I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and sent out a tweet and got a ‘ubuntu has something similar already’ response.
I know there are a lot of windows and Mac users out there, this would benefit us all.
Pretty much it would function like the software/tool called the ‘Nexus Mod Manager’ http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/modmanager which is a neat little program. You can check/uncheck add-ons without having to uninstall anything and it tells you if things are not up to date/compatible. So you can do all sorts of things like disabling the add-ons that are not compatible with each other, to changing the priority in which they load.
The goal would be to have a tool/program (blender release/add-on manager) that keeps track of the version you have, and Especially the add-ons you have enabled/downloaded. And you would not have to re-enable all the add-ons from the previous version. (same with user settings)
If you have other suggestions, please let me know. I’m no programmer, but I don’t believe this would be that difficult to pull off. Since the NMM is already open source. I’m guessing there is already a file that keeps track of all user preferences and add-ons but I don’t believe it saves custom add-ons you download.
I believe having such a tool would benefit the community greatly. A portion of the blender community is aware of graphicall but I’m sure having a tool that takes care of all this would make things a lot more convenient.
If anyone knows what I’m talking about and is capable of pulling this off, please let me know what it would cost.
If would be amazing to have a section/portion inside this manager that displays latest news/releases also. (basically a feed)
We can raise funds or if the cost isn’t insane, I can try to fund it.
So, there are different versions of blender being released on Graphic all on a daily basis I believe, in additional to the official releases on the main site. What this tools would do, is A. Allow you to see new releases and download them right there, and use whichever version you want. B. Ability to manage add-ons, so you don’t have to go to the blender add-on page to re-enable the ones you want, every time you download a fresh release. It would also support non-official add-ons that you download from somewhere else, and you don’t have to manually put them in the folder.
we already have addons to do this.
1 for github d/l
1 is an addon feed reader with nice update settings.
both will not get into blender, they have been not approved in their current form.
you can find on the web, with some savvy searching.
Sounds like good idea.
Does get fiddly when getting new blender version, some scripts are too old now but have updates available (somewhere if you can remember) and when complete new blender version number everything seems to have to be copied over manually including preferences.
Heck this might even be possible to be a paid for tool. Seeing what it would do is check compatibility, download files, move files around on computer etc.
What it would need is a central hosted place with all information and downloads about scripts. A place where all scripter’s want to upload their script (and update) as opposed to scattered all over web forums/personal sites/blender wiki.
Rhys,
we already do this, there’s already an addon & a collection.
It’s not hard to set it all up, everything is in place & all the code already written.
It’s just a matter of time before it happens.