ModMyFactory - mod manager and more

[Rensiur]

Already tested that - no entry in the Task Manager at any time.

[Artentus]

Have you restarted you computer since then? By restarting I mean actually the restart option, not shutting down and then turning it back on (this only hibernates the computer).
This may clear any junk in your RAM that shouldn't be there (e.g. the Mutex preventing the app to start).

[Rensiur]

Yeah, PC was off the power for around two hours yesterday, but I'll try a real restart later again.

Tried restart - no change, still nothing happening.

I tried a new install of ModMyFactory - the windows smart screen protection kicked in. After acknowledging that I want to use the app nothing happens anymore. Maybe it is related to that Windows 10 feature?

Disabling said Feature also does not change anything. I am a bit at a loss here.

[Artentus]

I am developing and testing on Windows 10 so I highly doubt it has anything to do with that.
Just based on the fact that you seem to be the only one experiencing this problem I suspect it is caused by something very sepcific about your system.

The problem now is that as long is I can not reproduce this (and I have no idea how I should even go about reproduceing this) I can only take wild guesses at how to resolve this.
If you know how, you could download the source code from GitHub and then run it through the debugger directly on your machine, this may reveal the error.
If you don't know how to do that I guess the only thing to do is to keep trying. I'd do the following:

• Rename or move the %AppData%\ModMyFactory folder.
• Download an older version of ModMyFactory.
• Clean install the newest version of the .Net Framework.
• Repair damaged system files (sfc /scannow).
• As last resort load a System Restore Point from before this started happening.

[Anson]

"Give me a program with a single bug and i will find both" :-)
that being said, here are my observations (good and bad) when i started using this program for the first time :

very nice to have a wiki and some instructions for a first setup

and most of all very nice to have a program like this at all, which enables easy maintenance of many different setups for different versions of factorio and different modpacks

the better a program is, the more i look at details and the more ideas i get for it.
thus take the length of this post as praise and commendation, and in no way as negative criticism.

to make it optically a bit more pleasing, i have split it in spoilered segments according to your checklist :

0,1,2. preparations and backups ... starting with empty directories, and how to upgrade ModMyFactory

0/1/2. following the instructions in Getting Started, i decided to setup a system from scratch by downloading and installing everything instead of converting and eventually damaging old installations. this proved already useful when i had downloaded the newest version 1.4.1, and immediately did a version check to see that a few minutes after my download, a new version 1.4.2 was released.
- how do i upgrade from one version of ModMyFactory to another?
- simply overwrite the old version with the new version?
- will that also work in the future if maybe some files are added or removed from the distribution zip ?
by having used new directories, i could easily delete the first install and start again. but if additional files and subdirectories are created in the ModMyFactory directory, that would no longer be possible.

3. settings ... missing icon, and location of saves and scenarios

3. "Access the settings by clicking the <gear> icon in the toolbar, selecting Edit -> Settings in the menu or pressing F12."
the second and third method to start configuration work, but i could find no <gear> icon in the toolbar

ok, i can set directories for factorio and for mods, but what about saves and scenarios ?
directories for them are always created in appdata ?

i have savefiles as big as 250+ MB (multiply that by the number of manual saves and autosaves) and thus would like to have them on another partition too, near the other factorio directories, the foreman utility, etc.

a general overview on how this program works would be nice and make it easier to understand where to put directories and files (and where to NOT put them) or where to look for directories in case something goes wrong or i want to add/change something myself, eg recovering mods, adding old savefiles, etc

when i use foreman (the program, not the mod), i have to specify where the mods are. where are the currently active mods when i am running an instance of factorio from this program ? would it be possible to have an option for pointing foreman to that directory ?

4. installing factorio ... with several crashes

4. next, i tried installing several factorio versions. after installing 0.14.21 from a zip, and 0.13.20 by downloading it, i decided to also install an old version to be able to have a look at what has changed over the years. but that crashed ModMyFactory several times:
the first crash was probably caused by old factorio versions missing some files or subdirectories in the distribution zip

installing from Factorio_x64_0.6.4.zip resulted in this crashlog

Code: Select all

System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Ein Teil des Pfades "D:\myGames\ModMyFactory\Factorio\Factorio_0.6.4" konnte nicht gefunden werden.
   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.DirectoryInfo.MoveTo(String destDirName)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<>c__DisplayClass43_0.<AddZippedVersion>b__1()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<AddZippedVersion>d__43.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<<-ctor>b__39_2>d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.AsyncMethodBuilderCore.<>c.<ThrowAsync>b__6_0(Object state)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

the second crash was caused by having a partial install from the first attempt (ModMyFactory didn't clean up the temp files when it crashed). trying again by doing a fresh download resulted in this crashlog

Code: Select all

System.IO.IOException: Die Datei "D:\myGames\ModMyFactory\Factorio\Factorio_0.6.4.5945\bin\x64\Factorio.exe" ist bereits vorhanden.
   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
   at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)
   at System.IO.Compression.ZipFileExtensions.ExtractToFile(ZipArchiveEntry source, String destinationFileName, Boolean overwrite)
   at System.IO.Compression.ZipFileExtensions.ExtractToDirectory(ZipArchive source, String destinationDirectoryName)
   at System.IO.Compression.ZipFile.ExtractToDirectory(String sourceArchiveFileName, String destinationDirectoryName, Encoding entryNameEncoding)
   at ModMyFactory.Web.FactorioWebsite.<>c__DisplayClass4_0.<DownloadFactorioPackageAsync>b__0()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task`1.InnerInvoke()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.Web.FactorioWebsite.<DownloadFactorioPackageAsync>d__4.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<DownloadOnlineVersion>d__42.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<DownloadOnlineVersion>d__42.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<<-ctor>b__39_1>d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.AsyncMethodBuilderCore.<>c.<ThrowAsync>b__6_0(Object state)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

finally I tried adding other old versions and got similar results for all versions before factorio 0.11
when I cleaned up the mess, i probably found the reason for the first crash: all factorio distributions before 0.11 are distributed with a directoryname that has the buildnumber appended to the version, and ModMyFactory expects only three parts in the version number (Factorio_0.xx.xx, and not Factorio_0.xx.xx.bbbb)

while trying to install different versions, i also accidentally tried installing some version twice and thus got another crash with this crashlog

