merlin2
April 17th, 2009, 10:48
I have been thinking about how great it would be if someone among us could design a front-end for CFS2 that could manage add-ons in a global sense.
Example: you open "CFS2Expansion" and the window gives a bunch of categories:
GSL, SceneryDB, LibObjs, Airbase.dat, Ships, Airplanes, Vehichles, Effects, Panels, etc. Each category would work basically like Martin Wright's AcMan for example, but would have checks programmed in as well; so for example if there was a plane needed for an installed mission it would know that and would prompt "this aircraft required for some installed missions", and so on.
It would also post warnings about too many airplanes, etc. and would check for the integrity of key files such as airbases.dat. It could also be used as another scenery library manager if it wrote directly to the appropriate control file.
The users job would then simply be to organize the collection of add-ons in an appropriate tree of folders that related to the front-end program. The program would swap in and out for us. I know that there are other programs that do parts of these tasks--I want a single umbrella program!
Naturally, if the program were built in modules it could evolve over time as needed.
I just like the idea of getting away from the fiddly business of adding and deleting files that we do so often. I doubt that it would be too difficult for a person with the basic technical know-how.
Comments ? Any volunteers?
Example: you open "CFS2Expansion" and the window gives a bunch of categories:
GSL, SceneryDB, LibObjs, Airbase.dat, Ships, Airplanes, Vehichles, Effects, Panels, etc. Each category would work basically like Martin Wright's AcMan for example, but would have checks programmed in as well; so for example if there was a plane needed for an installed mission it would know that and would prompt "this aircraft required for some installed missions", and so on.
It would also post warnings about too many airplanes, etc. and would check for the integrity of key files such as airbases.dat. It could also be used as another scenery library manager if it wrote directly to the appropriate control file.
The users job would then simply be to organize the collection of add-ons in an appropriate tree of folders that related to the front-end program. The program would swap in and out for us. I know that there are other programs that do parts of these tasks--I want a single umbrella program!
Naturally, if the program were built in modules it could evolve over time as needed.
I just like the idea of getting away from the fiddly business of adding and deleting files that we do so often. I doubt that it would be too difficult for a person with the basic technical know-how.
Comments ? Any volunteers?