Folder naming conventions

[TeargasHorse 287]

I have been using mods since day one of this game. I have seen the awesome development from Walmart fiasco to SFP2. One of the problems that I continually run into when installing mods is the inconsistent naming conventions of the mod folders. I see the readmes that state that drag and drop into the folder and overwrite. 

The problem is that I often find that there are suddenly multiple files like Weapons, weapons, weapon, Weapon, etc. That's four folders for the same thing.

My questions are:

Is this because of foreign language translations of folder names?

Are the .ini files dependant on the naming, and that is why items do not work or cause crashes? 

For newer users, though, what are the file naming conventions?

 

[JosefK 911]

I personally think it's because not everybody is singing from the same songsheet.  So sometimes I have to move stuff over to the proper originally created SF2 folders - which is what should be the songsheet. 

Yes, the naming matters fellow modders.

[Wrench 9,848]

because some folks are dumb fucks, that can't/don't/won't follow established procedures. Said procedures are set up by the game itself and how it names and manages folders.

[bazillius 1,258]

this happens because at the time of the release of his plane the author is so foxed up that he makes mistakes and typos. He wants to quickly share his work and forget about it. Dumbness is nothing at all.

[+Gunrunner 314]

Well, this community is over 15 years old now and most modders still don't use a proper code editor (come on, Notepad++ is great) to edit INI files, don't use proper comments (no, you don't comment on the same line you barbarian, looking at you Wrench ), don't use a diff/merge tool (come on, WinMerge is free), don't use version control (come on, Subversion with TortoiseSVN is easy to pick up) and even worse, many still don't use Mue's wonderful tools.

I mean, we're 15 years in, and we still don't have a wiki to document the folder and file structure, what each and every file and folder are, what they do, what each line in each file does...

We're 15 years in, we finally have some "licencing" in place allowing the community to pick up where the last modders stopped (with some noticeable exceptions for more or less valid reasons), but we still don't have a Subversion (because Git isn't made for projects with large binaries, don't make that mistake) server for projects under that licence.

It's not necessarily that they don't know that these tools exist or don't know how to use them, but for most it's just that it's a hobby and they don't feel like working on it as if it were a job, and I certainly can't blame them... I mean, I know exactly what to do, how to do it, I do it on a small scale for my own installs, but I don't have the time or energy to set it up or organise it for the community.

There, that's my frustration, and I'm not really holding it against modders, I mean, I'm not doing anything to solve this situation even though I could, so I'll just shut up now.

[Wrench 9,848]

good one, GR!!!   

[+mue 715]

21 hours ago, Gunrunner said:

I mean, we're 15 years in, and we still don't have a wiki to document the folder and file structure, what each and every file and folder are, what they do, what each line in each file does...

Yes, a wiki would be a good idea. I know there is a lot of information in this forum and especially the Knowledge Base sub forum. But searching for specifics can sometimes be tedious. A wiki with more structured / linked / updated information would be an improvement. But I have no experience how much effort it is to setup a wiki. And I wonder how many modders are still around and willing to actually contribute to the wiki?

[+yakarov79 11,089]

8 hours ago, mue said:

And I wonder how many modders are still around and willing to actually contribute to the wiki

I do not think that modders will be interested in doing another project if they are preoccupied with own modding work. 

Honestly, I think you do not to be a modder to contribute to the wiki. A person or group of persons with the will to do an effort and pick all useful info scattered all over here would be enough for the start. 

I do not want to be harsh...and I am not pointing it to a specific person or persons...but sometimes it feels like modders are busy ....and non-modders are busy waiting for what modders are preparing.  There are many ways to contribute to this forum.