Portal suggestion: a mark on a changelog page, if the changelog will show in game

[Honktown]

I believe this message:

Code: Select all

Quick note about changelogs. This page will display whatever you stick in your changelog.txt, but the game's parser is more strict. To get your changelog to display properly in-game please follow this tutorial courtesy of Pi-C! 

Could be misleading, in that one could read that one's changelog is not valid to show in game, and the modder should fix their changelog according to the tutorial. Any indication (preferably visible to all users) would be convenient, in my opinion. As small as "Visible in game: [checkmark or X]". I know the portal already examines the mod zip files for various validity tests and for presentation, so a validity test on the changelog doesn't sound too bad. (from the outside)

For mod versions that already exist, if re-testing the changelog is not possible, the indicator could show a question mark: "Visibility in game: ? (not validated)". That'd be convenient for a field for stored mods: changelog passed, changelog invalid, or not-validated (empty value)

[Honktown]

Something else that would REALLY help, imo: a message if there is a changelog.txt and it is invalid, asking if the user is sure they want to update their mod.

It's annoying to update a mod, only to find out there's one small mistake in the changelog. I wouldn't mind if it were an option to turn on in the user profile. If it were a interrupting message, then justarandomgeek might need to be made aware, otherwise their mod uploading script could fail(?).

[Pi-C]

It's annoying to update a mod, only to find out there's one small mistake in the changelog.

About two years ago, I helped out somebody making Changelog tools by providing tests. Unfortunately, the author disappeared before everything worked perfectly, so a few errors will slip through, but it will catch the most popular ones.

The mod is for Factorio 0.18. However, that's not a normal mod, but just some python scripts packed up as a mod for easier distribution. Unpack the scripts and run them outside of Factorio -- there's more detailed info in the mod's FAQ section on the mod portal.

(Needless to say, as the script doesn't work perfectly, you still should restart the game and make sure that your changelog really works before uploading! However, as the script will output all errors it finds at once, you'll probably waste less time on restarting the game.)

[Stringweasel]

+1

It could even check that the latest version in the changelog matches the actual version of the mod. It should only be a warning (or possibly a optional fail) though. Or even a "Are you sure you want to upload a mod with a broken changelog?" message. I'm always stressed about my changelogs and it's kinda lame to have to fix it afterward.

[PFQNiet]

The VSCode extension for Factorio development includes validation of changelog files among many many other useful features. That's what I use!