In-game changelog viewer order / Changelog should default to installed version + 1

[Shadow_Man]

TL;DR

Show changelog frow newest to oldest changes in in-game changelog viewer.

What ?

In the changelog files and on the mod portal, lists of changes are shown from new to old (generally accepted standard). Make it sorted from new to old when viewing changes in the game, for more convenience and overall style.

[kirazy]

It just displays a text file. If you want it to display newest-first, make a request to the mod author to list new changes at the top of the change log rather than at the bottom.

[SoShootMe]

I think Shadow_Man is referring to the main game changelog (Main Menu -> About -> Changelog).

[Silari]

TL;DR

Show changelog frow newest to oldest changes in in-game changelog viewer.

What ?

In the changelog files and on the mod portal, lists of changes are shown from new to old (generally accepted standard). Make it sorted from new to old when viewing changes in the game, for more convenience and overall style.

Mod portal doesn't enforce any order on changelogs, it's just displaying the changelog.txt as is. See https://mods.factorio.com/mod/homeworld_redux/changelog where it's oldest first because that's how it was written.

Never seen any kind of standard for changelogs that wasn't specific for one site/project.

[GrumpyJoe]

He might be talking about mod versions in the "download" tab, but iirc they are ordered newest first.

Other than that, as it's just displaying a txt. file, we can only point authors to the changelog tutorial, where iirc an order suggestion isn't even mentioned. And I doubt you'd get people to change their changelog file one way or the other.

There even are youtubers who think it's a good idea to order their playlists of a series newest first, which I think is totally bonkers.

Try changing coder's style, get every moder to agree on one single way to do it (or even provide it) no, I don't think it's possible.

[mrvn]

TL;DR

When opening the changelog for a mod it should default to the version after the currently installed one if any.

What ?

In the mod interface in the updates tab one can click the changelog button for a log. This opens the changelog. At the top one can select what version of the mod the
display should start at. The default version should be the version after the currently installed version.

Why ?

It's an update. I've already read the changelog up to the installed version or didn't care about it. But now I'm interested in what's going to change if I go ahead with the update. So the interesting entries are everything after the installed version.

[Anachrony]

This would be nice. It's weird to have to scroll down past a bunch of changes you've already installed.

An alternative would be to just sort the changelogs in reverse chronological order, so you can read back as far as you're interested, or leave them in the order that they are in changelog.txt instead of actively rearranging them into the least useful order. The sorting could be a button in the changelog view, if there are people who like how it is now.

[ssilk]

The “right way” from ux-perspective would be, that there is a button when displaying any change log, that switches between ascending and descending sort. And this setting is also a global setting, like “show changelogs in ascending or descending order”.

[NotRexButCaesar]

+1 for either the original suggestion or ssilk’s suggestion.

[mrvn]

Actually in descending order it would be hard to spot where to stop reading. There should be a marker when the current version is reached or show only the new entries.

At the top one can select a sub-version. Would be useful if one could select "from" and "to" and have that default to only new entries. The ascending and descending option ssilk suggested would them swap from/to. So either from 1.5 to 1.17 or from 1.17 to 1.5.

[Anachrony]

The responses here are a bit confusing, since they all seem to be discussing a different issue than what the original post is asking for. I thought perhaps the post was since edited to be more clear, but it was quoted by a later post and looks the same.

When you browse your mods in game, there is an option to click on the changelog for each mod you have downloaded, within the Factorio program. This is not the same as the mod portal changelog tab. The mod portal changelog tab appears to pretty much just show you the text file as it appears in changelog.txt. However, the in game changelog viewer does not do that. It actively sorts them. It shows you the oldest change in the current major version first, even if that's the opposite of how they appear in the changelog.txt file. If a mod has lots of minor versions, you'll have to scroll past a bunch of them that you already installed a long time ago to get to the actual changes.

[ssilk]

these topics where too similar to not be merged.
Take care to the headings of the posts to follow the thread correctly.

[curiosity]

IMO, it was wrong to merge these topics. They suggest different and only loosely related things.

Anyway, I am here to support the "only new changes" suggestion. The game already does this on game update, it should be easy to add it for mods as well.

[Pi-C]

It makes sense that the in-game changelog viewer sorts the entries because there really is no order necessary in the changelog file. If you wanted to (for whatever sick reason ), you could list version 1.0.1 at the top, version 1.0.2 at the bottom, and version 1.0.3 between the others -- and the changelog would still be parsed correctly by the game. Given that there already is a sorting routine in place, it really shouldn't be too much trouble to allow for sorting in reverse order.

I'm not so sure about hiding old versions. It can be useful for debugging mod interaction to know in what version a certain behaviour, feature, entity etc. has been introduced. Finding nothing about it because the game decided that version was too old and the entry should be hidden would make life harder for modders. It would be better if we could toggle between "Show latest changes" and "Show all changes".

[curiosity]

I'm not so sure about hiding old versions. It can be useful for debugging mod interaction to know in what version a certain behaviour, feature, entity etc. has been introduced. Finding nothing about it because the game decided that version was too old and the entry should be hidden would make life harder for modders. It would be better if we could toggle between "Show latest changes" and "Show all changes".

Yes, the suggestion was about the updates tab of the mod manager specifically.

[Pi-C]

I'm not so sure about hiding old versions. It can be useful for debugging mod interaction to know in what version a certain behaviour, feature, entity etc. has been introduced. Finding nothing about it because the game decided that version was too old and the entry should be hidden would make life harder for modders. It would be better if we could toggle between "Show latest changes" and "Show all changes".

Yes, the suggestion was about the updates tab of the mod manager specifically.

Geez, I need to pay more attention to details! Too much work, too little sleep lately, that's taking its toll …

Still, even in the updates tab there could be situations where a toggle button may be useful to provide context, e.g. entries like "Reverted change of X from (3 versions earlier) because it borked Y".