Loader: Sideload legacy addons

[brittyazel]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I would like to use addons outside of the Nexus ecosystem, such as GW2Radial, but currently it and many other mods only allow loading via gw2-addon-loader/loader-core. Unfortunately, Nexus and gw2-addon-loader/loader-core conflict with each other(*), so I'm put in a difficult position of using either-or, which locks me out of one addon ecosystem or the other.

(*) I can't use chainloading as a means for Nexus to chainload gw2-addon-loader as I already need to chainload DXVK and therefore my d3d11_chainload.conf is already being occupied by DXVK's d3d11.dll file.

Describe the solution you'd like
While I would very much prefer that more addons implement the Nexus addon loader specification, it would be a great boon for Nexus to also be able to detect and load non-conformant addons in the way that gw2-addon-loader does. I'm uncertain how much of an task it would be to allow for Nexus to act as a generic-addon loader, on top of its current method for loading addons, but I think this would make an even stronger selling point for people to use and support Nexus as a drop-in replacement for loaders such as gw2-addon-loader, which haven't had active development for years.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I have an open request with the GW2Radial project for them to add in the means to load their addon according to Nexus' specification, but I'm uncertain if those developers will be interested in the legwork for that solution. Likewise, this would only solve the issue with this one-single addon, whereas there are many other non-Nexus addons that would benefit from being able to be loaded from Nexus directly.

An alternative, which is more specific to my situation of also using DXVK, would be to chainload multiple d3d11.dll files, but I'm uncertain if that's even possible. Right now, in order to make an addon like GW2Radial work I have 3 d3d11.dll files needing to be loaded: Nexus', AddonLoader's, and DXVK's.

[DeltaGW2]

The only existing non-Nexus addons are GW2Radial and GW2Clarity, it's kind of a non-issue given that Radial-Menus and Reffect exist. The only other thing Addon-Loader offers is SelectRenderer, which is a solution to a self-created problem anyway.

The developer of Radial, Clarity and Addon-Loader, no longer actively develops any of them to my knowledge.

Making those addons work with Nexus, both as a direct implementation to them or to add a workaround in Nexus is not really possible. I've tried both approaches.

Chainloading multiple d3d11.dll's also won't be a possibility because the only addons offering this function are ArcDPS and Nexus. Addon-Loader does not.

However, as mentioned SelectRenderer is the solution to this self-created problem created by Addon-Loader. Since it occupies both the d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll proxies, they came up with an addon to delegate these calls to regardless.

[brittyazel]

Understood. And yes, I'm using your Radial-Menus addon right now full-time, and it's functional and pleasant to use, albeit missing a number of notable features. From my understanding, those features 'do' exist in GW2Radial.

I know that Addon-Loader and SelectRenderer are no longer under active development, but I see movement on both GW2Radial and GW2Clarity as of just a couple months ago, so I don't think those two are necessarily stagnant. It's a shame that the upstream dev isn't interested in Nexus compatibility, and I'd be interested in understanding their rationale as to why...

And about multiple chainloads, this is what I had figured. It's a wonderful feature of Nexus that chainloading is allowed at all, particularly for those of us using DXVK, so thank you tremendously for your forward thinking in that regard. And yes, I had tried SelectRenderer prior, but it's very unmaintained currently, and was buggy the last time I tried using it.

So I guess if there's no path forward within Nexus for loading non-Nexus compatible addons, and the minimal set of non-Nexus compatible addons won't add that functionality in themselves, that basically leaves this issue dead in the water. I also recognize that my unique circumstances aren't the norm, with most people not requiring the use of three different mods all providing their own d3d11.dll file, so I totally understand not spending development time to try to solve my admittedly niche predicament. Pragmatically, it seems like the best path forward is to continue improving and enhancing Radial-Menus until this becomes a non-issue, but as you are the sole developer of that addon I can't really expect you to do so on top of all your work working on Nexus and the myriad of related projects. Truthfully, I was hoping that getting GW2Radial working with Nexus was the easier ask versus adding in GW2Radial's features into Radial-Menus.

[DeltaGW2]

The reality is, it was easier to develop Radial-Menus instead than implementing Nexus support in GW2-Radial, as that is very deeply rooted in the way Addon-Loader is built.
And again, sadly adding support for any arbitrary Addon-Loader addon is also not as simple, due to the nature of how it functions. It's not unthinkable that I will revisit it at some point - I am already adding much better support for ArcDPS in the current loader rewrite - but the value in getting two half-abandoned addons is not worth the effort that could be spent on other features or even expanding the existing Radial-Menus.
The reason I'm saying they are abandoned is because of the little activity on their respective repositories with the added fact of the developer recently saying on discord they don't think they "will return to active addon development".

[brittyazel]

Got it. Well alright then lol. I appreciate your time responding and explaining the situation. I guess we can close this ticket unless you think it's useful to keep open.

For the record, I put in two wishlist items a couple weeks back on the Radial-Menus repo. I was also going to try my hand at making the necessary changes myself, but I have very little experience developing for/within Windows, and it's likely going to take me some time to make heads or tails of Visual Studio and Microsoft's build tools. I'm much more adept at CLion and CMake, so hopefully some of that knowledge translates over. shrug

[DeltaGW2]

I'll keep this issue open, as it's still a relevant topic and also related to adding better support for Reshade and DXVK.

Regarding Radial-Menus, I'm currently a bit swamped so help is greatly appreciated, but I should finally have some more time to allocate in the coming weeks.