Plugins + Scripts VaM Backstage - VAR Package Manager

poma submitted a new resource:

VaM Backstage - VAR Package Manager - Manage your packages and dependencies

A desktop app for managing .var packages. Scans your library, builds a dependency graph, and separates content you actually installed from content that's only there because something depends on it; it then hides the clutter from VaM's content browser automatically. Browse your library contents, search and install from the VaM Hub with full dependency resolution.

VaM treats every .var in AddonPackages/ equally. Install a scene that pulls in 40 dependency packages and suddenly your scenes...

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This looks super promising. Here's what I think is missing from most solutions like this:

1. Collections:
- The ability to create content Collections, and for content to appear in multiple collections

2. Virtual VAM
- The ability to create (with hardlinks/symlinks) a "virtual" install with just the items in the Collection
- I've done this with scripts and such, and it works beautifully - VAM is FAST and loads much quicker

3. Cleanup:
- The ability to identify and remove outdated packages (i.e. where they are no longer referenced via either .latest or .version)
- Broken or invalid packages

If you can add some or all of these features, you'll have a killer app.

Keep up the great work, and thanks for sharing!

For dynamic .var hot loading, a plugin approach would work much better as it can see what you are going to load and dynamically pull into the active library. An external app can never be that good so I didn't even try. AFAIK BrowserAssist is pretty good at this.

Update: on cleanup section - Backstage can do that! It has initial and extended integrity scan to detect broken packages (checks zip header and file checksums), can detect and install missing dependencies, can detect and clean orphaned dependencies.

Update2: on collections - isn't it basically solved by custom tags? You could assign "collection name" as tag to content and then filter by it. Backstage doesn't support them yet, but many other apps do, and I think I can implement it as well at some point.

This is initial release so I would very appreciate any thoughts and feedback about this app from everyone

Looks nice. Gotta wait till users check it for legitimacy, tho.

Source code is open on GitHub if anyone wants to check

This feature should not only recognize files under AddonPackages, but also be able to identify the isolated folders used by other tools:

• The isolated folder for BrowserAssist:
  
  Saves\PluginData\JayJayWon\BrowserAssist\OffloadedVARs
• The AllPackages isolated folder used by var_browser

Thought about it, will do

Please forgive my poor English. Although I really want to use it, the lack of a corresponding language makes it very difficult. Have you considered adding language support? (I really need Chinese if possible.)

Languages are planned but not as a first priority, so they will come some time later.

poma updated VaM Backstage - VAR Package Manager with a new update entry:

Extract appearance presets from scenes and convert legacy looks

• You can now extract appearance and clothing presets from scenes and convert legacy looks to appearance presets. Accessible from right-click menu on packages and library items.
• Now offers to hide/unhide all existing dependency content when the mode is toggled in the settings.

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Read the rest of this update entry...

I was wondering if it would be possible to add an option to select a scene or a look and move it out of the 'AddonPackages' folder, transferring it to a different folder along with all its dependencies.

Whenever I want to do something like this for example, to create a clean VaM installation I have to use other program to identify the dependencies and then manually move every single file. As you can imagine, this process is incredibly time consuming.

Yes that's what som45oul was suggesting. I am going to implement this, but to get this right I need to account of all the cases, like this other folder being managed by another app that also moves files around back and forth which VaM Backstage is running.

Hi, this is an awesome program, best manager ive seen so far (Tried several). One question though, is it possible to see the scenes i created and still haven't packed as .var? Maybe i can and haven´t found it ...
Besides that i second the option to create collections to enable or disable with their respective dependencies easily to start vam with just the needed stuff
Oh, and if possible make it remember window state after closing and opening again (minimized, position... )

Thanks!!

best manager,also how to find dupes

is it possible to see the scenes i created and still haven't packed as .var?

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Currently no, it doesn't show content from your library outside .var packages. I want to do that but will need to handle a bunch of edge cases, so I'd day this is secondary priority for now.

create collections to enable or disable with their respective dependencies easily to start vam with just the needed stuff

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Looks like this is popular request. Yes I will be adding the support of offload dirs so you can either use Backstage to offload packages or just browse packages offloaded by another package manager. I thought in-VaM package managers are a better fit for that because you can bring in your offloaded packages without restarting the VaM, but you'll be able to do that with Backstage too.

One design question I still haven't decided is whether to show offloaded packages as greyed out (like disabled ones)
- on one hand, showing offloaded ones in disabled state is logical and obvious to the user
- on the other hand, some people offload most of their library and treat current AddonPackages dir as a "working set", so most of the library ends up greyed out and it's annoying.

make it remember window state after closing and opening again (minimized, position... )

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Done, will be in the next update. Thanks for suggestion.

how to find dupes

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You mean dependencies for which you no longer need older versions? Those are called "Orphans" and there's a separate filter for them. Many dependencies (like Timeline) are often referenced by specific version though rather than latest so it's normal to have multiple versions of them side by side.

I still haven't decided what to do with older versions of normal packages that you directly installed so that behavior is intuitive. For now Backstage just keeps them.

I user browserassist, which creates a separate allpackage folder and only install the necessary packages to the addonpackage folder when needed, can i request a feature to add more folder to scan

Sure, it's the same that 2 users above have requested. Already working on it. There are a lot of edge cases though like what if some users have offload folder on a removable drive or you are downloading missing dependencies and we need to make sure the ones that belong to offloaded packages go straight into offload dir. I want to try and make sure it works well before releasing. But I think this feature will be ready soon.