# LOOT

## Contents

1. Introduction
2. Installation & Uninstallation
3. Using LOOT
   1. Initialisation
   2. The Header Bar
   3. Plugin Cards & Sidebar Items
   4. Filters
   5. Editing Plugin Metadata
   6. Editing Settings
4. Themes
5. Contributing & Support
6. Credits
7. License
8. Version History

## Introduction

LOOT is a plugin load order optimiser for TES IV: Oblivion, TES V: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4. It is designed to assist mod users in avoiding detrimental conflicts, by automatically calculating a load order that satisfies all plugin dependencies and maximises each plugin's impact on the user's game.

LOOT also provides some load order error checking, including checks for requirements, incompatibilities and cyclic dependencies. In addition, it provides a large number of plugin-specific usage notes, bug warnings and Bash Tag suggestions for Wrye Bash.

While LOOT is able to calculate correct load order positions for the vast majority of plugins using only their content, it cannot do so for all plugins. As such, LOOT provides a mechanism for supplying additional plugin metadata so that it may sort them correctly. An online masterlist is provided to supply metadata for many plugins that need it, while users can make their own metadata additions, which are saved in their userlist.

LOOT is intended to make using mods easier, and mod users should still possess a working knowledge of mod load ordering. See Introduction To Load Orders for an overview.

## Installation & Uninstallation

LOOT requires Windows 7 or later.

LOOT can be installed either using its automated installer or manually. To install LOOT manually, extract the downloaded archive to a location of your choice.

If LOOT was installed using the installer, then use the uninstaller linked to in the Start Menu to uninstall LOOT. If LOOT was installed manually:

1. Delete the files you extracted from the location you chose.
2. Delete the LOOT folder in your local application data folder, which can be accessed by entering `%LOCALAPPDATA%` into Windows' File Explorer.

## Using LOOT

### Initialisation

When LOOT is run, it will attempt to detect which of the supported games are installed. If a default game has been set, LOOT will run for it, otherwise it will run for the same game as it last ran for. If the relevant game cannot be detected, or if there is no record of the last game LOOT ran for, it will run for the first detected game.

LOOT can also be launched with the `--game=<game folder name>` command line parameter to set the game to run for. If the supplied game folder name is valid, the default and last game values are ignored. The default folder names are `Oblivion`, `Skyrim`, `Fallout3`, `FalloutNV` and `Fallout4`.

If LOOT cannot detect any supported game installs, it will immediately open the Settings dialog. There you can edit LOOT's settings to provide a path to a supported game, after which you can select it from the game menu.

Once a game has been set, LOOT will scan its plugins and load the game's masterlist, if one is present. The plugins and any metadata they have are then listed in their current load order.

If LOOT detects that it is the first time you have run that version of LOOT, it will display a First-Time Tips dialog, which provides some information about the user interface that may not be immediately obvious.

### The Header Bar

LOOT's header bar, divided into sidebar and panel areas. The sidebar area contains the plugins and filters tabs. From left to right in the panel area are the Jump To General Information button, the game menu, and the sorting, masterlist update, search and main menu buttons. The game menu, masterlist update button and sorting button have been disabled, as the metadata editor is open.

The header bar provides access to LOOT's main features. Most of these features get disabled while the metadata editor is open, so if you're trying to use an option that is faded out, first close the editor.

#### Game Menu

LOOT's active game can be changed by clicking on it in the header bar, and selecting another game from the menu that is displayed. Games that have no install detected have their menu items disabled.

#### Masterlist Update & Sorting

The masterlist update process updates the active game's masterlist to the latest revision at the location given by the game's masterlist repository settings. If the latest revision contains errors, LOOT will roll back to the latest revision that works.

By default, sorting first updates the masterlist. LOOT then calculates a load order for your plugins, using their internal data and any metadata they may have. If a cyclic interaction is detected (eg. A depends on B depends on A), then sorting will fail.

