Mod Reports

[Larz]

I have just released the latest version of the dom3editor (a full-featured mod editing tool see http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=47490) and was considering another feature to add to the application. I wanted to get some feedback on the usefulness of it.

I had the idea that since I already have a parser that can parse mod files, I could generate reports on those mod files. I had the idea to generate pdf reports on what has changed in a mod. You could get a report on whats changed in the mod from vanilla, or get a report on the changes between different versions of the mod. I wrote up a quick version that would generate the report compared to vanilla and have attached a sample. This is a (very rough) report on CBM1.84 just showing the modified armor. This is just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

So, anybody think they would have any use for generating these kinds of reports? What other kinds of things would you like to see?

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that would be greatly appreciated. By the time a modder finishes a large mod they tend to not want to document. And the commands are so automatic by then that they tend to say "just read the mod" as if that would be clear enough.

Something like this would be great if the modded use it to generate a file and attach it.
I havent looked at the example yet but is there a reason its PDF? Does it use fonts and images?

[PriestyMan]

if you could generate an organized report like that for the entire CBM mod, it would be.... incredibly useful. i dont think even qm knows every single change in that megamod

[llamabeast]

That's pretty nice, I'm impressed.

Personally I think CBM has changed so many minor things that any kind of change summary is hopeless. However people often seem to want details of what's changed, so probably this would be appreciated.

[Larz]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I think that would be greatly appreciated. By the time a modder finishes a large mod they tend to not want to document. And the commands are so automatic by then that they tend to say "just read the mod" as if that would be clear enough.

Something like this would be great if the modded use it to generate a file and attach it.
I havent looked at the example yet but is there a reason its PDF? Does it use fonts and images?

I chose PDF because I wanted it to look almost like a manual, with nice fonts, tables of information and pictures of the modded monsters. I am going to go ahead with this feature, and make it possible to filter out some of the changes because there are a lot of small changes that people may not care about.