Code: Select all

System.IO.IOException: Eine Datei kann nicht erstellt werden, wenn sie bereits vorhanden ist.

   at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.DirectoryInfo.MoveTo(String destDirName)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<>c__DisplayClass43_0.<AddZippedVersion>b__1()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<AddZippedVersion>d__43.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.VersionManagementViewModel.<<-ctor>b__39_2>d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.AsyncMethodBuilderCore.<>c.<ThrowAsync>b__6_0(Object state)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

I know that i can't install the same version twice, but if i accidentally do, the program should detect that and not crash.

5. adding mods ... with suggestions for enhancements

5. adding mods by downloading from the portal gave no problems, but since i installed lots of mods from scratch, and mostly installed both the 0.13 and 0.14 versions, i have two suggestions for enhancements: it would be nice if i could download the newest version of a mod without having to select first a specific version in the list, eg by having a button "download newest". and since i mostly want to install the same mods for 0.13 and 0.14, it would be nice if i could simply push one button like "download all newest" to download the newest version of a mod for every installed factorio version.
since most mods are available for 0.14 now, i probably will stop using 0.13 soon, and this will be no big problem. but the same problem will appear again with 0.14 and 0.15 as soon as 0.15.1 is released and 0.15 is not stable yet.

when a new main version of factorio is released (0.15), how can i most easily install a set of all the mods for it that i already have installed (with a lot of work) for 0.13 or 0.14 ? (the same might also have helped me to install the same mods for 0.13 and 0.14, by installing for 0.13 first and then selecting somehow "install all 0.14 that exist as 0.13", only requiring a few additions).
it also would be nice if i could somehow install a "placeholder" for mods that are not yet available as new 0.14 version so that i later only need to do searches for updates and that placeholder would be replaced with a 0.14 version when it gets released in that version too. (i currently do that ingame: simply install 0.13 which will be ignored on starting factorio, and when i update all mods ingame and a 0.14 version of the mod becomes available, it downloads that version)

in case i want to use different versions of a mod for the same or different versions of factorio (eg using upgradeditem_1.1 for a multiplayer game with factorio 0.14.19 and upgradeditem_1.2 for another multiplayer game with factorio 0.14.19 or 0.14.20), how can i select and download those two versions of one mod which both belong to the same main version of factorio ?
the same problem would appear for singleplayer games too, but that could easily be resolved by upgrading and using the same mod version for two singleplayer games, while i probably have no influence on the server of multiplayer games and can't force the server owner to upgrade the mod just to enable me using ModMyFactory ...

anyway, downloading mods from the portal with this program seems to be faster than doing it ingame. really nice.
the filter at the bottom mostly seems to work quite nicely too. one little detail about it though: when i wanted to clear a filter to search for something different, i first pushed the recycle button to its right, which started getting the entire list of mods again. now i know, but accidentally did it again. maybe a real "clear search field" button would be nice, and having the "redownload entire list" button someplace else, or with some text instead of only a small icon?
btw: on the ingame mod portal, you can rightclick the filter mask to clear it and then immediately type another searchstring.

Also I'm missing an option to delete mods while browsing mods. eg when i want to download another older version, or an alternate mod and thus having to delete the existing download first. an additional button "delete" besides the existing "update" and "download" would suit this purpose well.

Edit: when i install factorio versions from zip files, this program asks me whether i want to delete the zip file afterwards. but when i install mods from zipfiles, the files seem to be moved, and thus effectively are deleted at their old locations without any warning. while merging several installs by installing mods from the existing factorio installations (selecting the zip files in those mod folders), it would be nice to get a warning, or to be able to set an option to copy instead of move them, to NOT delete the mods from the existing mod folders. step 0 of the instructions already says that we should do backups first, but i wish there would be a simpler method than making two backups first (one as a real backup, and one to install/move mods from it and install them to the new location).

6. creating and editing modpacks ... more observatons, suggestions and ideas

6. enabling and disabling all mods while creating a modpack is nice, but with a long list of mods, it can take 5+ seconds and thus users click on the checkmark a second time, which of course toggles the checkmarks back again after another 5+ seconds (or even toggles back and forth several times for a total of half a minute or longer if the user is a bit impatient and clicks again and again while he sees no reaction on the checkmark). if this time can't be sped up, it might be nice to ignore additional mouseclicks while the first click is still worked on. (in one of my own programs, i had a similar situation and primitively solved it by disabling the checkmark and its label before the program started handling a click, and then re-enabled it after the handler was finished).

Finally started my first game (just for testing) via ModMyFactory, and it worked really well. Then I decided to put all the selected mods (those with checkmarks, which all were not selected/active lines in the list) into a modpack to be able to use them easily later, but how do i do that ? it would be nice if I could add all mods which have checkmarks to a (new or existing) modpack, but as far as i can see, i have to go through the whole list of mods one by one and ctrl-click each of those mods which have a checkmark to select them before i can add those selected mods to the modpack.

next, i tried to add a modpack (one of the "big mod" modpacks you offer as zip files. and of course ModMyFactory crashed again since it seems to expect the file as plain fmp file (btw: what does fmp stand for?). as with the other crashes, it would be nice if this program would notice that the file is not *.fmp but *.zip (or something else) and alert the user with an error message, instead of only crashing to the desktop with a crashlog that i have to search and open to maybe learn what happened.

i tried the same again with unzipped fmp files, and at first it downloaded all included mods nicely. (it was also nice that i could select and import several modpacks in one go) but then i got an error message (this time no crash but an error dialog: nice, but not very helpful to me). what caused the message "The following conflicts occured while importing this modpack file: bobinserters (0.13.3) <-> bobinserters (latest)"? this probably was caused by already having installed some "inserter utility mods", including a 0.13 and a 0.14 version of bobsinserters ...
currently, most people will probably only run the newest 0.14 version of factorio and problems like this happen only rarely, but until recently many people used either the last stable 0.13 or the last experimental 0.14, or BOTH, and as soon as 0.15.1 is released, similar will happen again to many more people ...

btw: it took me a while to learn how to edit a modpack since the "downarrow" was not shown in the window. i first had to scroll horizontally or enlarge the width of the entire window to see it, although more than half the width of the list (between the modname and the X and arrow icons on the right side) was empty. this also makes it a bit difficult to match the correct icons to the modnames and not accidentally delete the modpack above or below the one that i want to delete.
I don't use modpacks only to assign mods to a game, but also to sort mods, eg one modpack for all mining mods, one for belts, one for power, one for all kinds of greenhouses and wood-oil, etc), and then select only one of the mods from such a pack of (maybe partially conflicting) mods. Having the downarrow on the left side would make it easier/faster to browse such modpacks (click arrow to open, click a checkmark, click arrow again to close)

is there an option to install a modpack to a specific version of factorio, eg installing the bobsmod pack for 0.14 and for 0.13 ?
creating a modpack from a set of installed 0.13 mods and then importing it for 0.14 or for "latest" would also solve the problem i described above, of having the same mods for different versions.

at the toolbar on top of the window, i can select a specific version of factorio. would it make sense to use that version as a filter to display only those mods that are usable for that version. while i have lots of mods installed for 0.13 and 0.14, it would cut the list in half for me, and reduce the danger of accidentally seleting the wrong version of mods when adding to a modpack.

last problem i currently have with installing mods: in contrast to the ingame mod installer, i don't easily see all the dependencies of mods, which of them are already installed, which have incorrect versions, etc, and thus get lots of missing dependencies and disabled mods when i start a game. then i have to exit the game, and go and search for all those missing core mods, adding them to the downloaded mods, adding them to modpacks, start the game again, and probably still am missing one or two of those dependencies. (example: the new AAI set of mods which requires some mods with completely different names)
would it be possible to always automatically download required dependencies, maybe with a second option to also download optional dependencies ?

crazy idea about some kind of XOR-modpacks

finally a crazy idea about modpacks, related to what i wrote somewhere above (using modpacks to group mods by keywords, eg all belt related, all mining related, etc): would it be possible to somehow setup some kind of XOR-modpack or include in a modpack to disable specific mods? the reason is that some mods don't work well or at all together or that don't make sense when selecting more than one of them ... maybe some kind of selectboxes for such a pack instead of checkboxes ...

and again: I already enjoy this program a lot and will enjoy it even more once i am done setting everything up completely.

THANKS and good luck

[Artentus]

Thanks for your detailed feedback.
Let's go through it all.

how do i upgrade from one version of ModMyFactory to another?

It should always suffice to just extract the new archive into the same folder and overwrite all files. To be extra safe you can first delete all of the old files and then extract.
Generally a new version should always be to 100% compatible to everything you have done prior (given that I don't f something up of course ).

but i could find no <gear> icon in the toolbar

This was an error in the wiki, most likely because of CnP. I already fixed this.

what about saves and scenarios ?

Those will all be placed in AppData. I could add an option to change these but I decided not to as ModMyFactory doesn't actually manage anything in there.
I guess if you wanted to you could move them the same way you would with any other Factorio installation, by linking them to somewhere else.
You could also use the --appdata-path command line parameter to force ModMyFactory to use a different location (this will also move the configuration files).

where to look for directories

You can access all relevant directories through the 'Edit' menu.

where are the currently active mods when i am running an instance of factorio from this program ?

ModMyFactory sorts all mods by their Factorio version. To find the mods open the mod folder like described above and then switch to the subfolder with the correct version.
However, in there will be all mods, not just the active ones. ModMyFactory directly edits the mod-list.json file to activate/deactivate mods to stay 100% compatible with the ingame mod GUI. I don't know how Foreman handles this.

all factorio distributions before 0.11 are distributed with a directoryname that has the buildnumber appended to the version, and ModMyFactory expects only three parts in the version number (Factorio_0.xx.xx, and not Factorio_0.xx.xx.bbbb)

That is most likely the cause of this crash. Will fix this for the next release.

I know that i can't install the same version twice, but if i accidentally do, the program should detect that and not crash.

I guess it should.

it would be nice if i could download the newest version of a mod without having to select first a specific version in the list, eg by having a button "download newest". and since i mostly want to install the same mods for 0.13 and 0.14, it would be nice if i could simply push one button like "download all newest" to download the newest version of a mod for every installed factorio version.

Sounds like a somewhat useful feature and shouldn't be too hard.

when a new main version of factorio is released (0.15), how can i most easily install a set of all the mods for it that i already have installed

Hm, there is no such feature yet, you'd have to go through the list and download all mods one by one.
Might be something I could add if I find the time. Don't expect it to be in the next release.

it also would be nice if i could somehow install a "placeholder"

That will most likely not happen. Maybe if everything alse is done, but I won't put this on my list for now.

in case i want to use different versions of a mod for the same or different versions of factorio, how can i select and download those two versions of one mod which both belong to the same main version of factorio ?

ModMyFactory is not designed to wok in that way, only one version of the same mod can be installed per version of Factorio.
There is no easy way to allow for this case and if I were to code it in it would break like everything from prior versions.
I decided on doing this because it is very unlikely that someone would need more than one version per mod and it would greatly complicated things for both me and the user.

maybe a real "clear search field" button would be nice, and having the "redownload entire list" button someplace else, or with some text instead of only a small icon?