Once LOOT has calculated a load order, it is compared with the current load order. If the current and calculated load orders are identical, LOOT will inform the user that no changes were made via a pop-up 'toast' notification. If the calculated load order contains changes, the plugin cards are sorted into that order and the masterlist update and sorting buttons are replaced with Apply and Cancel buttons, which apply and discard the calculated load order respectively. Changing games is disabled until the calculated load order is applied or discarded.

LOOT is able to sort plugins ghosted by Wrye Bash, and can extract Bash Tags and version numbers from plugin descriptions. Provided that they have the `Filter` Bash Tag present in their description, LOOT can recognise filter patches and so avoid displaying unnecessary error messages for any of their masters that may be missing.

Any errors encountered during sorting or masterlist update will be displayed on the General Information card.

#### Search

The search toolbar is displayed by clicking the search icon in the header bar, or using the `Ctrl-F` keyboard shortcut. It may be closed using the close button at the right of the toolbar.

Searching is performed as-you-type, or when the `Enter` key is pressed. All content visible on the front of plugin cards is searched, so the results may be affected by any filters you have active.

The plugin card list will be scrolled to the first card that contains a match. Matches may be scrolled between using the up and down chevron buttons, and the current match and the number of matches are displayed between them and the search input.

#### Main Menu

A few items in the main menu are not self-explanatory:

- Redate Plugins is provided so that Skyrim modders may set the load order for the Creation Kit. It is only enabled for Skyrim, and changes the timestamps of the plugins in its Data folder to match their current load order. A side effect of changing the timestamps is that any Steam Workshop mods installed will be re-downloaded.
- Copy Load Order copies the displayed list of plugins and the decimal and hexadecimal indices of active plugins.
- Copy Content copies the data displayed in LOOT's cards as YAML-formatted text.
- Refresh Content re-scans the installed plugins' headers and regenerates the content LOOT displays. This can be useful if you have made changes to your installed plugins while LOOT was open. Refreshing content will also discard any CRCs that were previously calculated, as they may have changed.

### Plugin Cards & Sidebar Items

Examples of plugin cards.

Each plugin is displayed on its own card, which displays all the information LOOT has for that plugin, and provides access to plugin-specific functionality, including editing its metadata. Each plugin also has an item in the sidebar's Plugins tab. The sidebar item contains the plugin's name and icons for plugins that load archives or have user metadata. It also displays the plugin's in-game load order index if the plugin is active. Clicking on a plugin's sidebar item will jump to its card, while double-clicking will jump to its card and open it in the metadata editor.

The plugin card's header holds the following information, some of which is only displayed if applicable:

1. The Active Plugin icon.
2. The plugin name.
3. The plugin's version number, extracted from its description field.
4. The plugin's CRC, which can be used to uniquely identify it. CRCs are only displayed after they have been calculated during conflict filtering or sorting, except the the CRC of the game's main master file, which is never displayed.
5. The Master File icon.
6. The Empty Plugin icon.
7. The Loads Archive icon.
8. The Has User Metadata icon.
9. The plugin menu button, which provides access to metadata-related features for the plugin. These are explained in later sections.

Bash Tag suggestions and messages are displayed below the plugin card's header.

If LOOT suggests any Bash Tags to be added, they will be displayed in green text, while any Bash Tags to be removed will be displayed in red text. For completeness, the list of Bash Tags to add will include any Bash Tags that are already specified in the plugin's description field. Users generally don't need to do anything with this information, as if they're using Wrye Bash it will automatically apply LOOT's suggestions, and if they're not using Wrye Bash then this information doesn't apply.

LOOT's plugin messages are a valuable resource, acting as a means of providing users with information that they might otherwise not obtain. It is important for a stable, healthy game that you act on any messages that require action. If you think a message suggests an unnecessary action, report it to an official LOOT thread. If you encounter a message that is non-conditional, ie. it suggests an action but is still displayed on subsequent runs of LOOT after the action has been carried out, also report it to an official LOOT thread, so that it can be made conditional.

