Mod Manager (Euro Truck Simulator 2)

Information about creating mods for the 1.19+ version of the game.

• Introduction
• Manifest file usage • Usage
categories
• Description of your mod
• Sample mod
• Other issues

Introduction

With the new Mod Manager we are introducing a package manager. Packages can be:
• Zip archive - exactly the same as you used before with .scs or .zip extension.
• Normal directories - where each directory represents a separate mod.
We recommend using normal mod development directories with mod release zip archives to make mod size smaller and more user-friendly (vs. file directory files). Inside the package, you can define a manifest file containing meta-data about the mod. The metadata is used by the Mod Manager to display the mod to the user. You can specify a description, icon, and more.

Using the Manifest

To set all the metadata you will need to create a "manifest.sii" containing the "mod_package" block description file in your mod. Example "manifest.sii" file:

SiiNunit
{
# ".package_name" does not matter as the dot at the beginning of the file means that this unit is anonymous.
# Please keep this form to not make any conflicts with other mod packages (name collisions).
mod_package : .package_name
{
# Package version can be any string with any length.
package_version: "1.0 Release 3"

# Display name can be any string with any length.
display_name: "My mod"

# Author can be any string with any length.
author: "My Nick"

# Categories is an array of strings.
category[]: "ui"
category[]: "truck"

# Icon inside the root directory of the mod.
icon: "mod_icon.jpg"

# Description file inside the root directory of the mod.
description_file: "mod_description.txt"

# compatible_version[]: "1.19.*" # Mod is compatible with 1.19.X..
}
}

NOTE:
We don't limit attributes in length, but in some places where this metadata is displayed, space is limited. To avoid problems, we cut the values ​​to match the user interface. Just cut the line at some point and add ".." at the end of the line to indicate that there is more content but it doesn't match.

• package_version
Type: string
Version of the mod.

• display_name
Type: string
Displays the name of the mod. If nothing is specified, the package name is used without the extension.

• author
Type: string
The name of the author.

• category
Type: array of strings
List of categories. We currently limited the categories to 2 per mod. If you use more than 2, only the first two will be used. If nothing is specified, the mod is categorized as "Other". You can only use categories from the set defined in "Usage Categories"

• icon
Type: string
The name of the file inside the root of the mod's directory that contains the icon image. Can only be a .jpg file with exact size: 276x162px

• description_file
Type: string
The name of the file inside the root of the mod directory that contains the description text. The file description should be a simple text file with a UTF-8 encoded .txt extension. The contents of the description file are shown in the mod window details and should include information about how your mod is used, additional authors of the included mods, etc. For possible text formatting, see "Describing your mod" section

• compatible_version
Type: array of strings
List of compatible game versions. If the list is present and the game version does not match any of the versions on this list, the user will not be able to use the mod and will have to wait for the author to update it. Will only be used for mods that can break, like a mod map.
Note: If you want your mod to be compatible with all versions just skip this option. Note also that when formatting a Steam version with an "S" suffix (ex: 1.18.1s) does not exist in that version so please don't use it.
Each element from the list supports wildcard formatting shown below:

compatible_versions []: ".1.19 *"

This means that the mod is compatible with all "1.19.x" versions, for example, all patches with a number starting from 1.19 are compatible. Examples in the table show compatible game versions for the string "1.19* . " :

Version Compatible ?






You can also specify support for only one version of the game, which is not recommended as we change the game between minor fixes.

For example:
compatible_versions[]: "1.19.1"

This usage is not a good idea as your mod will only work with version 1.19.1.
If we release some fixes, your mod will simply be incompatible with it.
You can also use more than one compatible version definition, like this:

compatible_versions[]: ".1.19*"
compatible_versions[]: ".1.20*"

This way you support both the 1.19 and 1.20 patches.
REMEMBER! If you specify a very limited set of options, users of your mod may be waiting for you while you fix the mod to change only the version number because your mod is 100% compatible with the latest version.

• Mod types and configurations for them: Mod
maps
compatible_versions[]: "XX*"
Just check if the main version of the game part matches. We might break the compatibility map between major patches (1.17 > 1.18 for example) so you have to re-export your map mod in the map editor again. Between patches (like 1.18.1 > 1.18.2) there is a very small chance that we will introduce some breaking changes to the format map and thus break compatibility.

Tuning parts, trucks, models and kits of any other
The best way is not to use this variable as there is a very small chance that your mod will be broken.

Usage Categories

A set of valid categories that you can use as the "Category" value of the array elements:
• truck
• trailer
• interior
• tuning_parts
• ai_traffic
• sound
• paint_job
• cargo_pack
• map
• ui
• other

Description of your mod

The length of the description text is unlimited. In addition, there is also the additional ability to colorize your mod's description with BBCode tags.
List of available color tags:

Tag Result color
[red] #FF2626
[green] #75FF00
[blue] #12ABE5
[normal] Default font color used in UI
[white] #FFFFFF
[orange] #FFAE00
For example: [red]Hello [green]Wor[orange]ld
It will look like this: Hello World

Sample mod

You can download the sample the mod is here.(http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/modding/sample_mod.zip)

Other problems that are not covered here

If you have any problems adjusting the mod to new standards, feel free to write on the forum, in our section forum.
(http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=24)