I wouldn't have though that this could be misunderstood. Most search fields do not have a 'clear' button, inlcuding the ones in the main window. You clear it by just selecting everything and hitting backspace or just starting to type.
Also, the refresh button has a tooltip stating that it refreshes the mod list.

I'm missing an option to delete mods while browsing mods

Should be really quick to implement.

it would be nice to get a warning, or to be able to set an option to copy instead of move them

There are a view places where some more dialogs would be nice. I'll probably make a separate update for that at some point.

but with a long list of mods, it can take 5+ seconds

Do you have a slow harddrive? For me activating/deactivating modpacks is pretty much instant, but I also use an SSD.
I am not sure if it will be easily doable to disable the checkbox to prevent multiple clicking. WPF, the UI Framework I use, works very differently from most other Frameworks, there is no 'Handler' in the same sense.

it would be nice if I could add all mods which have checkmarks to a (new or existing) modpack

Sounds reasonable, will see how this is best implemented.

what does fmp stand for?

fmp is a file format I "invented" specifically for ModMyFactory, It's an abbreviation for Factorio Modpack.
fmp-files are basically just json-files that contain a list of mods and a list of modpacks.

it seems to expect the file as plain fmp file

The modpacks in the first post are only uploaded as ZIP archives because the forum doesn't allow me to upload .fmp files.
I thought it would be clear that they have to be extracted first but I guess not. I'ts remarked now.

what caused the message "The following conflicts occured while importing this modpack file: bobinserters (0.13.3) <-> bobinserters (latest)"?

That is not actually an error, just an information for you.
If you want to learn more about what causes confilgcs on import you can read the Wiki page on sharing modpacks.

i first had to scroll horizontally or enlarge the width of the entire window to see it, although more than half the width of the list (between the modname and the X and arrow icons on the right side) was empty.

This is a bit of a layouting problem I can not really work out. It basically takes the hidden contents of the expanders also into account even though it is not expanded.
All I can say is enlarge the window.

I don't use modpacks only to assign mods to a game, but also to sort mods, eg one modpack for all mining mods, one for belts, one for power, one for all kinds of greenhouses and wood-oil, etc

You can use the app however you want but I personally woud advise against doing that. You are making it harder for you to use ModMyFactory than it has to be, especially because you can not use links this way.

is there an option to install a modpack to a specific version of factorio

Not quite but there is a way to achieve that.
There are two sorts of modpacks, those that store the versions of their mods and those that don't. The packs I uploaded in the first post are of the second sort so they will always download the newest version of the mods.
To get a modpack that downloads mods for a specific Factorio version it would need to be set up for that on export. I won't go through that process myself but you are welcome to do so yourself and upload them if you want to.

would it make sense to use that version as a filter to display only those mods that are usable for that version

I don't think this would make sense.
The mods are already grouped by Factorio version. If anything I could play around with making these groups collapsable.

would it be possible to always automatically download required dependencies, maybe with a second option to also download optional dependencies ?

It certainly would be possible, I have dependency handling already on my suggestions list.
But if I do implement this it will probably take another while because that would be a big update.

finally a crazy idea about modpacks, related to what i wrote somewhere above (using modpacks to group mods by keywords, eg all belt related, all mining related, etc): would it be possible to somehow setup some kind of XOR-modpack or include in a modpack to disable specific mods? the reason is that some mods don't work well or at all together or that don't make sense when selecting more than one of them

Just build your modpacks in a ways that this doesn't happen.
I'm quite happy with how modpacks work right now and don't think I need to add anything too it. I don't want to overcomplicate things for me and the users.

[Anson]

.....

Will fix this for the next release. ...
I guess it should. ...
Sounds like a somewhat useful feature and shouldn't be too hard. ...
Should be really quick to implement. ...
will see how ...
Sounds reasonable, this is best implemented.

Thanks ...
Thanks ...
Thanks ...
Thanks ...
Thanks ...
Thanks ...

long answer with more details to a long answer to a long post

how do i upgrade from one version of ModMyFactory to another?

To be extra safe you can first delete all of the old files and then extract.

then I'll change my settigs to NOT put factorio and mod subdirectories there, so that i can simply delete the entire directory instead of having to check which files and subdirectories to delete or NOT to delete ...

no <gear> icon in the toolbar

This was an error in the wiki. I already fixed this.

yes, although there would be enough space for that icon, and it would be nice to have similar options for all those things (one icon in toolbar, one menu selection, and one hotkey).

what about saves and scenarios ?

Those will all be placed in AppData. I could add an option to change these but I decided not to as ModMyFactory doesn't actually manage anything in there.

you don't change anything IN those directories, but you already change the locations of those directories, and even merge eg separate save directories into one single directory in appdata ...

when i had no utility like yours, i created modpacks by unzipping factorio to a new directory on some other partition (not as subdirectory of the windows "programs" and thus all the windows appdata protection doesn't kick in; but as D:/mygames/factorio/f14moddedbob or similar). that automatically resulted in having directories for mods and saves as subdirectories of that factorio directory. now (with your program), i can select where the mod and factorio directories go, with a hardlink being created from all the 0.xx.yy factorio directories to a few 0.xx mod directories. thus managing mods and modpacks is much easier now.

saves and scenarios no longer are separate subdirectories (where each of those "modpacks" (the factorio directories) has its own save directory). instead, there is only a single save directory in appdata, for all saves from all factorio versions, with hardlinks to it in the factorio directories. thus managing save files (which saves belong to which modpack, or even to which factorio version) is harder now. I'll probably try renaming all existing save files to include that info, so that i can at least optically associate saves to factorio versions and modpacks.

... Foreman (not the mod, but the external utility) ...

