There have been talk about the need for The Vault to have a simple 1-click installer to making things easier for new users. So here is a proposal for such an installer that I want to run through you guys, specially the staff @niv, @Proleric, @Fester_Pot, @Tarot_Redhand, @Vanya_Mia, @TheAmethystDragon. Got the list from the Hamburger menu so there might be some other mods I missed?
The approach I am taking is to just make something that is just dead simple and leave it at that. Basically just to automate the downloading and unpacking of .7z files and that is it.
Typical usage scenario:
- User browses the Vault and sees a module they like. Clicks on an attractive “Click here to play” button.
- The browser downloads a installation info file with a .svit file extension and launches the Simple Vault Installation Tool (SVIT)
- SVIT asks user to confirm the module installation. User clicks Install.
- SVIT downloads all module files and dependent packages from the Vault and unpacks them into the user’s NWN directory placing files in correct folders.
- User launches NWN to play module and gives author 10 stars!
What we need to do. Create .svit installation info files for the modules. These would be simple text files that contains:
- The name of the module
- Links to the module’s own files either in .7z,.rar or .zip format. The contents will be sorted and recognized file types will be unpacked into the corresponding directory in the user’s NWN folder.
- Links to other project’s .svit files that the module is dependent on, such as CEP or ProjectQ
Concerns:
a) This is a very simple solution. But will it suffice and be viable? Any suggestions to make it even simpler??
b) Once the installation tool is in place, clearly the bulk of the work is in creating the .svit files and have them posted on their project pages. Others could create the svit files but only the mods could post them up. So what do you guys think?
c) This would work for NWN1, but would it work for NWN2 as well?
d) No idea how feasible it is to get a flashy “Click here to install” button on the project pages, but we can always revert to bland textual links. But the project pages currently only allows uploading of certain file types! I couldn’t even upload a naked .nss file without renaming it. Will need some @niv magic here.
e) Any other suggestions?
Thank you for your consideration.