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Point 2 and 3 of this suggestion is implemented, so this topic is changed to mod sorting aspect only — ssilk

With 0.17.x dropping on the development branch I wanted to disable my mods to try the current vanilla 0.17.xperience
Turns out, I have quite a few mods installed and the list is a patchwork of enabled/disabled and most of them are now out of date anyways. I found navigating my monstrous list of mods annoying and thought it could be improved by tweaking existing functionality. Yes I could just delete my mods but that is more going around a problem than it is solving it. Also this is technically multiple suggestions but i'd rather not make 3 threads for things so closely related.

I propose Increased functionality of the already New&Improved Mod Management GUI with 3 primary points. All are geared towards easier management of many and diverse installed mods, which may be from many authors, of inconsistent naming schemes and varied states of enabled.

1. Sort currently enabled mods to the top. This can make it clear exactly what you actually have enabled at any given time. Giving it a sort arrow like we have for Name and Version would look consistent with the rest of the UI.
   
   These points are implemented:

   [*]Search within installed mods. This functionality exists in the mod portal used for finding and installing mods and feels missed in mod management. The keywords I remember for an installed mod might be in the short description but not in the name.
   
   [*]Add "Filter By Category" to mod management. We can filter by category in the online mod library when choosing mods to Install, could we get that filter in the mod management tab as well? Perhaps by way of bolding the mods that satisfy the category and bringing them to the top of the list? Instead of bolding, insert a dummy item to act as a separator?

Nice ideas. I’ve got one of my own that I thought should go here rather than starting a new thread for, because it too involves mod management :

Please adjust the color coding, to add in a color to indicate whether the mod is compatible with the current iteration of Factorio.

I’m thinking along the lines of :
GREEN - mod is active/enabled
RED - mod is enabled, but not active for one reason or another : dependency not active or mod not compatible with current iteration
YELLOW - mod has update available
WHITE - mod not enabled, but is compatible with current Factorio version
GREY - mod not enabled, not compatible with current Factorio version

When you have a lot of mods, it is something of a pain to have to check each individual one to see whether it has been updated or not.

RED - mod is enabled, but not active for one reason or another : dependency not active or mod not compatible with current iteration

It already works that way.

Also, did you know that the checkbox in the header row will enable/disable all mods so you don't need to go check them each individually?

The idea was to be able to see, at a glance, what all is and is not compatible with the current version of Factorio, without having to change which mods are on or off.

I would like to be able to sort my installed mods by recently downloaded, whether it's activated or not, and a search feature if possible. Thank you.

Version 16 of factorio had this, but it was removed when 17 came out. Instead replaced with "trending", which, while that's cool and all, that lacks the functionality of seeing what the most recent released/updated mods are. The version number is mostly irrelvant as it's arbitrary what modders set for the most part. And most players won't remember (or care) what version number a specific mod is on, or how it relates to how recent it is. the "updates" tab already informs users of mods that have an update available, so this further decreases the importance of being able to "sort by version" within the install tab, so my proposal is to replace the "Sort by version" with "sort by release date" option. Sort by version is also further invaluable because selecting a mod opens up the info panel on the right and the player can see what version that mod is on if they wish.

EDIT: Actually, it looks like it's a scaling issue. the tab for last updated IS there, you just have to screw around with interface size because you can't change the size of the tabs, so it's not visible to the player.

I strongly agree with NukerNoah's suggestions.
1. "Sort installed mods by installation date" would be very helpful in isolating problematic mods that are installed recently.
2. "Search within installed mod" is already implemented.
3. "Filter installed mods by category" would also be very helpful in finding and removing mods with similar functionality.

4. Sort by last update - to see eventually problematic conflicts after update.

NukerNoah wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 27, 2019 6:03 am

Sort currently enabled mods to the top. This can make it clear exactly what you actually have enabled at any given time. Giving it a sort arrow like we have for Name and Version would look consistent with the rest of the UI.

+1

astroshak wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 28, 2019 9:04 pm

The idea was to be able to see, at a glance, what all is and is not compatible with the current version of Factorio, without having to change which mods are on or off.

Disabling the checkbox for enabling/disabling the mod would accomplish this, and would be very helpful. If the checkbox were grayed out for incompatible (outdated) mods, we could see which ones needed updating without selecting them first.

Wanting to enable a mod (kept in the list pending updates, very common especially early on) only to find after selecting it that it is still out of date is frustrating.

This would be more helpful for 1.1 than any previous version due to the increasing number of mods and lagging mod updates!

ssilk wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 09, 2020 3:56 am

4. Sort by last update - to see eventually problematic conflicts after update.

+1, though it would result in potentially messy need for caching of data to be efficient, and we know how much of a nightmare cache invalidation can be. It's made even more complicated by the fact that people do still manage mod folders directly at times.

One last suggestion: "Update only enabled mods" checkbox setting (above the tabs, since it affects behavior of the Update tab even while other tabs are selected) to speed up mod portal queries and downloads. With many mods installed it can become a serious burden for network and portal alike.

I own over 200 mods. I often change their active status. In the in-game mod list, the "version" regular sorting is not functional in my opinion. Instead, a ranking based on "active/inactive" status should be added or it should replace the "version" order. I think it is much more practical and functional.

like add a sort arrow besides the checkbox ?

Existing rankings can be performed in 2 different ways:

1-) Name (Alphabetical; a-b-c-d.....)

2-)Version number (1.0.0 etc.)

What I'm requesting:

I should be able to sort by which modes are on and which modes are off (active/inactive).

Either 3. should be added as a sort method; or the version that I don't find functional at all should replace sorting.

Sorting by enabled/disabled would be useful.

+1

Yea sorting by mod version is a little bit of a funny idea

+1

I tried clicking on the "toggle" label hoping it might sort them and all it did was enable all mods, which is almost never what you want if you have a lot of them.

It's still useful to show version number but primary sorting by it is strange indeed.

topic “ sort mods in "install tab" by release date ” is near enough to merge with earlier suggestion

merged “mod screen sort”, because it includes mod-sorting idea

merged “Mods are not by "version" number; It should be listed as "active/inactive"” - also about sorting mods.

I didn’t add the sort by version into the topic-title , because - as said - it makes not so much sense.

Hi!
If I have tons of mods on my list, we should have a simple filter button to show only active mods.

+1

Would this be similar in concept to the sort by active/inactive request?

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