ModMyFactory sorts all mods by their Factorio version. ... then switch to the subfolder with the correct version. ...
However, in there will be all mods, not just the active ones. ModMyFactory directly edits the mod-list.json file to activate/deactivate mods to stay 100% compatible with the ingame mod GUI. I don't know how Foreman handles this.

nice ... then it should be possible to simply start factorio (from ModMyFactory), then start Foreman and point foreman to that directory. done.
since Foreman has some quirks with some mods and crashes on them, i can select the desired modpack first (in ModMyFactory), deselect a modpack with all the problematic mods, start foreman and set the proper directory for mods, and when foreman has loaded the mods, i can reenable the problematic mods and start factorio. done.

only remaining question about those directories : when i have two versions of factorio like 0.14.19 and 0.14.21, do they always need to have the same versions of mods (in the mod directory 0.14), or how does ModMyFactory handle cases where a mod is incompatible after an update and thus there is one version "pre 0.14.20" and one version "post 0.14.20". i don't think that factorio may have two versions of the same mod (for the same main factorio version) in one directory, and only one 0.13 and one 0.14 version would be ok. ... see also below for a similar question

you should also have a warning in the wiki, that hardlinks are used, and that there might be consequences when handling files yourself instead of with program functions. eg a backup copy of the factorio folder might include 5 identical copies of all the 0.14 mods when 5 versions 0.14.xx are installed, and 9 identical copies of save files if someone has all factorio versions from 0.6.xx to 0.14.xx installed. Deleting files manually from one of these directories would result in completely deleting the file from all hardlinked directories, while deleting a save from one such backup might leave it intact in all other directories of the backups. Reason: hardlinks are very useful if done properly, but afaik the first windows was created without them and later they were added for internal operating system usage (eg to give me localized directories, get directories to the top of the desktop-tree, etc), but without real and easy support for users.

when a new main version of factorio is released (0.15), ...

Might be something I could add if I find the time. Don't expect it to be in the next release.

lots of time until 0.15 is released :-) (probably in 2+ months)

in case i want to use different versions of a mod for the same or different versions of factorio, how can i select and download those two versions of one mod which both belong to the same main version of factorio ?

ModMyFactory is not designed to wok in that way, only one version of the same mod can be installed per version of Factorio. I decided on doing this because it is very unlikely that someone would need more than one version per mod ...

I understand the problem, and usually most people use only one (the newest stable or the newest experimental) version at the same time. but with lots of multiplayer games, it easily can happen that one server is updated to some newer mod already while another keeps running the old version of the mod for quite some time. then we have to decide to play only on one or the other server. (or install another copy of factorio manually, using its own set of directories)
Maybe you could mention this restriction in the wiki ...

maybe a real "clear search field" button would be nice, ...

Most search fields do not have a 'clear' button, ...
You clear it by just selecting everything and hitting backspace or just starting to type.
Also, the refresh button has a tooltip stating that it refreshes the mod list.

I click faster than the delay for tooltips :-)
most other programs that *i* use have either a button to clear fields (eg a red X), or select the entire field automatically when activating the window/form/field (so that i don't have to select it first before typing), or both. but many people also do it differently. no standard for this functionality :-(

but with a long list of mods, it can take 5+ seconds

Do you have a slow harddrive? For me activating/deactivating modpacks is pretty much instant, but I also use an SSD.

strange ... i just tested it again and got completely different results for two cases :
when i click the checkmark on the top of the right side "Modpacks", it is pretty much instant too (only a fraction of a second).
but when i click the checkmark on the top of the left side "Mods", it just took 7+ seconds (confirmed on several tries for toggling on and off). double the time of clicking modpacks would be ok since i have modpacks only for 0.14 and on the left side are almost as many 0.13 mods as 0.14 mods, but <0.5 vs >7 seconds is a big difference.
btw: i also have SSD, for the boot drive as well as for the games drive, and several more normal drives, network, etc. the number of mods is rather huge since i often downloaded several similar mods to experiment and select which of them is useful and/or best: 380 for 0.14 and 230 for 0.13 :-)
since most people have fewer mods and i now know, no need to change something, although still strange :-)

I thought it would be clear that they have to be extracted first but I guess not. I'ts remarked now.

I already thought so, but since i had downloaded them zipped, i wanted to see whether i can be lazy and use them directly :-)

If you want to learn more about what causes confilgcs on import you can read the Wiki page on sharing modpacks.

typical case of RTFM :-)
i had read it once in the beginning, but pretty much ignored the last paragraph of the second to last page :-(

I don't use modpacks only to assign mods to a game, but also to sort mods, ...

You are making it harder for you to use ModMyFactory than it has to be, especially because you can not use links this way.

it works quite well, and even better when you have added the function i mentioned above:
to create a new modpack, i select each of the groups in turn, selecting one of the bio mods, one or two of the power mods, a few gui mods, etc. then i create a new modpack with all those selected mods (currently by selecting all mods with checkmarks one by one and creating a new modpack from them, in the future by just creating the new modpack from all checked instead of selected mods). for this new modpack, it's easy to setup a link, or start it from inside ModMyFactory (inclucing the method above to select that modpack, exclude another modpack named "conflicts with foreman", start foreman, select the modpack again, and start factorio).

The mods are already grouped by Factorio version. If anything I could play around with making these groups collapsable.

not important, but nice, especially if someone has a crazy amount of mods for each of several versions :-)

I have dependency handling already on my suggestions list.
But if I do implement this it will probably take another while because that would be a big update.

less useful now when people already have 0.14 setup, but maybe in a few months when 0.15 is new and new/different mods start appearing for everybody every day ...

finally a crazy idea about modpacks, ...

