Author Topic: BlueBeGone - Mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black (DEPRECATED)  (Read 9776 times)

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Offline twice2double (OP)

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DEPRECATED - please use T2DTheme instead: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12556

DISCLAIMER - this is a very simple proof-of-concept patch for 01010100's AuroraPatch open source project: https://github.com/Aurora-Modders/AuroraPatch

AuroraPatch is very much in it's infancy and this is the first attempt at a working patch which should (in theory) work for any future versions of Aurora.

This patch is very simple and will most likely be superseded by proper theme patches in the coming weeks (contributions welcome).

Installation

This patch requires the AuroraPatch runtime and the UIControls helper patch (both included).

Extract/copy all the files from the attached zip into your Aurora folder.

Running

Run AuroraPatch.exe from inside the Aurora directory.

What's Next

As stated above, this is a proof-of-concept patch (pretty much the simplest you could create as it's a single line of non-boilerplate C# code)
Feel free to check it out in the AuroraPatch repo: https://github.com/Aurora-Modders/AuroraPatch/blob/b914c06ed9f9c4bf18f0dafa5a39300955c861f2/BlueBeGone/BlueBeGone.cs

I think AuroraPatch is a superior modding implementation than AuroraMod and I will be working towards AuroraMod feature parity moving forward (with some of your help).

Note that some AVs will flag AuroraPatch (as they should) due to how it hooks into a running process.
Since you probably shouldn't trust files downloaded on the internet from strangers, I recommend you fetch the code and build it yourself, otherwise the attachment and MediaFire link are below.

MediaFire Mirror: https://www.mediafire.com/file/jd0yory7tfndvyv/AuroraPatch+and+BlueBeGone.zip/file
« Last Edit: May 09, 2021, 10:11:16 PM by twice2double »
 
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Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2021, 02:21:40 PM »
 :o

I'm very surprised to see that Steve has approved an open-source modding project. My recollection from the author of AuroraMod was that Steve did not approve of open source mods and when the author retired the mod it would be up to Steve to allow someone else to take over the mod and have access to its source code.

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested to see where this goes, but it does surprise me.
 

Offline Droll

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2021, 02:27:21 PM »
:o

I'm very surprised to see that Steve has approved an open-source modding project. My recollection from the author of AuroraMod was that Steve did not approve of open source mods and when the author retired the mod it would be up to Steve to allow someone else to take over the mod and have access to its source code.

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested to see where this goes, but it does surprise me.

Btw the author you are referring to is actually OP  ;D
 
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Offline twice2double (OP)

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2021, 02:45:11 PM »
I'm very surprised to see that Steve has approved an open-source modding project. My recollection from the author of AuroraMod was that Steve did not approve of open source mods and when the author retired the mod it would be up to Steve to allow someone else to take over the mod and have access to its source code.

I can't speak for Steve (and I welcome his input here), but based on our discussions, this is why I think he's OK with people using the open source AuroraPatch versus allowing people to work with AuroraMod:

AuroraMod consisted of a deobfuscated and decompiled version of Aurora. It was essentially a messy and convoluted version of the Aurora source code, modified, then recompiled into an executable.
Someone contributing to AuroraMod would effectively have access to the entire code base (albeit not pleasant to work with).
I can see why this is scary from the point of view of Steve as it increases the chance of someone stealing the code and working on their own fork (granted that would be a lot of man-hours and be very bug-prone).

AuroraPatch on the other hand doesn't exist or make any sense without Aurora. It doesn't expose any of the source code of Aurora itself.
Instead of having an overview of the entire code base (like AuroraMod), it's like having a magnifying glass that allows you to look at the execution state of the application at certain points in time.
No deobfuscation or explicit decompilation is done.

That's my take on it anyways.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2021, 02:59:04 PM by twice2double »
 
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Offline Droll

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2021, 02:46:57 PM »
Installation

This patch requires the AuroraPatch runtime and the UIControls helper patch (both included).

Extract/copy all the files from the attached zip into your Aurora folder.

Running

Run AuroraPatch.exe from inside the Aurora directory.


I followed these instructions and extracted all the files to the Aurora directory but it seems that the BlueBeGone patch is not being recognized by the executable. Otherwise it works perfectly and launches aurora correctly.
 

