Bethini Pie (by DoubleYou)

[DoubleYou]

A New Paradigm - A New Name

BethINI is changing to Bethini Pie.

BethINI was originally designed for the optimization of Bethesda game INI configuration files, and left virtually no room for growth into other games. Bethini Pie completely redefines the application, as it intends to become a configuration editor capable of modifying the configuration settings of any game that utilizes INI files. While out-of-the-box support for any and all games is not currently intended, it provides the ability to add support for any game through the careful assembly of specially designed JSON files. It may be designed in the future to work with any INI file with limited capabilities, although at this time, such is not the case.

The name change reflects this new paradigm. The addition of "Pie" has multiple connotations. For one, Bethini Pie is written in Python, so "Pie" is a subtle reference to the change in programming language. Additionally, "Pie" doubles as an acronym describing the intended function of the application as a Performance INI Editor. Hence, Bethini Pie - Performance INI Editor. This adds a search engine optimization tweak to the name, so that if a user is looking for increased "performance," or "INI" tweaks, or an "INI Editor", they have a far better chance of finding "Bethini Pie - Performance INI Editor" within their search. Currently, most people find BethINI despite its name. It is hoped that this addition helps people find it more easily. 

Development

Bethini Pie is written in Python and is currently in active development. The GitHub repository is located here:

https://github.com/DoubleYouC/Bethini-Pie-Performance-INI-Editor

Release Info

Bethini Pie has been released on the Modding Tools section of the Nexus Website here: https://www.nexusmods.com/site/mods/631

Licensing

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Themes

Bethini Pie supports a number of different theme customizations, including the ability to change font, colors, and even the pictures used on tabs. Multiple themes are already included. All of these can be changed, minus the tab pictures, via the Preferences window (Menubar -> Edit -> Preferences). Tab pictures will correspond with the name of the tab, and are stored in the themes\<Theme-Name> directory. It is not configured to show theme changes until restart at this point in time.

Collaboration

Collaboration from anyone able and willing to further develop this project is encourage. Recognize that I am a hobby programmer with no formal training, so my code is probably not the cleanest. The design is simple, with the main repository housing all the code and written 100% in Python for generating the application. All the game plugins are then added as submodules into the apps directory. Bethini Pie scans the list of directories at startup and these are all then made available via the initial Choose Game dialog. Due to the entire game plugin design being generated solely via JSON files, one does not even technically need to know Python to be able to design a plugin. Each plugin should have a top level folder designating the name, such as Fallout 4, that is easily identifiable as the option to choose.

It is not desired to add "game" plugins for individual mods for a game, such as say NGIO for Skyrim Special Edition. Rather, it is intended to build a framework for adding mod plugins for any game, allowing those modifications to be integrated into interface when the game is loaded and the mod plugin discovered. These plugins should be extremely accessible and easy to design so that mod authors can quickly develop these for their mods with no collaboration with the Bethini Pie project necessary. Bethini Pie will in turn use verification checks to ensure that no such plugins can cause issues, verifying the tweaks as valid and warning if necessary.

 

  

[z929669]

@DoubleYou Nice work, awesome contribution!

[Mercury71]

Looks fantastic. Great work. 🙂

[TechAngel85]

Awesome sauce!

As for themes, will it simply pick up the Windows theme?
My Win10 "theme" is basically it's built-in dark mode so any app that will pick up system theme has just worked well out-of-the-box without having to keep up with themes for all the different programs to make them dark. Thinking about it, MO has been one of the few that I've had to change to a dark theme.

[DoubleYou]

You would need to select the theme in preferences. 

[theblackman]

Brilliant idea.  Looking forward to seeing this develop. Did you learn Python/JSON as part of developing this or did you already know those languages?

[DoubleYou]

29 minutes ago, theblackman said:

Brilliant idea.  Looking forward to seeing this develop. Did you learn Python/JSON as part of developing this or did you already know those languages?

I am an amateur, and this project is helping me learn how to become better.

[Greg]

7 hours ago, TechAngel85 said:

Awesome sauce!

As for themes, will it simply pick up the Windows theme?
My Win10 "theme" is basically it's built-in dark mode so any app that will pick up system theme has just worked well out-of-the-box without having to keep up with themes for all the different programs to make them dark. Thinking about it, MO has been one of the few that I've had to change to a dark theme.

This has not been my experience. I also selected a dark theme for Windows 10, but very few applications use the Windows theme settings. Even Microsoft's own products have their own built-in themes instead of using the Windows built-in themes.

[z929669]

Yep, that's my XP. Almost nothing but Windows use the windows shell themes

[DoubleYou]

I added a standalone beta test version to Miscellaneous files on the SSE Nexus page. Let me know if you find any bugs.

You do not need to install Python, as this has been compiled with pyinstaller. It only includes the SSE plugin for now. If you want to test the Fallout 4 plugin, you can grab it from the Github repository.

Bethini Pie can be run through Mod Organizer. It doesn't need to be.

Since this is a complete rewrite of the application, not all features are included between this version and the old BethINI app, but all necessary functions should work correctly.

[z929669]

Nice, thank you!

Will give it a try tomorrow.

[Mercury71]

Any special moves removing current BethINI install before installing the beta?

 

[z929669]

I assume you know that this is not working yet and that there is no button or indicator about how to move into the editor:

After clicking 'X' the editor popped up. All settings shown were an accurate reflection of my INI. I brought up an instance of the current version of BethINI to compare the two. Notice that you have parsed the grass/light fade settings (start & distance now separate), which is nice. Those settings were always a pain to manage, since they were parsed into the INI but combined in the editor.

The new ability to use without worry for MO status is nice. The Pi version also closes more gracefully when finished.

For the interface, I know you are probably still working on many things, but decreasing whitespace between grouped settings and aligning columns (names, checkboxes, sliders, etc). would be great for readability. I also assume you will add more settings tabs in the future.

Would be really great if Pi could auto-recognized MO path for both portable and standalone/instanced versions (we should make this terminology consistant) as well as INI paths connected to MO instances. Maybe have Pi display a pick-list of MO profiles found, so that user can select and Pi makes all relevant path connections.

All-in-all, this looks to have great potential and is already exibiting some major improvements.

[DoubleYou]

 

2 hours ago, Mercury71 said:

Any special moves removing current BethINI install before installing the beta?

 

No. They are independent of each other. If you have a Custom ini, however, I do not yet have support built in for it yet. 

[DoubleYou]

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

I assume you know that this is not working yet and that there is no button or indicator about how to move into the editor:

 

The Restore Backup button will not have any backups it can restore until the user has actually saved their INI files at least once. I can make it say "No backups found" to make this more apparent.

I found a bug looking into this. If you change the INI Path, it will not update the backups in Restore Backup until restart. I'll have to call a refresh on that if the user changes the INI Path.

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

After clicking 'X' the editor popped up.

This is good feedback. This is currently how it is designed, but an OK button would be far more intuitive.

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

Notice that you have parsed the grass/light fade settings (start & distance now separate), which is nice. Those settings were always a pain to manage, since they were parsed into the INI but combined in the editor.

Yes, this confused many of my users, so it made sense to give the user more control.

6 hours ago, z929669 said:

Would be really great if Pi could auto-recognized MO path for both portable and standalone/instanced versions (we should make this terminology consistant) as well as INI paths connected to MO instances. Maybe have Pi display a pick-list of MO profiles found, so that user can select and Pi makes all relevant path connections.

Did it not populate your MO profiles in the dropdown? I may have to work on my MO detection, as it can be difficult finding its location given different installation methods.

Do note that if you launch BethINI through Mod Organizer, the default path will work.