loot / loot.github.io

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https://loot.github.io
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Remove the `sortMasters` message #115

Closed sibir-ine closed 1 year ago

sibir-ine commented 1 year ago
- &sortMasters
  type: say
  content: 'Plugin''s Masters require sorting. %1%'
  subs: [ '[xEdit - Sort Masters](https://tes5edit.github.io/docs/7-mod-cleaning-and-error-checking.html#SortingMasterFileLoadOrders)' ]

According to the xEdit docs, sorting masters doesn't actually have any affect on the game, it's more a tool for mod authors to sync the order of the masters of a plugin to the order they expect them to be in the load order. There's therefore no reason for us to recommend it to users. I think the only case we do so is if the vanilla plugins in a plugin's masters list isn't sorted as they should be. However, this doesn't actually change anything, it's more of an issue to report to the author of the mod in case building their mod with the vanilla plugins in the wrong order caused them to forward the wrong version of a record if its edited by multiple vanilla plugins. They can then fix any resulting issues & sort it on their end before releasing an update. I don't think we recommend sorting sibling masters as that actually means the user (& we via the masterlists) may need to adjust their load order to match.

As this appears to be the case, we should just remove the message & any special considerations we make for it. This would simplify things a bit as I believe a few plugins have metadata taking master sorting into account (e.g., cleaning data for a plugin pre- & post-sorting). It'll also be one less message to translate. There are currently 63 isntances, with 26 being duplicates in the VR masterlist from the SSE masterlist.

sibir-ine commented 1 year ago

Elminster posted this in the xEdit Discord server:

Masters document (and enforce) what other modules should load in front of the module.

In many cases patches might have explicitly added master for things that should load before them, which clean masters would remove because the file only patches vanilla records and the patched record doesn't create dependencies on these other modules.

In that case clean masters is actually destructive.

Same with sort masters.

The order of the master entries should normal be considered as a documentation of what order the mod author expects these other files to be loaded.

Sorting masters destroys that information.

The sort order of the master entries has no functional effect at runtime in game.

So both clean masters and sort masters destroys information and should generally only be used by the author of a mod.

So I think it's safe to say we should remove it. @pStyl3, could you please remove it from the prelude spreadsheet whenever you have the chance? I'll remove it from the masterlists & prelude in a bit.

pStyl3 commented 1 year ago

I'm fine with removing the message & I did remove it from the spreadsheet.