SC4 Startup Manager - manage your plugins!

[DJGspinNhitz 7]

WOW what a gift to come home to, after being away for the holiday I come back and now I can load SC4 with out it taking 15 minutes or more....I think I am going to cry......I think it is the best present I have ever downloaded......thank you

[valhum 23]

ok ok, excuse my slowlyness, lol........ but let me see if i get this str8. Today i was thinking of starting a new region and was gonna go to the pluggins folder and move all the plugs that i didnt want to appear, so, are u telling me that with this program i don't have to do that I just dl the program and it lets me chose what plugings i want to appear in my new region ????

[Fred_Ginger 1]

        Hi guys, first let me say thank you for this great tool, now if i could only figure out how to make it work.  I've read the read me twice and still don't know how to load my existing regions.  Could some one give me step by step instructions?  I've used computers for years but don't always understand how they work, but am really good at following instruction.  Please be patient with me!

[JeanLucPicard2 2]

Date: 11/28/2005 2:32:34 PM Author: Fred_Ginger

Hi guys, first let me say thank you for this great tool, now if i could only figure out how to make it work. I've read the read me twice and still don't know how to load my existing regions.Could some one give me step by step instructions? I've used computers for years but don't always understand how they work, but am really good at following instruction.Please be patient with me!

 

 

Ok, try the following:

1. First click New Region button
2. Enter the name for the new region profile in the textfield above
3. Select the plugin folders which should be associated with the region
4. Click the New Region button below
5. On the next page, click the Load SimCity4 button and SimCity should start up
6. Now load an existing region or create a new once. This will be the region, which will be associated with the region profile you have created just now.
7. Then you can close SimCity (or play somewhat, if you like)
8. The next time you run the Startup Manager, you just have to click on the region profile in Load Region and SimCity will start with the correct plugins and the correct region

I hope that will help you.

[DJGspinNhitz 7]

Is there a way to load sub-folders fro inside folders

examlpe: my file system is labeled A-Z so the building Boston City Hall would be in B- then sub folder Boston City Hall. if I chose to load file B it will load the 20 lots in there that start with B not just Boston City Hall, can this be done or do I need to re-do my file system.

thanks it works great love it already just need to figure out how to make itwork best with the way I file

GQ

[Andreas Roth 607]

As far as I'm aware of, only one level below \Plugins is recognized as plugin set - making all subfolders clickable would probably confuse the users too much, since they would have to scroll through endless lists. But I guess it should be possible to add this functionality as well.

[JeanLucPicard2 2]

Date: 11/28/2005 4:36:31 PM Author: DJGspinNhitz

Is there a way to load sub-folders from inside folders?

 

This functionality is not implemented at the moment, but it would be possible.

But I think (as Andreas already wrote) it would make the plugins selection too complex.

[Ron Swanson 1]

HEY YES! I have created my own little system of sorting but I am constantly downloading and moving stuff and I get very confused sometimes and end up crashing my game. Thank you very much for this gift. I will use it often!

[Voar Tok 4]

YES, I love this idea.

[Fred_Ginger 1]

Date: 11/28/2005 2:57:29 PM Author: JeanLucPicard2

Ok, try the following:

1. First click 'New Region' button
2. Enter the name for the new region profile in the textfield above
3. Select the plugin folders which should be associated with the region
4. Click the 'New Region' button below
5. On the next page, click the 'Load SimCity4' button and SimCity should start up
6. Now load an existing region or create a new once. This will be the region, which will be associated with the region profile you have created just now.
7. Then you can close SimCity (or play somewhat, if you like)
8. The next time you run the Startup Manager, you just have to click on the region profile in 'Load Region' and SimCity will start with the correct plugins and the correct region

I hope that will help you.

quote>

Sorry to take so long to reply, trouble with my WiFi router.  Tank you very much, that will help immensely.  Now all I have to do is set up my printer to WiFi print (I only bought the parts two months ago!)

[morrisnatte 0]

My god you wonderful people are so wonderful! This is EXACTLY what we need! Cheers to you, and thank you!

[DJGspinNhitz 7]

Yeah I could see sub-folders being a problem for many users, I just try to over organize, maybe at some point a version allowing this could be done for those of us who do use filing systems. I the mean time I am going to re-do some of my folder to make use of this great help until then. thank you so much for this.

GQ

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Date: 11/29/2005 8:30:10 PM
Author: DJGspinNhitz

I just try to over organize

quote>
Join the club.
Fortunately, I picked a scheme that will work a bit better with the Startup Manager: I have a folder for prop & texture files, one for functional mods and one for eye-candy mods. I won't be able to differentiate much in this respect, e.g. I can't kick out the farm props to make a 'downtown' plugins folder.

Fortunately, I have all the RCI buildings, civic buildings, park and transit lots in folders directly in the plugins main folder.

