Move mods which are renumbered

[Iritscen]

Currently, if a mod is renumbered on the Depot, it will stay in place in players' AEInstaller/packages/, and if there are updates issued to the renumbered mod, the player won't get them if he only has the old mod installed. Also, installing the new mod will lead to a duplicate package on his HD and he'll have to delete the old one manually.

Additionally, if a core mod is renumbered, let's say making it non-core by going above 7999, it will remain a core mod for users with the AE already installed, thus defeating the point of making it an optional install.

One possible solution is a new field in Mod_Info.cfg called something like PreviousNumber which the AEI uses to rename the folder on the HD or re-download the mod under its new number. I'm not totally sure if this is problem-free, though. Comments are welcome.

[Samer]

I've been meaning to suggest something a bit similar ... A withdrawn notification ... Sometimes a pack becomes outdated, unnecessary or gets merged with other packages and is no longer supported and may even cause incompatabilities if it stays ... If possible when a package is removed .. (depot page deleted or a package is unpublished ) the user gets a notification that this package has been withdrawn and maybe ask him if he'd like to delete it (on condition he has it downloaded in the first place)
This can be extended for what iritscen is saying .. The package is withdrawn .. User gets notified to remove it ... And then it can be reintroduced with a different number or node page or whatever.
Also maybe AEI can take the depot page number as reference to identify mods instead of the package number field .. Since deleting nod pages is now restricted to the moderators there's less chance that the nod page number would change than a package number change.. Then a package number change would be considered as any other info update since the package is still recognized by its depot page number. (but I guess that will cause some problems with local packages since these have to be compared by package number to the depot ones)
1 problem i can think of with the previous number field .. The package let's say has been renumbered .. The old number becomes free .. It can't be used again by another package if it keeps overwriting it with the package that has previousnumber, so we'll have to keep track of all numbers ever used even if they are withdrawn.
But obviously best thing would be to just plan ahead with numbering so a change won't become necessary.

[Iritscen]

I agree with some of what you're saying, but I have to say, if I was a player who got a notification that one of my downloaded mods had been removed, I don't think I'd exactly be okay with it being deleted from my HD, esp. if I had it installed at the time. "Why was this removed? Will I ever see it again if it's deleted from my HD now?"

Alloc and I did talk briefly the other day about identifying mods by node number, but he didn't get to mention what the potential problems are with that.

"The package let's say has been renumbered .. The old number becomes free .. It can't be used again by another package"
A potential solution is to make a field that specifically pairs the number with the name that was used, like:

PreviousNumber: 12000, Some Mod; 12050, Some Mod

which would list two previous numbers for a mod called Some Mod that might be 12100 now. Now the AEI knows that it's only Some Mod that has to be moved/deleted if it has the number 12000 or 12050, not Another Mod which now goes by number 12000. The catch is that we might need to be precise in the listing of the old mod name, so if it had multiple names over time (like when I've tweaked certain mod names in the node title field in order to allow search to work better), we'd have to cover all of those.

I feel like we're still a ways from a perfect solution to this issue, if there is one.

[Samer]

The mod's thread can be updated with reasons of it's withdrawl and if it's going to be re-released. In addition the deletion will be a question example:
This package: ... has been withdrawn, it's recommended that you remove it, would you like to remove it now ? yes, no.
for more info about this package's removal visit the corresponding mod's thread
something like that .. With proper grammar :p

[Iritscen]

The problem with a generic message like that is that the user has to make a choice within that modal dialog before he can get back to the main window and follow the mod's forum link to find out why it's been removed. Of course, the reason might be a no-brainer, like "It was a duplicate upload", which the player can't possibly object to, but then there's issues that are more like that extra-hard Syndicate mod of Ed's that I uploaded a little while back. The only reason to remove that mod is that it's somewhat redundant of newer mods and it has older textures, but maybe some player really wants to keep that particular mod because he wants or is comfortable with those particular settings (as far as difficulty, HP, whatever). I probably should have made "Forum link" an actual field in the mod node....