Just build your modpacks in a ways that this doesn't happen. ... I don't want to overcomplicate things ...

it would only be useful when creating modpacks from groups of mods which i already set up with "select only one biotech/robotMK2/powerMK2/longendgame mod and disable all others in the group". might make sense when changing the composition of modpacks often (new game on a server 1 or 2 times per week), but not for normal games.
but as i already said ... a crazy idea :-) ... just forget it

[Artentus]

instead of having to check which files and subdirectories to delete or NOT to delete

Well, there are no subdirectories and there probably never will be, but feel free to do what you want.

although there would be enough space for that icon

It's not that there is not enough space, it's that I want to only put the most commonly used options inside the toolbar to avoid overcrowding it.

you don't change anything IN those directories, but you already change the locations of those directories

I guess you are right. But I will have to redesign the settings window which is a bit of a tedious work, so this might not be done in the next release.

when i have two versions of factorio like 0.14.19 and 0.14.21, do they always need to have the same versions of mods

Yes, thats because ModMyFactory only sorts mods by the first two parts of their Factorio version (so 0.14.19 and 0.14.21 share the same mod directory).
Thats again a compromise between complexity and variety.

Maybe you could mention this restriction in the wiki

I believe it is, in 'The Settings#Manager Mode'.

but when i click the checkmark on the top of the left side "Mods", it just took 7+ seconds

Ah, so, there is indeed a problem with that specific checkbox.
When activating/deactivating modpacks there are measures in place that cause ModMyFactory to only write the mod-list.json file once, but when activating/deactivating all mods at once it will be written once per mod (so in your case a lot of times). This must be an oversight by me when I implemented these two checkboxes at the top (they are a relatively new addition).

[Anson]

instead of having to check which files and subdirectories to delete or NOT to delete

Well, there are no subdirectories and there probably never will be

currently, there can be two subdirectories:
the directories for factorio and for mods, when you set the option to "application directory"
in the future, maybe also for saves and scenarios, if you add options for those two too (to separate at least main versions from one another, like an old scenario from 0.11 from a new scenario from 0.14, or all the save files which mostly are broken by mods not being upgraded, newly added mods, big changes in the game itself, etc when transitioning from one main version to the next)

btw: should/would it be possible to just delete the hardlinks for savefile directories in the factorio/0.xx directories manually and thus get all save files for 0.xx.yy games in separate unlinked local directories factorio/0.xx/saves (instead of all of them in a single big directory appdata/roaming/.../saves) ?

Yes, thats because ModMyFactory only sorts mods by the first two parts of their Factorio version (so 0.14.19 and 0.14.21 share the same mod directory). Thats again a compromise between complexity and variety.

it makes sense. (and probably would be easy to do and make the same sense when done for saves and scenarios :-)
but it was a bit confusing to me at first until i saw and understood what you did with hardlinks.
maybe, someday you can add a page to the wiki about the general internal setup (directory structure, hardlinks, etc)


In the meantime, i did some more tests and checks for Foreman, and it seems that it's not so easy as i wrote in the last post. Foreman seems to read all mods, and thus it still bugs out on some mods even when they are disabled. there is probably no way around the old method of either not using those mods(*) at all, or manually copying all working mods to a new separate directory which defies the purpose of this utility. of course, the best solution would be if Foreman wouldn't bug out on problematic mods and only skip them, but that depends on the author of Foreman and you and we can't do anything about it (except if you would add a button to copy all enabled mods to an external directory, which makes almost no sense for this utility).

(*) "those mods" : currently, out of more than a third of the mods on the mod portal that i checked (380/950), Foreman has problems with eight mods: two different bugs (probably caused by strange syntax in the mods) and six with the message "System.NullReferenceException: Der Objektverweis wurde nicht auf eine Objektinstanz festgelegt." (without giving filename or other details). besides angelsrefining, the problematic mods are not important and/or there are alternatives for them.

while doing those tests, this utility was a big help to very quickly enable and disable lots of mods. very helpful.


in the end, only one small problem remained: to temporarily completely get rid of some mods, i moved them around to another external directory and copied them back. after finishing my tests, i would have liked an option to verify the consistency of all mods and modpacks in ModMyFactory. the feature that the left checkmark writes every mod status to the mod-list.json proved useful in this case: this file was completely regenerated after i deleted it in the mods/0.14 folder (in contrast to the right checkmark that did only partial work on updating values that were externally changed).
a quick look seems to indicate that ModMyFactory indeed uses an internally saved status which mods were installed and neither gets rid of manually (outside of ModMyFactory) deleted mods, nor recognizes manually (outside of ModMyFactory) added mods. to fix all these externally modified mods, I'll try to delete them in ModMyFactory and/or export everything as modpack that i later reimport.

although the user messed up, it would be nice if this program could check and compare the mods in its internal list and in the mods/0.xx directories, and somehow fix mismatches (either redownload them, or delete them from the internal list, or at least output a list of these mods to be handled by the user later).


finally a (small) real bug:
while i tried to delete and/or redownload mods, i found that the "browse online mods" window is not always updated automatically. to reproduce: open the "browse online mods" window, select a mod and download it, close the window, and delete the mod in the main window. then go back to the "browse online mods" window and the mod will still be marked with a green checkmark. only after selecting any other mod and selecting the same mod again, the status of the mod is updated in this window.

[Artentus]

currently, there can be two subdirectories:

But they are not part of the ZIP archive and have therefore nothing to do with updating the app.

should/would it be possible to just delete the hardlinks for savefile directories in the factorio/0.xx directories manually

Do not do that, I am not responsible if ModMyFactory overwrites those folders again and deletes all your savegames.

but that depends on the author of Foreman and you

He is welcome to use my code for parsing the mod-list.json file to only load mods that are enabled, but that is completely on him.

Foreman has problems with eight mods

I suggest you tell that the author of Foreman, not me.

i would have liked an option to verify the consistency of all mods and modpacks in ModMyFactory

Not possible without major changes.

the feature that the left checkmark writes every mod status to the mod-list.json proved useful in this case

It's impossible that this could be useful in any case. ModMyFactory always writes the complete file so no matter how often is is written it will have the same contents in the end.

a quick look seems to indicate that ModMyFactory indeed uses an internally saved status which mods were installed and neither gets rid of manually (outside of ModMyFactory) deleted mods, nor recognizes manually (outside of ModMyFactory) added mods.

