Awesome

Table of contents

• Quick start
• Slow start
• Changing options
  • INI files
  • Command line
  • INI format
• Options
  • [global]
  • [task]
  • [tools]
  • [prebuilt]
  • [versions]
  • [paths]
• Command line
  • Global options
  • build
  • list
  • options
  • release
  • git
  • cmake
  • inis

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/ModOrganizer2/mob
cd mob
./bootstrap
mob -d c:\somewhere build

Extended start

Qt - CLI based install using aqt

aqt is a CLI installer for Qt, it makes installing Qt extremely quick and painless, and doesn't require a login

Installing aqt via package manager

• Start an administrative terminal
• Install aqt using one of the two popular packaage managers
  • winget install --id=miurahr.aqtinstall -e
  • choco install aqt

Installing aqt via python/pip

• Install Python 3.9
• Install aqt using pip

Using aqt

• Open a terminal with administrative rights, and run

aqt install-qt --outputdir "C:\Qt" windows desktop 6.7.1 win64_msvc2019_64 -m qtwebengine qtimageformats qtpositioning qtserialport qtwebchannel qtwebsockets

Qt - Manual installation

• Install Qt 6.7.1 (Installer) and select these components:
  • MSVC 2019 64-bit
  • Additional Libraries:
    • Qt WebEngine (display nexus pages)
    • Qt Image Formats (display images in image tab and preview)
    • Qt Positioning (required by QtWebEngine)
    • Qt Serial Port (required by Qt Core)
    • Qt WebChannel (required by QtWebEngine)
    • Qt WebSockets (Nexus api/download)
  • Optional:
    • Qt Source Files
    • Qt Debug Files

Visual Studio

• Install Visual Studio 2022 (Installer)
  • Desktop development with C++
  • Desktop .NET desktop development (needed by OMOD and FOMOD installers)
  • Individual Components:
    • .Net Framework 4.8 SDK
    • .Net Framework 4.7.2 targeting pack (OMOD targets 4.8 but VS still requires the package for other .Net components)
    • Windows Universal C Runtime
    • C++ ATL for latest v143 build Tools (x86 & x64)
    • C++ /CLI support for v143 build Tools (Latest) (for OMOD and FOMOD installers)
    • Windows 11 SDK (get latest)
    • C++ Build Tools core features
    • Git for Windows (Skip if you have this already installed outside of the VS installer)
    • CMake tools for Windows (Skip if you have this already installed outside of the VS installer)

Setting up MOB

• Open a shell. If you've installed Git or CMake through the VS installer, they won't be on your PATH, so you must use x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022.- Pick a folder to develop MO2 in, for these steps it'll be C:\dev
• Execute these commands

mkdir C:\dev
cd C:\dev
git clone https://github.com/ModOrganizer2/mob
./bootstrap.ps1
mob -d C:\dev\modorganizer build

• Once mob is finished, everything will be in C:\dev\modorganizer. Mod Organizer can be run from install\bin\ModOrganizer.exe. The Visual Studio solution for Mod Organizer itself is build\modorganizer_super\modorganizer\vsbuild\organizer.sln.

Prebuilts

Some third-parties are not normally built from source, but this can be changed in the options by setting the various tasks in [prebuilt] to false. If OpenSSL is built from source, perl is required (Strawberry Perl 5.30.2.1 installer).

Changing options

mob has two ways of setting options: from INI files, the MOBINI environment variable, or from the command line.

INI files

mob builds a list of available INI files in order of priority. Higher numbers override lower numbers:

1. The master INI mob.ini in the directory where mob.exe lives (required).
2. Any files set in MOBINI (separated by semicolons).
3. Another mob.ini in the current directory.
4. Files given with --ini.

Use mob inis to see the list of INI files in order. If --no-default-inis is given, mob will skip 1) and 2). The first INI it finds after that is considered the master.

Command line

Any option can be overridden from the command like with -s task:section/key=value, where task: is optional. Some options have shortcuts, such as --dry for -s global/dry=true and -l5 for -s global:output_log_level=5. See mob options for the list of options.