### Filters

Clicking the Filters tab in the sidebar will replace the sidebar's plugin list with a list of filter toggles that can be applied to hide various combinations of plugins and other content. The available filter toggles are:

- Hide version numbers: Hides the version numbers displayed in blue next to those plugins that provide them.
- Hide CRCs: Hides the CRCs displayed in orange next to those plugins that provide them.
- Hide Bash Tags: Hides all Bash Tag suggestions.
- Hide notes: Hides all plugin messages that have the Note: prefix, or the equivalent text for the language selected in LOOT's settings.
- Hide 'Do not clean' messages: Hides all messages that contain the text Do not clean, or the equivalent text for the language selected in LOOT's settings.
- Hide all plugin messages: Hides all plugin messages.
- Hide inactive plugins: Hides all plugins that are inactive.
- Hide messageless plugins: Hides all plugins that have no visible messages.

The filter toggles have their states saved on quitting LOOT, and they are restored when LOOT is next launched. There are also two other filters in the sidebar tab:

- A content filter. This hides any plugins that don't have the filter input value present in any of the text on their cards.
- A conflict filter. This filters the plugin cards displayed so that only plugins which conflict with this plugin will be visible. If this plugin loads an archive, other plugins that load archives which may contain conflicting resources are also displayed. Sorting with the conflict filter active will first deactivate it.

### Editing Plugin Metadata

The metadata editor panel.

LOOT uses metadata to supply plugins with messages and Bash Tag suggestions, and to help it sort plugins that it can't otherwise sort correctly. Users can add to their plugins' metadata through the metadata editor panel, and plugins with user metadata are indicated with a Has User Metadata icon.

The editor panel is accessed by clicking the Edit Metadata item in a plugin's menu, or by double-clicking a plugin name in the sidebar. Only one plugin's metadata can be edited at a time. While the editor panel is open, the plugin sidebar also displays any non-zero plugin priorities, to aid setting new priority values. The editor can be resized by grabbing the top of the editor's header and dragging it up or down.

The editor's header displays the name of the plugin being edited, Save Metadata and Cancel buttons, and a row of tabs. The Main tab's page contains the following inputs:

- The Enable Edits toggle must be on for LOOT to use any user-added metadata, otherwise it will be ignored.
- The Global Priority toggle controls how LOOT compares plugin priorities. If off, the plugin's priority will only be compared against plugins that conflict, and empty plugins. If on, the plugin's priority will be compared against all plugins.
- The Priority Value input sets the plugin's priority value, which is used to modify plugin position relative to others. Plugins with higher priority values load after plugins with lower priority values. Plugins have a default priority of 0.

The other tab pages contain metadata tables, which are detailed below. New rows can be added, and existing user-added rows can be removed, though rows containing metadata from the masterlist cannot. The Load After, Requirements and Incompatibilities tables can have rows added by dragging and dropping plugins from the sidebar into the table area.