No, neither of this is saved, ModMyFactory just does not listen to changes in the directories and therefore keeps the data loaded in RAM. Because of this I don't reccomend editing anything inside these directories while the app is running.

[Anson]

you probably already wrote your answer when i edited my post to add a bug report at the end ...

>> currently, there can be two subdirectories:
> But they are not part of the ZIP archive and have therefore nothing to do with updating the app.

unless i delete the old version first and then unzip the new version (as i wrote at the beginning)
the config for ModMyFactory, the saves and for many people also the factorio and mods directories are at other places and thus deleting the entire contents of the old version first (or even the directory itself) to never have old components would work. This method may NOT be used when the option for factorio installs and/or mods is set to "application directory".

>> but that depends on the author of Foreman
> He is welcome to use my code for parsing the mod-list.json file to only load mods that are enabled
>> Foreman has problems with eight mods
> I suggest you tell that the author of Foreman, not me. ;)

that utility is very useful, but has quite some problems which are known for a long time and which probably would require a complete rewrite. and at the same time nobody seems to really do some important updates and changes for it. that is also the reason why i thought how to handle problems there by using this program in a special way.

>> a quick look seems to indicate ... uses an internally saved status ...
> No, ... keeps the data loaded in RAM ...
> Because of this I don't reccomend editing anything inside these directories while the app is running.

you are right ... i was running ModMyFactory for two full days without restarting it, LOL :-)

when i restarted it, it read all existing mods perfectly fine, didn't include deleted mods in its list, also removed all removed mods from the display of modpacks, but still kept that info (even after restarting ModMyFactory a few times) so that after reinstalling the deleted mods, they were automatically shown in the proper old modpacks.

[Artentus]

This method may NOT be used when the option for factorio installs and/or mods is set to "application directory".

Or - you know - just delete everything except these folders. Or don't delete anything and just paste the new files in there. It's not that hard...

i edited my post to add a bug report

Already fixed.
I'm currently waiting on the translators, then I will release version 1.4.3.

but still kept that info (even after restarting ModMyFactory a few times) so that after reinstalling the deleted mods, they were automatically shown in the proper old modpacks.

Be careful, this is just a side effect of when the modpack file is written to. If you edit anything inside those modpacks the file will be overwritten and this information is lost.

[Anson]

i just wanted to copy old save files to the new ModMyFactory directory structure. maybe because i didn't care, or was too lazy to look up where the "original new saves" are, or to test what happens :-) i tried copying the old save files to the hardlink of the factorio install that i now use in ModMyFactory. result: the windows explorer crashed and terminated with no error message, sending me back to the desktop.

i was not surprised by something strange happening, and it may not directly be a bug in your program and rather be an unavoidable consequence of using hardlinks, but maybe it is even a bug in windows to act in such a harsh way. it would be nice to make it a bit more foolproof, at least adding an additional warning to the documentation, and maybe also on a popup on hovering that hardlink, and/or maybe prohibiting access to the hardlinks. i think that is also what windows itself does, eg C:\Users\Username\Anwendungsdaten seems to be a hardlink to C:\Users\Username\AppData, and when i try opening that hardlink, i get a dialog box "acces denied" (same for C:\Users\Username\SendTo, C:\Users\Username\Recent, C:\Users\Username\Cookies, and many others).

Anyway, I liked it a lot when i just was able to setup a new modpack for using a demo-save from some mod with just a few clicks in your program, and switch back and forth between my map and the demosave very easily. thanks again for the program.

[Artentus]

These links (they're Softlinks btw., there are no Hardlinks for folders) behave just like any other normal folder, thats why they work in the first place.
So I have no idea what might have happened there.

[Artentus]

• Added the option to delete mods from the online view.
• Allowed links to work while ModMyFactory is running.
• Added check if version is already installed when adding Factorio from ZIP and folder.
• Improved mod loading logic (invalid archives and folders are now ignored instead of crashing ModMyFactory).
• Improved performance when activating/deactivating all mods at once.
• Moving locations in the settings will now only move Factorio/mods and leave other contents untouched.
• Fixed crash when trying to log in with incorrect credentials.
• Fixed crash when trying to add older versions of Factorio (0.10 and older) from ZIP.
• Fixed that the releases list of mods on the mod portal was not updated properly in some cases.

[Anson]

nice update, and nice improvements ...
and modmyfactory just got even more useful when the portal got its 1000th mod :-)

but:

Fixed crash when trying to add older versions of Factorio (0.10 and older) from ZIP.
Added check if version is already installed when adding Factorio from ZIP and folder.

i just tried to install versions 0.10 and older (from ZIP) and on none of them did modmyfactory crash,
BUT on each of them, i got the error "This version of Factorio is already installed" :-(

maybe there are old remains from my previous crashing attempts to install old versions, but
i couldn't find any install or "installed version list", neither in the modmyfactory directory nor in appdata ...

Improved mod loading logic (invalid archives and folders are now ignored instead of crashing ModMyFactory).

i just tried installing mods by downloading from the portal, and on one of them (Tomb Stones, to be exact on all two versions of it) i got the download bar, and then modmyfactory crashed because "The server sent an invalid mod file" with the error-dialog "A crash log has been created in %AppData%\ModMyFactory."

and this is the crash log

Code: Select all

System.InvalidOperationException: The server sent an invalid mod file.
   at ModMyFactory.Web.ModWebsite.<DownloadReleaseAsync>d__7.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.OnlineModsViewModel.<DownloadSelectedModRelease>d__60.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.OnlineModsViewModel.<DownloadSelectedModRelease>d__60.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
   at ModMyFactory.ViewModels.OnlineModsViewModel.<<-ctor>b__58_0>d.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
   at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.AsyncMethodBuilderCore.<>c.<ThrowAsync>b__6_0(Object state)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)

lookig at the mods directory afterwards, i see both versions of that mod, but on restarting, none of them is shown in modmyfactory, just like announced for bad archives.

[Artentus]

i couldn't find any install or "installed version list", neither in the modmyfactory directory nor in appdata ...