I gave them numbers for the cateogory so that R will be listed first, C afterwards and I at the end, followed by civic buildings, parks & recreation, transit and finally landmarks.
(e.g.:
0=props & other dependencies,
1Res=residential,
2Com=commercial,
3Ind=industrial,
4Civ=civic,
5Rec=Parks, Recreation and eye candy,
6Trans=tranist,
7LM=landmarks)

Inside each category, I made sub-categories for the different building sizes, so that inside each category, all buildings are sorted into size groups, starting with the smallest. Each group is then sorted alphabetically.
(Example for residential:
1-IH = 1. Small Individual Houses
2-RH = 2. Rowhouses

3-AB = 3. Medium apartment blocks
4-HR = 4. High-rises)
So let's say I want to make a nice suburb, and I want to create nice row houses. In this case, I would include everything that begins with
1Res[1-IH]... (Residential - Individual Houses)and
1Res[2-RH]... (Residential - Row Houses).
However, I wouldn't need all those highrises, so I would kick out everything that starts with
1Res[4-HR]...

This enables me to include or throw out any building, and I know immediately what kind of building it is.

The same scheme can be applied to civic (sub-categories like PD (police dept.), FD (fire dept), Ed (educational) and so forth.), transit and landmarks, of course.

Thus, even if I don't remember the exact name of the building or the folder I put it into (Was that The Deucalion or simply Deucalion?), I can immediately recognize it by its category and sub-category. The name of the BATter can be added in brackets behind the building name. For example, if I search for the BSC Duke Chapel, I know immediately I must scroll to 7LM[Church]xyz. And I can place all sub-folders directly in to the root plugins folders without getting confused.

Imagine you want to throw out all commercial skyscrapers because you want to build a rural community and you want to get rid of those 200 megabytes of office towers: Instead of having to remember all their names (now was One Main Plaza that grey mid-rise, or was it the office tower?), you simply see them by category, listed continuously, one after another. For example, DuskTrooper's Juneau Bank (N for NDEX or J for Juneau or D for DuskTrooper?) would look like this:
2Com[4-SS]JuneauBank(DuskTrooper), i.e. commercial - skyscraper - named juneau Bank - made by DuskTrooper.

It's a pain in the neck to work with installers this way, because you must reorganize everything by hand. But in the end, it works great for me, and I found it to be worth the trouble.

I hope I could give you some inspiration...

[christhebull 1]

Oooh - so I can set up a profile for each region and not wait for SC4 to load up stuff won't use for that region.

[Richter Belmont 0]

I was confused when I first tried to use this awesome tool, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes a lifesaver!

The first problem I think people run into is the fact that the program asks for a new region. I try not to think of it as regions and more like seperate profiles that you name to associate with your in-game regions.

Ex: You have the Fairview region in SimCity. You make a region named fairview in the startup manager. This does NOT mean that the fairview region only works for your Fairview region ingame. It will work for any region in the game, it's just a name you assign.



The way the Startup manager uses plugins is it creates a new folder in your SimCity 4 my documents folder and your SimCity 4 program files folder as well. The folder is named: PluginsDisabled.

When you create a region in the Startup Manager, you assign any FOLDERS you want in your two plugins locations to that particular region (profile) by checking the boxes next to the folder names. Note that you may ONLY assign folders, not .dat files, and that you cannot assign subfolders within the main folders in your plugins folder. Any unmarked folders are then moved into the PluginsDisabled folders.

Therefore, you don't have to manually move and remove your thousands of .dat files in your plugins folder when you want certain mods and lots removed.

What this does mean, however, is that if you want to use the Startup Manager effectively, you have to organize your plugins folder in such a way that you have all your mods and plugins (individual mods/lots, or groups of mod/lot types) in seperate folders with no subfolders. This might seem like a hassle, but it's very much worth it if you have many .dat files and like to use different ones for different cities ingame.

I like the method of assigning each folder a specific prefix before the actual folder name. For instance, the Network Addon Mod.

If for some reason I didn't want to use your NAM mod for a certain region or city, I have my folder for the NAM named MODS_NAM, so I can easily find it in the startup manager. Or, for PEG's random woods lots, I would name his folders, for instance, PEG_Random Woods. This works great for vehicle mods too.

I dunno if I've been helpful or just confusing, but the Startup Manager works great for me!!!

[NicolaiS 8]

I have posted before that the start-up manager ( SUM ) is a great tool ... and it is. But as mentioned by someone before me I would also like to have the option with sub-folders included. With the thousands of downloads available a decent pluging folder could be enormous.

This enormity demands a good organization of your plugins and there are multiple options to organize them ... one of them being: sub-folders. I my case, just as an example, I use the name of the creator as the main folder, like PEG, Simgoober or NDEX. Withing those folders I have folders for the different creations.

