please. I don't see anything obviously wrong at first glance, and I don't have time to play with things to see if I can break it.

If you have time, could you add a way to open fomm.chm from the UI? The help button directs to the sourceforge forums.

Commited to svn.

A bit of explanation as to why it was behaving like that, since I saw you looking around for the manual on sourceforge: Originally there was a chm file which covered the basics, but since I suck at writing documentation, when I moved fomm to sourceforge I moved the manual to a wiki so that anyone could write extra documentation. Later on, sourceforge decided to kill their wikispaces service, and offered migration to mediawiki or trac instead. Since there hadn't been a single commit to the wiki by anyone other than me, I decided not to take up the migration offer, and to move back to a chm instead. Unfortinately, that was just about the time bethesda temporarily killed fallout modding, which lead to me stopping the updates, so when wikispaces went down the help link stopped working. (You could still get the readme by downloading one of the older fomm updates, so it wasn't totally lost, just not included in the latest downloads or accessible from inside fomm.)

[Timeslip]

0.9.17 is up. I've fixed the help button, Breeze582000's problem, one other broken script function that was mentioned on sourceforge, and updated the chm to include the later changes to the wiki. (Basically just a few faq entries and the newer script functions.)

In the absence of any other comments, that's it from me again.

[Psymon]

THANK YOU

[Zumbs]

0.9.17 is up. I've fixed the help button, Breeze582000's problem, one other broken script function that was mentioned on sourceforge, and updated the chm to include the later changes to the wiki. (Basically just a few faq entries and the newer script functions.)

Thanks man!

In the absence of any other comments, that's it from me again.

Take care

I have added two tutorials on how to use forms in FOMOD scripting:

5: Working with Forms I
6: Working with Forms II

Edit: I'm not sure if this is just me, but on the sourceforge page, 0.9.16 is displayed as the newest version.

Edited by Zumbs, 12 November 2009 - 12:04 PM.