Yandros on 4/12/2018 at 11:42
For those of you who do not follow Fen Phoenix on YouTube, you probably missed his announcement a few days ago showing off AngelLoader, the new FM loader he has created, comparing it to both FMSel and NewDarkLoader.
[video=youtube;8YefGuv9ROg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YefGuv9ROg[/video]
Goethe's Ghost on 4/12/2018 at 12:19
I like this. I've been testing a number of these loaders and they all have their pros and cons. Does it support missions compressed with Igor Pavlov's 7-zip? Where may I download this from?
Thank you, Yandros!
[EDIT] I couldn't locate it through the links on his video site.
Random_Taffer on 4/12/2018 at 16:12
Wow, that's awesome. I think I just found my new FM loader!
I hope he implements the small picture authors could put in there like Garrettloader used to use!
Yandros on 4/12/2018 at 16:24
Quote Posted by Goethe's Ghost
Where may I download this from?
He has not released it yet.
Tannar on 4/12/2018 at 19:13
Looks fantastic, thanks Fen!
Twist on 4/12/2018 at 19:37
Looks great so far!
Fen, if you're reading, I have a small feature request. Good ol' DarkLoader provided more robust comment handling than its successors. It gave you a discrete text field that made it easy to compose, edit and read your thoughts on an FM. I'd love to see that in a NewDark-friendly mission loader.
Also, I'd love it if it could properly load either Thief 1 or Thief 2 missions from the same screen. Maybe it's a small thing, but I miss how DarkLoader was a separate app I could tab out to, or that operated as your one place to go to survey all missions before entering either Thief 1 or Thief 2 missions.
Sorry... just dropping wishes while you're still in development. :thumb:
urgrue on 4/12/2018 at 20:04
FenLoader? ND-FenLoader? FenUltimateLoader?
Startship Fenterprise? Fentral Intelligence Agency? ...
Twist on 4/12/2018 at 20:43
After my last post, I noticed he talked about my second point in a development update released yesterday:
[video=youtube;sWaD_FUkBkM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWaD_FUkBkM[/video]
Towards the end of the video he discusses whether or not to make the loader be a separate app that handles all three Thief games at the same time. Kind of like DarkLoader, but with TDS missions also integrated.
Fen, if you're reading, DO IT. :cheeky:
I'm curious what other people think. I'd much prefer have all my FMs available from a single loaded application, rather than have separate, discrete installations of the loader for each game and its FMs. Just click on the loader, survey all my FMs for all three games, pick one and play.
I also loved how I could alt-tab out to DarkLoader to add comments as I played.
So a separate, single app for all three sets of FMs would be great. At least I think so. What do you all think?
Azaran on 4/12/2018 at 21:39
Quote Posted by Goethe's Ghost
I like this. I've been testing a number of these loaders and they all have their pros and cons. Does it support missions compressed with Igor Pavlov's 7-zip? Where may I download this from?
[EDIT] I couldn't locate it through the links on his video site.
I would hope no one is compressing their FM's with anything other than zip. It will create a ton of issues, and what's the point of doing it?
FenPhoenix on 4/12/2018 at 22:38
Quote Posted by "Goethe's Ghost"
Does it support missions compressed with Igor Pavlov's 7-zip?
Quote Posted by "Azaran"
I would hope no one is compressing their FM's with anything other than zip. It will create a ton of issues, and what's the point of doing it?
AngelLoader does support 7-zip files, yes. So does NewDarkLoader, as far as I know, and given that NewDark itself comes with 7z.dll I'm guessing FMSel does too (but haven't tested). There are no issues with them functionally, but they do tend to be slower to extract and are
vastly slower to scan (AngelLoader falls back to The Slow Method(tm) of scanning for .7z files for technical reasons), so I would recommend authors simply use regular zip format. However, again, AngelLoader
will handle 7-zip files perfectly fine if it happens to come across any.
Quote Posted by "Twist"
Fen, if you're reading, I have a small feature request. Good ol' DarkLoader provided more robust comment handling than its successors. It gave you a discrete text field that made it easy to compose, edit and read your thoughts on an FM. I'd love to see that in a NewDark-friendly mission loader.
Noted, I'll have a look.