Gale profiles

Gale profiles

If you and your players keep your mod list in Gale, BakaLoader can follow that list for a server. You paste the profile's code once, and from then on BakaLoader tells you when the profile has changed and offers to bring the server into line with it. Nothing is installed until you have read the list and pressed Install, and nothing is ever removed.

It is per server and it is off until you paste a code.

How to use it

Open the Mods screen. Under the BepInEx row there is a box called Follow a Gale profile.

1. In Gale, open the profile your players use and sync it. Gale gives you a short code to share (six letters and digits) and a longer id it syncs with. Either one works.
2. Paste it into the box and press Check now, or press Enter.
3. The line under the box says what the check found, for example Checked just now at 21:38: 2 to add, 1 to update. Press Review to see the list. A second sentence says when you last approved the profile.
4. Press Review. The dialog lists every mod the profile has that this server does not, and every mod the server has at a different version, with the profile's version beside the server's. Each one is ticked.
5. Untick anything you do not want on the server, then press Install. Not now closes the dialog and changes nothing.

The mods go in one at a time, with the same progress line and the same messages the Mods screen shows when you paste a link. They load the next time the server starts.

On a server with no BepInEx yet, a profile that carries the BepInEx pack gets it put in first, the way the Mods screen does, and pressing Install counts as your yes to that; if the profile does not carry it, Install stays off until you put BepInEx in from the BepInEx row. A mod whose pinned version is no longer on Thunderstore (the package was deprecated or that version removed) is reported by name and version, the rest still go in, and the next review marks it not available instead of offering it again.

When the profile changes again, a row comes up on the condition bar: Gale profile changed, with how many mods there are to add and to update, a Review button that opens the same dialog, and Dismiss.

Forget stops following the profile. The code, the last approval and your unticks are all cleared, and BakaLoader asks Gale nothing more for that server. The mods it installed stay where they are.

Unticking a mod

A mod you untick stays unticked. The next time the profile changes it is listed again, with its tick off, so you can see it is there without it going in. Tick it again in a later review and it is installed like any other.

Mods the profile has switched off

A mod that is in the profile but switched off in Gale is not installed. The dialog names those in one note line under the list, so you can see they were not missed.

When the server is running

A mod cannot be swapped while the server has it loaded. With the server up, the dialog says so and Install is greyed out. Stop the server, press Review again and install from there.

Dismiss

Dismiss on the condition bar means "not this version of the profile". The row stays down until the profile changes in Gale again. The line in the Mods screen still shows what is waiting, and Review there still opens the dialog.

How it works

The profile is read from Gale's sync service at gale.kesomannen.com, from the address that gives a profile's mod list and the time it was last changed. Reading it needs no account and sends nothing but the code in the address.

BakaLoader asks at three moments and no others: once after the window opens, each time you open the Mods screen, and when you press Check now. The request runs in the background and is given ten seconds. If Gale does not answer, or answers with something that is not a profile, the line under the box says so in one sentence and nothing else happens: no condition bar row, no popup.

The comparison is made against the server's own plugins folder, read the same way the Mods screen reads it: the name and version in each mod's manifest.json. Names are compared without caring about upper and lower case, and versions as versions, so 1.2 on the server and 1.2.0 in the profile are the same. For each mod in the profile the answer is one of these:

• to add: in the profile, switched on, not on the server
• to update: on the server at a different version, higher or lower; the server follows the profile, and the dialog marks a step down as older
• same: nothing to do
• unticked: you said no to it earlier
• switched off: off in the profile, so skipped
• BepInEx itself: every Valheim profile carries the loader pack, and it is left to the BepInEx row

Mods on the server that the profile does not have are left alone.

The condition bar row comes up only when there is something to add or update that you have not unticked, and only when the profile's last change time is different from the one you last approved or dismissed. It sits under every row about something going wrong right now, under the unsaved stop and the stray save folder rows, and above the mod updates and restart pending rows.

Install takes each ticked mod through the Mods screen's own install from Thunderstore, with the profile's version written into the address, so the download, its size check and its failure messages are the same ones you get from a pasted link. Dependencies are not resolved, the same as a pasted link: a profile from Gale normally lists them itself. Your unticks are saved first. When every ticked mod has gone in, the profile's change time is stored as approved and the row clears. If one fails, nothing is stored, so the row and the list stay for the ones still to do. The ones that did go in are read off the server's folder again straight away, without asking Gale, so they drop out of the counts and are not offered a second time.

Each server keeps three things in its profile: the code, the change time you last approved or dismissed, and the names you unticked. A server made with New server or Duplicate starts with none of them.

What it never does

• It never removes a mod. There is no part of it that can.
• It never installs anything you have not seen in the dialog and pressed Install for. There is no automatic install, and the scheduled restart does not reach for it.
• It never installs into a plugins folder a running server has open.
• It never asks Gale about a server that has no code pasted, and never asks at any moment other than the three above.
• It never sends Gale anything about you, your server or your players. The code in the address is the whole request.
• It does not touch config files. Gale profiles can carry configs; reading them is not part of this.

Questions people ask

Does it update my players' mods? No. This is the server's plugins folder only. Your players keep their own Gale profile in step themselves.

I pasted a code and it says it is not a Gale profile code. The box only takes the six character code or the longer id Gale syncs with. Anything else is turned down before it is sent anywhere, so a typo costs nothing. Copy it from Gale again.

It says Gale has no profile with that code. The profile was deleted in Gale, or the code was copied short.

I dismissed the row and it came back. The profile changed in Gale since you dismissed it. A dismissal holds for the version of the profile you were looking at.

See Privacy and network for the request itself, and Mods for the screen it lives on.