@Sogroon: The release of mods support of the launcher is imminent (somewhere today).
From the previous implementation, i've tried to get a bug-proof approach
Now, the launcher has a menu Community > Modules, which displays installed mods and their version. The detection is based on the folder names in Modules, minus the default modules. All is configurable via xml so it's easy to add new default modules, rename them etc for the team. At this point, the launcher will display "Folder name, unknown version".
Then, the launcher looks for a file named "modInfo.xml" which contains mod name, version, and an "extrafiles" marker with "file" identifiers. It allows the modules menu to display "Mega Civ Pack, v1.3.6" (f.e.). The last one allows the launcher to know if the mod has a dependency outside the Modules/ folder. For example, MCP0.FPK or MCP_text files (for MegaCivPack).
Now, the fun part is that when the launcher starts, it does:
- An automatic generation of exclusions.mods.xml file, which contains the mod folder list and ALL the files listed in modInfo.xml. This will allow the updater not to remove mods files on update.
- An automatic regeneration of "MLF_CIV4ModularLoadingControls.xml" which lists mods name and enabled ones. No need to provide this one in your mods anymore. It was the cause of manual operation if there were many mods.
- An automatic injection of audio xml tags into the main audio files. This operation is launched in background 4s after the start so the launcher is not slowed down. The manual executable will still be provided so if one is reluctant to use the launcher, it can still be done manually (woc will be removed from the repo).
All of this is automatic. modInfo.xml is optionnal but it has advantages of giving infos to the player about the installed version. I already have included this in the MCP repo,
check it out here.
During my tests, i also have done it for MoreMusic,
check it out here. You still have to add the opening intro file in the list if you want.
Could you reupload your addons with the following file ? You could also remove the old "Addons_*.ini" files has they have no usefulness since ages.
Yet, the launcher does not install or remove mods, but i have the feeling that it isn't its role. However, i have added another file named "knownModules.xml" in Modules/ which contains a list of third-party known modules with URL (it contains Mega Civ Pack, More music and Dinosaurs). The menu "Community > Modules > Get modules" will list the mods in this file so it's also quick to add more known mods.
Finally, i will release a minimalistic console executable to install, update and remove MegaCivPack and maybe provide it with the main mod.