Hello,
I am posting on behalf of myself and LegendAeternus. We are authors of ENB management utilities and we are seeking to unify our programs into one general ENB manager. A problem that we have run into is that every ENB author has his or her own preferred format to distribute the files. LegendAeternus decided to solve this problem by letting the user define his/her own ENB files; however, this is laborious for having a large ENB library, especially for those distributions with many options. My program instead uses a standard directory format to get around this issue. This format is as follows:
1: The top directory of the ENB shall be descriptive and reflect the name of the work (such as "Phinix ENB")
2: The top directory shall contain the following subdirectories
-A: ENB Core
-B: Options
-C: Add Ons
Subdirectories B and C are optional; if no "Options" subdirectory is present, the ENB shall be renamed to the name of the top directory + " - Default" in the installation manager.
3: Other files or directories may be present in the top directory but they will not be considered part of the ENB
4: ENB Core shall contain all files common to all options presented by the ENB. If a file in "Options" conflicts with the same file in "ENB Core", the file in "Options" will take precedence.
5: In both "Options" and "Add Ons", the different subdirectories offered by the ENB must be installed directly under their respective folders; i.e. further nesting of directories is not allowed. While this may seem unwieldy, the various contents of ENB options and add ons make it difficult to determine which subdirectory represents a nested directory of options/add ons and which represents the actual option/add on to be installed. Therefore, nesting is prohibited.
6 (my ENB manager only): Scripted installation instructions may be provided in a separate file which is installed along with the ENB. This file should go into the ENB Core folder.
It would be greatly appreciated if these standards were conformed to in future ENB distributions. Here are several reasons to do so:
1. Compatibility with the ENB manager(s) would prevent user confusion about where to place ENB files.
2. Compatibility with (my) ENB manager (and possibly the future combined one) would prevent user confusion about which INI tweaks to make.
3. Compatibility with ^ allows automation of complicated installation instructions (CounterVibe, I'm looking at you).
4. Compatibility with ^ can send users to the enbdev web site to download the required ENB files, thus preventing user confusion as to why the ENB doesn't work.
5. Compatibility with the ENB manager(s) would allow users to easily try out your ENB and see if they like it.
Please give some feedback on these standards. If you would like to see them in action, the latest version of my ENB manager supports them. It also provides installation scripts (ENBM_SupportScripts) for the following ENBs so you can try them out without having to repackage them:
1. Countervibe 1.0
2. Phinix ENB for ENB119
3. Skyrim Enhanced Shaders FX 1.0
4. Sharpshooters Extreme Graphics Vision 15105
5. SuperB ENB-RL 0.90
6. True Vision 4.0
To install them, simply set up my manager, generate the settings file, copy the ENBM_SupportScripts folder provided into the respective subfolder of Program_Resources, and apply them from the main menu. (Please note that this should not be a thread to discuss problems with my manager; this would be unfair to LegendAeternus and his utility. I will be posting a RELZ thread later. This is simply so you can see how the standard works).
As you may imagine, the sheer quantity of ENBs and the frequency with which they are updated makes it impossible for any single person to keep track of them and update their installation scripts. I therefore request that future ENB releases are packaged (or have an option to be packaged) in compliance with the above standards. If this is impossible, a support script to bring the distribution in line with the standards would be appreciated.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Danja's ENB Manager utility: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21502
LegendAeternus' ENB Manager utility: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24402
Skyrim ENB Preset Authors-Proposed Standard for Distribution
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