ccloader-installer

The official automatic installer for CCLoader.

Usage instructions

NOTE: Do not use the "Download ZIP" button in the "Clone or download" menu! It downloads an archive of the source code, not the executable files!

NOTE 2: I'll be using the word "directory" a lot. It has the same meaning as "folder", I use it just because that's my personal preference. Also, I prefer forward slashes (/) to backward ones (\) in file paths.

1. Go to the latest release page.
2. Download an archive for your OS:
   • MS Windows (64-bit, x86_64): ccloader-installer_vX.Y.Z_windows.zip - contains ccloader-installer.exe
   • macOS: ccloader-installer_vX.Y.Z_macos.tar.gz - contains ccloader-installer.app (don't worry, macOS's standard Archive Utility application can handle this archive; why tar.gz?)
   • Linux (64-bit, x86_64): ccloader-installer_vX.Y.Z_linux.tar.gz - contains ccloader-installer
3. Unpack the archive, run the ccloader-installer executable file.
4. You will be presented with the choice to either autodetect your CrossCode game data directory or specify the path to it manually (what is the "CrossCode game data directory"?). In most cases the autodetection algorithm should work perfectly fine. Please note that you can't choose a game data directory which already contains a CCLoader installation - updating CCLoader isn't supported yet.
5. The rest of the process is automatic - the installer will make necessary changes to the game files.
6. After the installation is complete, you'll be presented with the option to open the mods directory. It is recommended to remember the path to it or note it down somewhere.

Manual CCLoader installation guide

NOTE: about the "Download ZIP" button: for now, you can indeed use it to download and install CCLoader. However, this is not recommended: first of all, this might change in the future. Second, you'll be downloading the latest bleeding-edge development version of CCLoader - you shouldn't do this without a reason because it may not work.

1. Go to the latest release page of CCLoader.

2. Download the zip archive named "source code" if you are on MS Windows, or the tar.gz one if you are on macOS or GNU/Linux (again, why tar.gz?). The name of the archive might change in the future, but we will keep the formats as they are now.

3. Unpack the archive directly into the CrossCode game data directory. Although it is recommended that you don't overwrite the package.json file - doing so may cause hard to debug issues.

   NOTE: there a few mods bundled together with CCLoader:

   1. simplify - provides functionality commonly used by mod authors, many other mods depend on it.
   2. ccloader-version-display - miscellaneous mod which displays CCLoader version in the bottom right corner of the main menu, near the CrossCode version.
   3. openDevTools - opens Chrome developer tools upon start up if you are using the SDK flavor of nw.js (might get deprecated soon).

   While ccloader-version-display and openDevTools are optional, you shouldn't delete simplify.

4. Open the file package.json in your preffered text editor. It should look something like this:

   {
     "name": "CrossCode",
     "version": "1.0.0",
     "main": "assets/node-webkit.html",
     "chromium-args": "--ignore-gpu-blacklist --disable-direct-composition --disable-background-networking --in-process-gpu --password-store=basic",
     "window": {
       "toolbar": false,
       "icon": "favicon.png",
       "width": 1136,
       "height": 640,
       "fullscreen": false
     }
   }

   You have to replace assets/node-webkit.html in the line which starts with "main": with ccloader/index.html. The result should look like:

   {
     "name": "CrossCode",
     "version": "1.0.0",
     "main": "ccloader/index.html",
     "chromium-args": "--ignore-gpu-blacklist --disable-direct-composition --disable-background-networking --in-process-gpu --password-store=basic",
     "window": {
       "toolbar": false,
       "icon": "favicon.png",
       "width": 1136,
       "height": 640,
       "fullscreen": false
     }
   }

Where do I put mods?

The mods directory is called mods and is located in the assets directory inside of CrossCode's game data directory.

Uninstalling CCLoader

1. Open your CrossCode game data directory.
2. Delete the directory named ccloader.
3. Optionally, you can delete the mods directory inside assets as well.
4. Revert the changes to made package.json - see the last step of the manual installation guide. Steam also has the "Verify Integrity of Game Files" button, pressing it will revert the changes made to game files.

What is the "CrossCode game data directory"?

Basically it is the directory which contains CrossCode assets, CCLoader (after its installation, of course) and the file named package.json. It has roughly the following layout (I excluded uninteresting files):

assets/                 CrossCode assets
  data/                 JSON data files
  js/                   compiled JavaScript code
  media/                sprites, sound effects, background music etc
  ...
  mods/                 this directory is created by ccloader-installer, you can put mods here
  ...
  node-webkit.html      the file which is opened when the game starts
ccloader/               this is where the installer puts everything related to CCLoader
  ...
package.json

It is commonly located in the CrossCode installation directory on Windows and GNU/Linux, on macOS it is located in <CrossCode installation directory>/CrossCode.app/Contents/MacOS/Resources/app.nw.

Here are the paths to the CrossCode installation directory if you installed it via Steam:

• MS Windows: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\CrossCode or C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\CrossCode
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/CrossCode
  path to the game data directory for convenience: ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/CrossCode/CrossCode.app/Contents/MacOS/Resources/app.nw
• GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like OSes: ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/CrossCode

Why .tar.gz and not .zip?

Because dmitmel is a UNIX zealot.

Basically because .tar.gz stores macOS and Linux (i.e. UNIX) file attributes, whereas .zip stores Windows (i.e. MS-DOS) ones. Therefore, it's more convenient (although not strictly necessary) to use .zip archives in the Windows world, and .tar.gz ones everywhere else. .zip is usually seen as a common archive interchange format between all OSes, although I use OS-specific archives when distributing files specifically for Windows or, say, specifically for macOS.

Relevant StackExchange answer

What does the installer exactly do?

1. Fetches the information about the latest release of CCLoader from CCModDB.
2. Downloads the latest release .tar.gz archive of CCLoader. I chose to use .tar.gz here instead of .zip or OS-specific archives because:
   1. MS-DOS file attributes are practically useless in our case, but the executable flag of UNIX file permissions may come in handy if we choose to distribute scripts or helper programs together with CCLoader.
   2. The Rust implementation of Tar is smaller than of Zip.
   3. I can reuse the gzip implementation from zlib since libcurl already depends on it.
3. Unpacks ccloader and assets/mods subdirectories from the archive into a temporary directory inside of CrossCode's game data directory.
4. Moves ccloader from the temporary directory to the game data directory.
5. Creates directory assets/mods in the game data directory.
6. Moves mods from the temporary directory to assets/mods if they aren't already there.
7. Patches package.json as described in the manual installation guide.

Contacts

ccloader-installer is developed primarily by me, @dmitmel. You can contact me (to request features or support) either via the bug tracker, the official CrossCode Discord server or the CCDirectLink Discord server (the last way is the preffered one).