This system works for me and the only problem was renaming and/or moving folders whenever I want to play a different region or want to use any of the other programs for SC4.
Unfortunately the SUM will not help me out because I am using sub-folders ... and I sometimes do want to use only a couple of all available items from one main folder.

In my ... personal ... case, an option to use sub-folders in the SUM would greatly help me as I really don't want to re-organize my plugins ... there are just to many, for which alone I am very grateful to all the artists who have made them.

BUT the SUM IS a great tool, let there be no doubt about that. I have used it and it works brilliantly ... only not when you want to use sub-folders. Therefor I want to emphasize that I am very happy about this tool being created and made public, but if it is possible I would like a sub-folder option.

[Andreas Roth 607]

The more I think about it, the more I can see that a selection of individual sub(-sub-sub)-folders could be quite useful. Since many users organize their plugins by author name (and that's the way the installers are working as well), it's almost essentially when you want full control over your plugins. It might be necessary to adapt the GUI of the program a bit, but I guess it's worth the effort.

[Athens2004 1]

Hello,

A good idea, I would give this a try...

[YoppaDo 1]

I've been waiting sooooooo long for something like this to come out, it's exactly what I need, thanks!

[JeanLucPicard2 2]

Thanks again for all the nice comments.

concerning the sub-folders selection:

As I can see, there really seems to be a need. Although I (personally!) do not need this feature, I will possibly try to implement this in the next version.

[DJGspinNhitz 7]

the ability to manage our sub folders would be awesome and eagerly awaited by many of us who have maybe over organized our plugins before this wonderful tool was released. I now use it evryday though I have only slightly re organized my files to use it. Mainly I seperated out my mods and sim mars files.

thank you

GQ

[tungston 19]

I have not tried the program yet, so if I understand correctly it only shows 2 levels of the tree?  If so do the files in the lower level folders show up in the game even if you can't select them?

[Andreas Roth 607]

@tungston: You can select/deselect all folders that are in \Plugins - when you deselect on of your folders, everything that is in this folder - including subfolders - will be moved out of your \Plugins folder when you start the game with your region profile. So, let's say you have a BSC folder (with several subfolders) in \Plugins, and when you remove the check mark, no BSC lot will be loaded with the game. Of course, if you load another profile, where the BSC folder is checked, the files will be moved into the plugins folder again, including all subfolders.

[tungston 19]

Date: 12/3/2005 3:41:06 PM Author: Andreas Roth @tungston: You can select/deselect all folders that are in Plugins - when you deselect on of your folders, everything that is in this folder - including subfolders - will be moved out of your Plugins folder when you start the game with your region profile. So, let's say you have a BSC folder (with several subfolders) in Plugins, and when you remove the check mark, no BSC lot will be loaded with the game. Of course, if you load another profile, where the BSC folder is checked, the files will be moved into the plugins folder again, including all subfolders.

Thanks, that's what I needed to know.  The main reason I want to use this, is because I want to use the no radiation mod in one region only.

 

EDIT: Does that mean I will need to deselect it in every other region?

[Andreas Roth 607]

Yes, just deselect the folder with the mod in every other region profile. Depending on the amount of regions you have, it might take some time to create/edit all profiles, but of course you only need to do it once.

[Micah 16]

When I try to install the program... it tells me to create a directory (like any other program), but then when I click yes, it says that it is an Invalid Directory... I have no clue what the problem is this time...

[Andreas Roth 607]

That's strange... I used the same installer as with any other SFBT download, and nobody has reported something similar yet. Try downloading the file again, maybe with another browser. Do you have administrative priviledges on your system? If not, try to log in as administrator and run the installer again.

[Micah 16]

Date: 12/4/2005 9:01:25 PM Author: Andreas Roth That's strange... I used the same installer as with any other SFBT download, and nobody has reported something similar yet. Try downloading the file again, maybe with another browser. Do you have administrative priviledges on your system? If not, try to log in as administrator and run the installer again.

quote>

Hmmm... I'll do that now. I had to do the same thing for the program called Region Census.

[Micah 16]

Yeah, that was the problem. Thanks Andreas... (I guess that was the reason nobody else reported the problem )

 

Edited: Opps... I already posted.

[jeronij 13]

Date: 12/3/2005 1:41:39 PM Author: JeanLucPicard2

Thanks again for all the nice comments.

concerning the sub-folders selection:

As I can see, there really seems to be a need. Although I (personally!) do not need this feature, I will possibly try to implement this in the next version.

quote>

Once I tried the tool, I have to add my vote to include this option. I dont know if I could organize my +1GB plugins folder without subfolders and subfolders and subfolders..... . Seriously now, I think it would really improve the tool and make it usable for many more players (like me ). And if you could add the option to select individual files (lot, dat, desc, model) then the tool would become extremely extremely useful indeed.  You can add it as a advanced feature to avoid confusion for the newest players.

Just my 2 cents.