Esbee
Terrarian
Hey there everyone! Long time listener, first time caller here... bringing you a web tool I made for myself because I just don't find the in-game tModLoader mod browser all that useful for certain actions, and because checking X number of threads every day just to see if an update occurred was getting tedious. I also figured it might be useful for those that can't actually use the mod browser in-game for whatever reason (eg: Linux/Mac users) and ease some of the load on the tModLoader server by minimizing access to the public mod list page. This is by no means meant to be a replacement for the mod browser, but rather an alternative for a niche audience.
The nuts and bolts of how this works: my webserver pulls the publicly accessible PHP page for tModLoader mods every 12 hours (so as not to overload their server), splits all the data with a RegexFromHeckTM, compares mod version numbers with previously scraped data, updates everything, and dumps it all into a nicely formatted JSON file. Then I use some jQuery plugins to pop it all into a sortable, searchable grid. And bam, we now have a fully browser-accessible tModLoader mod database!
Current Features:
- All data is from the official tModLoader mod list, so *every* mod on the mod browser is available with the exact same data
- Automatic data scraping of tModLoader's public PHP mod list page, so everything is (relatively) up to date
- Search/sort by mod name
- Search/sort by mod website/thread
- Filter/sort by tModLoader version
- Sort by update date (default view shows the newest first)
- Manually download the .tmod directly from tModLoader servers
- See the current version number
See the mod description used in the mod browser (click any row), now with color-code parsingREMOVED in 1.0.6 - tModLoader page no longer supplies it
- Link to the mod website/thread
- Seamless paging, etc. that you would expect from a tool of this kind
- MUCH faster, easier, useful, and performance-friendly than tModLoader's public PHP mod list page
- ZERO ads, trackers, CDNs, telemetry, analytics, Google/etc. scripts, social media stuff, account requirements, monetized links, etc... I don't want your info, and don't allow others to mine it either
- The PHP page I scrape has limited data available, and the only thing that I can use to flag a mod as being updated is the mod version number. I have never published a mod so I have no idea how that actually works in-game, but if it's possible to not update the version (accidentally or otherwise) then there's no way for my script to know. Everything *but* when it was updated will still be accurate though, as all the data is rewritten with every scrape.
- If there is ever a change in the tModLoader PHP page structure, this tool will stop functioning. I don't expect it to anytime soon, but keep that in mind.
- If a mod is removed from tModLoader, it will still show on the site until the next scrape occurs.
- It should be obvious, but remember that this is not a truly realtime mod update list. You don't need to check it constantly, the absolute newest data will be absent for a few hours, and there's always a chance of temporarily dead download links if a mod is removed between scrapes.
- If the in-game mod browser is down, the download links this tool supplies (and any attempts at data scraping) probably won't work either since they just link back directly to the tModLoader server, which redirects to the download location.
Tip: if you click a row, you'll get the mod description that is used in the mod browser. The More You Know!REMOVED in 1.0.6 - tModLoader page no longer supplies it
- Let users bookmark specific mod entries to get a customized list to check?
- Mod icon/most popular/etc. scraping maybe?
- .tmod filename search?
Code:
1.0.6 (2018-02-20)
- Removed descriptions (no longer supplied by tModLoader page)
- Rewrote regex (fix for removed descriptions)
1.0.5 (2018-02-10)
- Support for descriptions using the [c/ff0000:blah] coloration syntax
- Blank descriptions given "No description added." text to prevent confusion
- Link for changelog
- Link for scrapelog
- Link to discussion thread
- Version text added
- New default position for the dialog pop-up (top center of the grid)
1.0.4 (2018-02-05)
- Logging for scrape results (though not made public until 1.0.5)
1.0.3 (2018-02-04)
- Backend work to prevent certain problems if the tModLoader page can't be scraped
- Backend security stuff
- Changed "Last Updated:" date to AM/PM format
- Fixed more "Last Updated:" date cases of oddness
- Fixed a minor error in the math for determining how many days ago a mod update occurred
1.0.2 (2018-02-04)
- Text searching is now automatic (ie: after a slight delay while typing)
- Fix for day display in "Last Updated:" date
- Row selection prevented when clicking to download
- Download column made easier to click
- New confirmation+faq dialog box when clicking download links
1.0.1 (2018-02-04)
- New font
- New backgrounds
- New header banner
- Tweaked footer banner
- New styling for links
- Larger text across the board
- Dynamic resizing of the grid
1.0.0 (2018-02-03)
- Initial release
Last edited: