Use the In-Game Community Mods - Cross Platform PA Mod Manager (PAMM) is Obsolete

You reading my mind, I was annoyed by this while testing actively things this WE (closing PA / Re launching PA to reload shaders), so I removed ClosePAMM() from function LaunchPA(nomods) in my pamm.js

But for a normal usage, it may not be necessary (I didn't bother to ask and changed it locally).

By the way, since we're talking about enhancements
I noticed on a fresh installed PC, that if you use a filter to search an available mod (ie "color"), the filter is blanked upon installing a mod, resetting the filter (which is not expected from a user point of view)

H4ck3r !

It's true that the "name filter" isn't preserved upon refresh/actions, I could do something about that. I should probably extend it to description & authors content too.

when i lanuch the manager and start a single player game the GW mods do not show up any more and the game i had already been play in single player mode using one of the mods my save game is gone too. Any help on this and i have been over some or the forums and i don't see anyone else talking about it and i do know there was an update to PA but i thought the pa manager would simply update too later. So if i miss something on how to fix this could someone point me in the right direction... thank you in advance for any help in the matter.

What GW mods are you using precisely ?
Maybe latest PA update broke them.

tgw_start_orbital_buffed.js

thats the name of the mod i am using now
hope thats what u wanted and u know which gw loadout am i using and who created it.

but none of the modes for the GW loadout will show up in the game (PA) now.

That would be my galactic war loadout mod, which apparently doesn't work anymore. Just disable it for now, I'll try and update it soon but can't promise anything.

edit: TM

New version available :

• download count should now be properly updated for dependencies
• download count should not increase on failed install XD
• installed PA build versions added in the bottom toolbar
• text filter now works on description & authors too
• text filter is persisted upon refresh & mod installation (not pamm restart)
• simplified installation script for OS/X & Linux (have to update the OP)

To my dear early adopter, sorry but I had to increase the minimum requirement to Atom Shell 0.13.2. You can replace your old version of Atom Shell by the latest (0.15.7), it will works as well, and you should be fine for a while

The OP has been updated for OS/X & Linux installation, I hope it will now be an easy task, even for OS/X non "techie" users.

I also forgot to tell that the news feed on pamods.github.io has been cleaned up, and you can now have install link inside it.

Noticed that if PAMM is launched with an outdated PA version, update is performed through Uber Launcher, then PAMM "Refresh" button does not update the builds version for Stable / PTE on the bottom bar. Is it intended or could the version check be integrated in the refresh action too ?

I was planning on users closing PAMM themselves and start PA with the Launcher

Fair enough. It's not that important anyway.
On a side note, many people may not use the launcher for launching PA, as seen here, and prefer either to start the exe directly (PAMM being better by allowing to switch live / PTE anyway )

Would it be possible to introduce a rating system for the mods?

Currently there are quite some mods in the browser that are outdated. It would be great if users could flag mods as not working anymore, so other users don't waste their time. Once the author of the mod updates the mod, this flag would be removed ofcourse. This keeps the browser clean.

Another idea would be to add favourite/like/dislike buttons. Some of the highest-rated mods could be featured in a seperate tab in PAMM or something like that. Favouriting a mod could be a way to mark a mod for yourself (they would have a special icon between the other installed mods for example), or as a way of saying the author did a great job. I'm sure not everyone wants a dislike button, but I think it could help out in keeping the list of mods clean if there are mods that work, but are simply not good or do something they shouldn't do.

In the PAMM settings, you have the option of turning on "Load Mod Likes". It will then load the "likes" from the forum post associated with the mod. You can then sort the available mods tab on those "likes". It's not very accurate of course, but a good indication nonetheless.

Well, in an ideal world, modders should test their mod with latest live version and update version in modinfo.json ("build": "X").
However, this may be tedious for some and not everyone has the time to do so.
I remember @tatsujb made once or twice a recap thread with which mods were working or not after a big game update.

It would be cool to have in PAMM, a feature "work/doesn't work" (% indicator) for each mod, so people could contribute by voting.
This would be reset each time a new live build is pushed obviously.

But since the so-called release date is around the corner (according to resellers):

• there might be less frequent update, so this idea kinds of lose its purpose
• Uber apparently talked about having an integrated mod manager, not sure when it will arrive

Both reasons makes me think it's maybe not worth investing time in that kind of idea.

1. This one is limited to people who sign up on the forum, and consult mod section, so highly not representative.
2. Unilateral (no unlike). There's no way to indicates you consider this mod not essential / useful.
3. First one (KO deferred) is an outdated mod (AFAIK), fourth one (Dinosaur Fix) is funny but useless.
4. Retrieving the "likes" take ages

I am gonna try something with the usage statistics I am now gathering, but I don't promise anything

I don't think there will be less frequent updates after "release" though. As far as I can tell labelling it version 1.0 is rather arbitrary and they'll continue developing in the same way as they have now. And I'm pretty sure that their integrated mod manager will fall in the "not soon" category. Especially since there is already an existing community-made mod manager. Only when the Mod Marketplace will kick into being will PA have an integrated mod manager. I haven't heard much about that, so I think that's still far off.

Almost every mod has a mod post associated with it, doesn't it? And I'm pretty sure that the people who make mods are active in the modding section anyway. PAMM simply scrapes the "likes" from the mod post directly. No forum account is necessary for that part. (Oh, unless you mean for people to "like" the mod, in which case you are absolutely right)

I'm not to sure there even should be an ability to dislike a mod. It's kind of mean towards the person making the mod and it will decrease the motivation to create mods. Mods that are not liked enough simply drop in the popularity ladder anyway, so no need to kick them while they are down, so to say.

But I agree that the mod post likes isn't the best way and rather clumsy really. A built-in version in PAMM would probably be the way to go. Anyway, it seems Mereth is up to something.

Yeah, I was speaking about how people have to be "liking" the mods.
Pretty sure a lot of people using PAMM have not necessarily an account here.
And "casual Joe" people having an account, using PAMM or not, may not come down here in the shady mod section or click in the link inside PAMM to get redirected.

On a side note, not every mod has an associated topic (even a placeholder for multiple tiny mods)
Upon release, some are not even put in the news.html, even if they are extremely useful.
So you have to stumble upon by browsing available ones.
Yes @Mereth, you should feel concerned while reading this

"Unlike" is a strong word. I was more thinking about some Youtube video rating system and an immediate feedback. That might not be the most appropriate in our case. I agree with what you're saying.

By the way, speaking about rating and feedback, I think it would be interesting to replace "forum" links in PAMM, by something like "comment" to encourage people to give feedback. What do you guys think ?

I think about adding a "popularity" trend to replace the current "slow as f." likes.

I would add install + updates count, minus uninstall count, over the last 7 days.

Sounds good, and avoids the downsides usually present with "dislikes" or similar.

Btw, I did ask uber to consider enabling API access to the forums, which would have made getting the like count super fast. At the moment, it has to download the entire forum page for each mod just to read the like count.

The "likes"-loading can be sped up, I think. Judging from the function "jsDownloadOnlineModLikeCount", it seems the likes are scraped sequentially. That is, if I understood the code correctly. In the old Linux/Mac version of PAMM they were all loaded at the same time and once a result was ready, it was updated in the available mods list. So the loading of the available mods list would still be as fast as without loading likes and the likes would simply be filled in once they were available. The only downside of this was that sorting on likes can be a bit of a disorienting experience.