Some ideas to improve the mod menu

[BNTFryingPan]

Geode Version

v2.0.0-beta.20

Related Problem

The current mod menu, while functional, is (in my opinion) a bit clunky, and some things don't work quite as I would expect. I am by no means an expert on designing user interfaces, so this is merely some of my opinions on ways to improve the mod menu.

Your Solution

• The view button, while consistent with the Geometry Dash's online level lists, is a bit weird in my opinion, and the space it takes up could be used for something more useful. I propose removing the view button, and making it so clicking the name or icon for a mod in the mod list opens its info page.
  • The space removing this would leaves could be used for a download/delete button, and a mod options button.
  • Removing this would also remove what is currently the only indicator of an available update for a mod (the color being blue instead of green). Instead, there should be some indication near the mods version number that an update is available (an easy one would be adding (!) to the version label, but there might be a better way).
  • This would also remove the restart game button, but I cover that in the next bullet point.
• The restart button that replaces the view button on a mod when its newly installed, enabled, disabled, removed, or updated prevents looking at the info page for that version of the mod. Instead, there should be some text after the author's name that says something like "Restart Game to Enable", and having a button somewhere on the edge of the screen that appears when a game restart is needed to apply changes to mods. Clicking this button should also have a prompt asking if you actually want to restart.
• Currently, the only way to see different versions of a mod is by clicking the authors name (specifically in the mod list, not on the mod info page), and looking through a list of all versions of every mod from that author (and this is assuming there is only a single author for the mod, it can get more complicated if a project has changed authors or has multiple authors). If you wanted to look at the mods someone has made, you probably don't want to see every version of their mods listed, and if you wanted to look for a specific version of a mod, you don't want to see their other mods.
  • Clicking the author's name should bring you to the search page with a filter for that mod author. For mods with multiple authors, opening the current author list is fine, but clicking those entries should bring you to the search page.
  • Clicking the version number of the mod should open a list of versions of the mod, letting you switch to older ones if you need to.
  • Both of these should work from either the mod list, or the mod info page.

Additional Information

I have seen in the Discord that a new menu is being worked on, so some of these issues might be resolved by that. All of the things I have said are based on my experience with the mod menu in v2.0.0-beta.20.

[TheBearodactyl]

there's no mod menu built-in to geode...?

[RoootTheFox]

there's no mod menu built-in to geode...? @TheBearodactyl yes there is, it is in the main menu

besides that, i think zstd would be a better fit, since the index is mainly text anyways (and zstd is fast)

[TheBearodactyl]

there's no mod menu built-in to geode...? @TheBearodactyl yes there is, it is in the main menu

besides that, i think zstd would be a better fit, since the index is mainly text anyways (and zstd is fast)

that ain't a mod menu, that's a mod manager. a mod menu is more along the lines of megahack or gdhm

[BNTFryingPan]

i fail to see how that distinction is important here. its a issue in the geode repository, and its clear that im referring to geode's mod menu. its not uncommon in the modding communities of other games to refer to "menu that shows you a list of mods" as a "mod menu" (regardless of if they allow you to enable, disable, or otherwise manage mods), which is why i refer to it as a mod menu.