INI format

Inside the INI file are [sections] and key = value pairs. The [task] section is special because it can be changed for specific tasks instead of globally. Any value under a [task_name:task] section will only apply to a task named task_name. The list of available tasks can be seen with mob list. See Task names.

Options

[global]

[task]

Options for individual tasks. Can be [task_name:task], where task_name is the name of a task (see mob list) , super for all MO tasks or a glob like installer_*.

Common git options

Unless otherwise stated, applies to any task that is a git repo.

Git credentials

These are used to set user.name and user.email. Applies to any task that is a git repo.

Origin and upstream remotes

When git clones, it automatically creates a remote named origin for the URL that was cloned. When set_origin_remote is true, this will:

1. Rename origin to upstream, and
2. Create a new origin with the given parameters.

For example, this will create an origin remote for all ModOrganizer2 projects and mark all .ts files as --assume-unchanged.

[super:task]
ignore_ts                  = true
git_username               = isanae
git_email                  = isanae@users.noreply.github.com
set_origin_remote          = true
remote_org                 = isanae
remote_key                 = private.ppk
remote_no_push_upstream    = true
remote_push_default_origin = true

[tools]

The various tools in this section are used verbatim when creating processes and so will be looked in the PATH environment variable. vcvars is best left empty, it will be found using the vswhere.exe that's bundled as a third-party.

[prebuilt]

Some tasks can use prebuilt binaries instead of building from source.

[versions]

The versions for all the tasks.

[paths]

The only path that's required is prefix, which is where mob will put everything. Within this directory will be build/, downloads/ and install/. Everything else is derived from it.

If mob is unable to find the Qt installation directory, it can be specified in qt_install. This directory should contain bin/, include/, etc. It's typically something like C:\Qt\6.5.1\msvc2019_64\. The other path qt_bin will be derived from it, it's just $qt_install/bin/.

Command line

Do mob --help for global options and the list of available commands. Do mob <command> --help for more help about a command.

To use global options with command options, ensure command options are together, with no global options in the middle.

Global options

build

Builds tasks. The order in which tasks have to be built is handled by mob, but dependencies will not be built automatically when specifying tasks manually. That is, mob build will build python before pyqt, but mob build pyqt will not build python. Many tasks will be able to run in parallel, but not all, either because they hog the CPU (such as usvfs) or because they have dependencies that have to be built first.

If any task fails to build, all the active tasks are aborted as quickly as possible.

Task names

Each task has a name, some have more. MO tasks for example have a full name that corresponds to their git repo (such as modorganizer-game_features) and a shorter name (such as game_features). Both can be used interchangeably. The task name can also be super, which refers to all repos hosted on the Mod Organizer Github account, minus libbsarch, usvfs and NexusClientCli. Globs can be used, like installer_*. See mob list for a list of all available tasks.

Options

list

Lists all the available task names. If a task has multiple names, they are all shown, separated by a comma.

Options

options

Lists all the options after parsing the INIs and the command line.

release

Creates a release in prefix/releases. Only supports devbuilds for now. A release is made out of three archives:

• Binaries from prefix/install/bin;
• PDBs from prefix/install/pdb;
• Sources from various directories in prefix/build.

The archive filename is Mod.Organizer-version-suffix-what.7z, where:

• version is taken from ModOrganizer.exe, version.rc or from --version;
• suffix is the optional --suffix argument;
• what is either nothing, src or pdbs.

Options

git

Various commands to manage the git repos. Includes usvfs, NexusClientCli and all the projects under modorganizer_super.

set-remotes

Does the same thing as the when set_origin_remotes is set in the INI: renames origin to upstream and adds a new origin with the options below. See Origin and upstream remotes.

add-remote

Simply adds a new remote with the given parameters to all the git repos.

cmake

Runs cmake in a directory, as if mob had done it as part of the build process for a modorganizer project. The cmake invocation will contain all variables required for cmake_common to work.

By default, this runs:

cmake
  -G "Visual Studio version year"
  -A x64
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_MESSAGE=NEVER
  <all defines>
  --log-level=ERROR
  --no-warn-unused-cli
  ..

Options

inis

Shows a list of the all the INIs that would be loaded, in order of priority. See INI files.