Open your Factorio directory by selecting "Edit -> Open Factorio folder" and take a look if there are some subfolders for theses versions. If there are delete them.

and on one of them (Tomb Stones, to be exact on all two versions of it) i got the download bar, and then modmyfactory crashed because "The server sent an invalid mod file"

This mod contains an invalid info.json file (the "factorio_version" entry is contained twice).
While I could just do what Factorio seems to be doing and ignore this, it is technically an error and should be fixed by the mod author.

[Anson]

i couldn't find any install or "installed version list", neither in the modmyfactory directory nor in appdata ...

Open your Factorio directory by selecting "Edit -> Open Factorio folder" and take a look if there are some subfolders for theses versions. If there are delete them.

i had checked everywhere before posting (for me, mods and factorio are subfolders of modmyfactory), and just checked again: there are only folders for 0.11.22 to 0.14.21, but none for older versions. there are also no hidden folders since i always let explorer show all files including hidden and system. the pulldown for factorio versions in your program also shows only exactly the same versions.

i also would have tried to install yet another old version, but there is only the latest subversion of each version on their website and i already had tried them all with the crashing version of your program, and they all have the same problem now.

the problem is not serious and thus lowest priority since i probably rarely will run such an old version, but i still would like to use only one program to start everything instead of having your prog for 0.11+, links on desktop for 0.10-, etc. I also don't like it when my computer does too many things that i don't understand :-)
and a bug would be a bug after all :-)

This mod contains an invalid info.json file (the "factorio_version" entry is contained twice).
While I could just do what Factorio seems to be doing and ignore this, it is technically an error and should be fixed by the mod author.

i completely agree with that.
on the other hand, your program shouldn't crash on bad json files either ...
similar happened to me with Foreman (the program, not the mod). it crashed on a bad json too, probably because the author was set as an array of two users. also that author should fix the error, and also foreman shouldn't crash on such an error.

and since i ended up with both downloads in the mod directory (two mods for 0.14), factorio might even crash when they sometime decide to no longer ignore those bad files (before using your program i had that problem, and thus was glad to automate the work: accidentally manually downloaded an update without deleting the old version and factorio crashed, forcing me to search for the duplicate mod and delete it)

[Artentus]

So there is still a lot of stuff to be done for 1.5 but at the moment I don't really have the time to work on it.
However, the current dev version already contains a lot of stuff that I want to get out so here is a prerelease version for now.

Cangelog:

• Locations of savegames and scenarios can now be changed in the settings.
• Added context menus to the mod and modpack listview.
• Added option to show/hide experimental versions when downloading Factorio.
• Made info.json parsing less strict (Tomb Stones mod will now work).
• Added option to disable the automatic update check in the settings.
• Added option to copy instead of move when adding Factorio from folder.
• Fixed bug that would prevent adding Factorio from ZIP (would always show an error message).
• Added per monitor DPI scaling support (requires .Net 4.6.2 and Windows 10 Anniversary).

[Anson]

here is a prerelease version for now.

with some small unintended "features" :-)

[*]Added context menus to the mod and modpack listview.
nice that i now can select all marked mods (to add them to a modpack afterwards). maybe in the release version, you can also add the options to activate all non-marked mods, and/or to invert the selection (for all mods that belong to the same factorio version).
there is also a small problem with clicking: rightclicking on anything in the frame triggers the popup, but when clicking on an unselected mod, it first selects the clicked mod and deselects all other mods. thus "select all marked mods" will select the clicked mod and all marked mods. and clicking on the scrollbar also will deselect all mods first.

maybe you can expand the popup texts to say eg "add selected mod" on the left side and "delete selected packs" on the right side. reason: i rightclicked a mod in a modpack, got the popup to "delete selected" and this would not only delete the single mod that i rightclicked, but the entire modpack it was part of (on large modpacks it may be difficult to notice the frame that marks the entire modpack when clicking on a single mod).

[*]Added option to show/hide experimental versions when downloading Factorio.
nice.

[*]Fixed bug that would prevent adding Factorio from ZIP (would always show an error message).
a while ago i had the problem to install old versions again after failing to install them with an old version of this program. i first tried installing from zip (this may be what you just fixed), and also tried downloading (which might have failed because there were partially unzipped files from failing on the first attempt)
when i tested that again just before upgrading to the prerelease version, installing from download (without trying zip first) suddenly worked properly. no idea what remnants might have caused the hickups, but they are gone now.



on the last version (just before updating) as well as on this new prerelease version, i found some problems with the modlist and which mods are shown as activated:

to reproduce the first problem: have more than one version of a mod installed, either downloded two versions of a mod, or unzipped a mod without deleting the zipfile. result: several entries for this mod in the modlist on the left side.
factorio itself will show a popup warning on start, telling that several versions were found, and that factorio will give priority to newer versions over older versions, and to unzipped directories over zipfiles. thus factorio handles this gracefully and this program should only have one line for the mod in that left list.

second problem is related to this: if one of those mods is enabled when this program is started, all additional lines for the same mod will be enabled too. but when the mod is disabled (eg by clicking on it in a modpack on the right side), only the first of those several lines on the left side will be unchecked. to get rid of the checks for the additional lines, you have to search through the list ...

a third problem which i didn't test thoroughly with the old version of this program, and not at all with the new prerelease:
i once had a zipfile as well as the unzipped version of the mod. when a new update for that mod was released, i believe the old zipfile and the unzipped directory were both deleted and the new version was unzipped automatically. this also removed the modifications that i had done and would have liked to look at for comparison when modifying the new version of the mod too (eg the config section, small fixes, etc).
when doing similar again recently, the old versions were kept, which is really nice when modifying mods myself, but also caused up to three versions (old directory, new directory, new zip, maybe even more when there are more updates of the mod) to coexist (no problem; this is expected), but this also caused the above problem of getting the mod in the left list multiple times.