Offline twice2double (OP)

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #5 on: May 07, 2021, 02:53:50 PM »
Quote
I followed these instructions and extracted all the files to the Aurora directory but it seems that the BlueBeGone patch is not being recognized by the executable. Otherwise it works perfectly and launches aurora correctly.

Did it appear in the list of patches in the AuroraPatch window?
Does your AV have a history of having blocked anything?

For me it takes maybe 5s for the theme to kick in after starting Aurora.
 

Offline Droll

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #6 on: May 07, 2021, 02:54:34 PM »
Did it appear in the list of patches in the AuroraPatch window?
Does your AV have a history of having blocked anything?

No and No
 

Offline twice2double (OP)

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #7 on: May 07, 2021, 02:57:38 PM »
Quote
No and No

Hmm. I'm confused by that.
And the Aurora/Patches/BlueBeGone/BlueBeGone.dll file is still sitting there?
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #8 on: May 07, 2021, 02:59:29 PM »
Awesome! Thanks for the answers, really excited to see this come together!
 

Offline Droll

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2021, 02:59:34 PM »
Quote
No and No

Hmm. I'm confused by that.
And the Aurora/Patches/BlueBeGone/BlueBeGone.dll file is still sitting there?

Yes, same for the UIControls thing. They are both in their own subdirectories in the Patches directory.

Edit: Is it supposed to be 0Harmony.dll? Or is the 0 a typo?
 

Offline twice2double (OP)

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #10 on: May 07, 2021, 03:08:35 PM »
Quote
Edit: Is it supposed to be 0Harmony.dll? Or is the 0 a typo?

Yeah that should be good.
This is a bit of a long-shot, but can you try adding the following two xml files in your Aurora directory as well?
https://www.mediafire.com/file/zloa7ciry6caj7k/0Harmony.xml/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/talaypjgqfmvhlk/Newtonsoft.Json.xml/file
 

Offline Droll

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #11 on: May 07, 2021, 03:11:24 PM »
Quote
Edit: Is it supposed to be 0Harmony.dll? Or is the 0 a typo?

Yeah that should be good.
This is a bit of a long-shot, but can you try adding the following two xml files in your Aurora directory as well?
https://www.mediafire.com/file/zloa7ciry6caj7k/0Harmony.xml/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/talaypjgqfmvhlk/Newtonsoft.Json.xml/file

No effect, its the same problem. The patchlist is empty. As I said I pretty much followed the instructions and just plopped everything into the aurora directory.

Edit: I'd like to say that I've also looked at the AV and nothing is currently being blocked. The only AV activity was when I first tried to launch the .exe, it warned me and I told it to run anyways.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2021, 03:13:31 PM by Droll »
 

Offline twice2double (OP)

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #12 on: May 07, 2021, 03:13:42 PM »
Quote
No effect, its the same problem. The patchlist is empty. As I said I pretty much followed the instructions and just plopped everything into the aurora directory.

OK, thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot with me.
I'll mark the patch as broken for now and debug it tonight (I'll try to reproduce on a fresh windows install).

If anyone else has a similar experience (or if they get it working), please post here as well.
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: BlueBeGone - a mod that swaps all Aurora blue colors to black
« Reply #13 on: May 07, 2021, 05:38:03 PM »
:o

I'm very surprised to see that Steve has approved an open-source modding project. My recollection from the author of AuroraMod was that Steve did not approve of open source mods and when the author retired the mod it would be up to Steve to allow someone else to take over the mod and have access to its source code.

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested to see where this goes, but it does surprise me.

He spoke to me first :)

The AuroraPatch mod itself is open source, but it uses reflection and doesn't open up any Aurora code so it is a different situation to AuroraMod. It's also a very different situation now to the original debate on modding following the initial C# release. I was very concerned at the time that I would waste a lot of time chasing mod-related bugs. However, the code is far more stable now so any mod-related bugs should be more obvious. I am also conscious that people want the options around colours, etc. and this means I don't have to address it.

Offline twice2double (OP)

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OK I think we should be good now. 01010100 identified and fixed an issue with patch dependency loading.