We’ve released version 0.44.2 of NMM today that provides a number of bug fixes and updates to problems caused in the recent 0.44 builds. Here’s the fix and new feature list:
1. New Feature: New “Uninstall all active mods” button in the Tools menu.
2. New Feature: The readme scan is now optional and you can manually perform it by right-clicking on selected mods/categories and choosing the option from the context menu.
3. Bugfix: Category view: category and mod properties failing to properly update on the list.
4. Bugfix: Category view: NMM freezing when trying to delete a mod from the list.
5. Bugfix: WoT manager crashing when the game was using a malformed version number.
6. Bugfix: NMM crashing when checking for mod updates and the server was unreachable.
7. Bugfix: NMM reporting a mod as installed/uninstalled even though the user aborted the scripted install/uninstall or there was an error performing it.
8. Bugfix: NMM failing to properly load saved column sizes.
9. Bugfix: Readme Manager creating readme archive files into the wrong folder for newly downloaded mods.
10. Bugfix: Readme Manager setup adding random mod files in readme archives.
With version 0.44.0, in moving the mod view control system fully over to our new system a few debilitating bugs quickly rose to the surface once we released the update publicly. I’m sorry for that, however, having read some of the overly-entitled opinions left in the comments, I’d like to once again reiterate a few important points when it comes to NMM.
NMM is still very, very, very much in beta. We have never alluded to it being anything other than in beta, despite the fact it’s been in beta for going on 18 months now and has 1.7 million people using it, and there’s good reasons why it’s still in beta; we’ve got a lot more things we want to add in to NMM before I’m confident to say it’s ready for a full release. We’ve got a huge to-do list of features we want to implement and I’d never want to say NMM is “done” before giving it a completely new lick of paint and a UI overhaul to make it look less like a “my first .NET program” school project. So yes, you have that to be worried/look forward to.
What does being in beta mean to us? It means we’re going to continue to add new features, updates and bug fixes, test them on our end and then push them out into the public domain to be tested by you. We don’t have a QA department. We don’t have a huge team of programmers working on NMM and we don’t have a computer farm we can send our new builds to as test beds that test every function in every operating system/program variation going. We release updates out into the public domain so that you people become our testers, because we can’t afford them ourselves. You are our QA department. That’s the whole point of this beta and that’s why we still call NMM a beta, because we rely on you. Seeing some of the horrific responses and opinions of people who were affected by the bugs in version 0.44 I can’t help but feel some of you either don’t know what software being in open beta means, or you’ve been spoilt by the recent trends in MMO games where “beta” really means “demo”. No, when we say beta, we mean beta, and we release new builds out to be tested and get valuable feedback on.
If you’re someone who relies on NMM and doesn’t want to test new builds and you just want it to work, then it’s reeeeeeeeeeeally simple (so simple I don’t understand how it’s a problem at all): don’t update NMM until you’re confident (from reading feedback in comment threads/the forums) that the newest versions are stable to use. If you think NMM is perfect exactly how it is and you don’t want anything more from it at all; why are you bothering to update at all? You can still carry on using old versions of NMM all the way back to version 0.34 (and before then if you don’t download/check for new mod versions in NMM), and we only forced an update with version 0.34.0 because we changed our login and downloading system that prevented old versions from working. If you aren’t downloading NMM to help us beta test it and provide us with meaningful feedback then it’s completely your prerogative when and how you update it. What we’re not going to do is change our releasing methods to hold your hand for you, into a Linux style system of “bleeding edge”, “current”, “release” and “stable” during the beta. Once we bring NMM out of beta we’ll probably do this; and incentivise people to be testers for us, but not now, not while we’re in beta. So the onus is completely on you, the user, on when you update NMM. We need testers, and we value your feedback on bugs and features in the program. We don’t particularly value your feedback on how you think we should have “better QA”. You’re our QA. But if you’d like to pay me the £100k or so to hire on some QA testers then by all means, I’ll tell you where you can mail the cheque.
While I can’t assure you that all our releases will be completely bug free, I can assure you that when bugs are found we document and work on them in order of highest priority as quickly as possible.
