Help on navigating through mods?

[BetterBear 0]

 

Hello, this is my first time posting in this forum. I need help regarding mod navigation, particularly in SimCity 4.

 

This photo is from the TheoTown forum, where mods (in this case, plug-ins) are separated by categories. This is a huge help when looking for mods. I wonder if something similar to this exists in this forum? As far as I know, the closest would be something like "Lots - Maps - Tools" etc, but they are still too general. 

 

For example, I currently want to download power plant mods. I don't know how to effectively find said mods because it seems like everything is in "Lots", which also includes residential buildings and the like. If I were to do the same in the TheoTown forum, I can just easily go to the "Supply - Energy, Water, Waste Disposal" category and it's just a matter of downloading.

 

While this is unrelated - I want to ask this exact question in the SC4 Devotion Forum as I am even having more trouble navigating through that site, but I assume I'll ask in that forum instead.

 

Thank you for your help! I am looking forward to playing SC4 for the first time, and discovering the rich legacy it had left for all of us to discover...

 

 

 

  Edited October 16, 2021 by BetterBear  
incomplete title.

[SIM-ple Jack 17,451]

43 minutes ago, BetterBear said:

For example, I currently want to download power plant mods. I don't know how to effectively find said mods because it seems like everything is in "Lots", which also includes residential buildings and the like. If I were to do the same in the TheoTown forum, I can just easily go to the "Supply - Energy, Water, Waste Disposal" category and it's just a matter of downloading.

 

While this is unrelated - I want to ask this exact question in the SC4 Devotion Forum as I am even having more trouble navigating through that site, but I assume I'll ask in that forum instead.

Unfortunately, that's the way it is here, and even harder at DEV. This is something that should have been done years ago, when the inventory wasn't so massive. Some of us have made niche threads for helping to find things- Cori's assorted rock, terrain, water mods etc., an mmp thread, non-US sites, a Christmas lots thread, waterfront category, military and western lots. At DEV, I usually find things by refreshing the home page and see what comes up, like a slot machine. It used to be laid out different there, somewhat easier to find things. There must be at least 40-50 maps mis-categorized here, but I can't do anything about it because I'm unable to report it.

[twalsh102 1,601]

The following won't resolve all the problems of finding things, it might help some.

The search function here has always been a PITA, but you can put Google to work.

For your current search, if you run a Google search using the syntax:  "power plant" site:http://community.simtropolis.com/files , Google will search through all files available on this website and return all hits with the word combination "power plant" in either the title or the description. You can search for other specific word combinations by substituting them for power plant. However, this method does not necessarily work well when searching for generic things.

Over at SC4D, once you log on to the SC4D LEX page, click on Power Search at the top of the page, and choose LEX Category. It will give you almost 60 different categories to search on.

[Max4k 727]

php is like the worst invention, so many websites got destroyed.

[Tarkus 6,934]

I'll note, when @CasperVg started redesigning the LEX a number of years ago, he made it such that you can access the Power Search without being logged in, and in fact, you can pretty much view the entire LEX without being logged in.  Downloading files, accessing the Dependency Tracker, etc. does require login, but you can see what's there without it.  We also have the Lot Table search functionality (just type into the text boxes at the top of each column to dynamically search) and the Google Search box up top, which allows you to use Google to search within the LEX, and those are also accessible without login.

And before anyone asks, I've been looking into the prospect of allowing guest downloads on the LEX.  The policy of requiring registration/login existed in large part because the webhost we were on prior to my taking over the site 2 years ago had very strict bandwidth limits and steep overage charges (and running a download site means a lot of bandwidth usage), and the accounts allowed us to meter user bandwidth consumption.  However, the account system is pretty thoroughly ingrained in all the code, and I've yet to find a suitable way to make things more permissive.  And of course, nifty functionality like Download History and the Dependency Tracker requires a registered account, in any case.

-Tarkus