Oolite Bulletins

And I do apologize profusely if this issue has been addressed already.

I note from the virtually all but finished New Release that the facility to manage Expansion Packs Appear on the Start Screen. (Which is a brilliant new feature BTW)

However , with the best intentions in the World, There are a great many OXP's that have yet to, or alternatively never will find their way into the Manage Expansions Menu. I think I am missing , for example SB Faves and Galactic Navy ... Which is no worry... Because I note the existence of an Add ons Folder with the Debug OXP fitted as standard.

Am I correct in assuming that I can simply put whatever OXPs that do not and will not appear in the finished product in my Add Ons Folder as per 1.79 ?

I know it may be a stupid question , but thought I ought to check just in case having OXPs installed via Core and Add Ons Folder might produce conflicts.

Thanks in advance.

Duggan wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that I can simply put whatever OXPs that do not and will not appear in the finished product in my Add Ons Folder as per 1.79 ?

<nods> Yep, you are correct!

Cody wrote:

Duggan wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that I can simply put whatever OXPs that do not and will not appear in the finished product in my Add Ons Folder as per 1.79 ?

<nods> Yep, you are correct!

Yes, what Cody says. There are separate folders for each in the installation, an AddOns folder as before for manually managed OXPs, and another folder for the managed OXZs.
Out of interest, what happens if an OXP and OXZ version of the same OXP are installed?

Good to know!

Smivs wrote:

Out of interest, what happens if an OXP and OXZ version of the same OXP are installed?

If they're otherwise identical, probably nothing too bad. Otherwise the OXP is likely to override the OXZ (manually installed overrides automatically installed) and since it's probably the older of the two that might cause problems.

That would have been my guess. Is there a possible future where the manager could interrogate the AddOns folder looking for similar-enough names for example to issue an alert or warning? I don't know how easy that wouldn't be.

Not easy. The OXP naming schemes aren't at all consistent (even leaving aside people who rename the OXP folders when they install them, who presumably know what they're doing), sometimes include version numbers and sometimes not, and if an OXP has been renamed or changed maintainer, might have multiple potential names.

In theory I could put an extra field into the manifest format which allowed old OXP folder names to be looked for - in practice the first released version that would have that would be 1.82 by which time the problem would be mostly over anyway.

Ha, yes I take the point about naming as I'm probably one of the worse culprits
Never mind, it's not a big deal, just an idea I had.

cim wrote:

... even leaving aside people who rename the OXP folders when they install them...

<grins> I tend to slightly rename OXPs that I've tinkered with. Not good practice, as regards OXZs.

Cody wrote:

Duggan wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that I can simply put whatever OXPs that do not and will not appear in the finished product in my Add Ons Folder as per 1.79 ?

<nods> Yep, you are correct!

Further to which, if you manually download and install an OXZ, you can put it your AddOns folder and Oolite will load it without problems. For instance, this is where I have the himsn_alpha_test.oxz located.

Cody wrote:

cim wrote:

... even leaving aside people who rename the OXP folders when they install them...

<grins> I tend to slightly rename OXPs that I've tinkered with. Not good practice, as regards OXZs.

This reminds me.. I need to update the OXP Tinkering thread with some notes on tinkering with OXZ files.