Table | Description
--- | ---
Load After | This is a list of plugins which, if present, the current plugin must load after, but which are not required. This metadata can be used for resolving specific compatibility issues. Each entry has three fields: The filename is the path, relative to the game's Data folder, of the file to be checked for. This field is required. It gives the filenames of installed plugins as autocomplete suggestions. The display name is optional, and if specified will be used instead of the filename in any error messages that are displayed if a problem is encountered relating to the file. The condition is the optional condition string that is used to determine if the file should be checked for. If left blank, the file will always be checked for. Condition strings are a relatively advanced part of LOOT's functionality, and their syntax is covered in the Metadata Syntax documentation.
Requirements | This is a list of files that are required by the current plugin for it to function correctly. The current plugin will be loaded after any plugins listed. LOOT will also display an error message if any of the listed files are missing. Any file, not just plugins, can be listed here, and each entry has the same three fields as for the load after table. Note that listing a plugin's masters as requirements is unnecessary, as LOOT already checks them.
Incompatibilities | This is a list of files that are incompatible with the plugin. LOOT will display an error message if any of the listed files are found. Any file, not just plugins, can be listed here, and each entry has the same three fields as for the load after table.
Messages | A list of messages that are to be displayed for the plugin in LOOT's report. These have no bearing on a plugin's position in the load order. Each message has four fields: The type is fairly self-explanatory, and is used to provide messages of varying severity with appropriate emphasis in LOOT's report. The content is the actual message text. The condition is, like for the corresponding file field, used to determine if the message should be displayed. If left blank, the message is displayed. The language is the language LOOT runs in that the message will be displayed for. This field has no effect for user-added messages, as they cannot contain multiple localisations, and LOOT will always display messages that have only one localisation, even if it doesn't match the current language. If a message's condition determines that it should not be displayed, then it will not be displayed, no matter the language. However, if a message's condition determines that it should be displayed, but the language is specified and doesn't match the language LOOT is running in, the message will not be displayed.
Bash Tags | A list of Bash Tags. These are used by Wrye Bash when generating a Bashed Patch, and are detailed in Wrye Bash's readme. LOOT's metadata includes Bash Tag addition and removal suggestions, and any Bash Tags that came with the plugin are also displayed. As LOOT can suggest Bash Tags be added or removed, it is possible for the same Tag to appear twice, being suggested for addition and removal. In such cases, removal overrides addition. Each Bash Tag has three fields: The state determines whether the Tag is to be suggested for addition or removal. The name is the actual Bash Tag name. The field gives autocomplete suggestions for Bash Tags supported by the current game. The condition decides if the Tag is to be suggested or not. It functions as for files and messages. If a plugin's masters are missing, an error message will be displayed for it. Filter patches are special mods designed for use with a Bashed Patch that do not require all their masters to be present, and so any plugin with the `Filter` tag applied and missing masters will not cause any errors to be displayed.
Dirty Info | A list of dirty plugin CRCs and related information. Each row has five fields: The CRC of the dirty plugin. The ITM Count for the dirty plugin. The number of Deleted References that the dirty plugin contains. The number of Deleted Navmeshes that the dirty plugin contains. The name of the Cleaning Utility to use to clean the dirty plugin. LOOT uses the information supplied to construct a warning message for the plugin if it matches any of the given CRCs.
Locations | A list of URLs that the mod to which the plugin belongs can be found at. This metadata is not currently used by LOOT, but it may be useful to record it. Each location has two fields: The URL at which the plugin's parent mod can be found. The Name you wish to give the URL.

### Editing Settings

LOOT's settings dialog.

LOOT's settings may be accessed by clicking Settings button in LOOT's menu bar. The settings are detailed in the table below.

Setting | Description
--- | ---
Default Game | If set to something other than Autodetect, this overrides game autodetection. If the game specified is not detected, LOOT falls back to autodetection.
Language | Controls the language LOOT uses. Any plugin messages that do not have translations in the selected language will be displayed in English, if available, or in their available language otherwise.
Enable Debug Logging | If enabled, writes debug output to `%LOCALAPPDATA%\LOOT\LOOTDebugLog.txt`. Debug logging can have a noticeable impact on performance, so it is off by default.
Update masterlist before sorting | If checked, LOOT will update its masterlist, should an update be available, before sorting plugins.

LOOT's game-specific settings can be customised in the games table. New game profiles can be added, making it easy to use LOOT across multiple copies of a game, including total conversion mods. LOOT ships with settings for the Nehrim - At Fate's Edge total conversion mod as an example. Game profiles can also be deleted, though the active game cannot have its profile deleted, and LOOT will recreate the profiles for the base games it supports (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4) when it is next run.

The game settings are explained in the table below.

Game Setting | Description
--- | ---
Name | The name of the game, or another identifying text, that is displayed in menus and the LOOT's title bar.
Base Game Type | Every game LOOT runs for must use the plugin file format and load order system of one of the following games: TES IV: Oblivion TES V: Skyrim Fallout 3 Fallout: New Vegas Fallout 4
LOOT Folder Name | The sub-folder which LOOT uses to store the game's files in. Each game must be given a unique sub-folder.
Master File | The game's main master file. This is checked for when detecting if the game is installed.
Masterlist Repository URL | The URL of the repository that LOOT uses to update its local copy of the masterlist. If left empty, masterlist updating will be skipped. Masterlist repositories are Git repositories that are configured to allow unauthenticated read access and contain a masterlist file named `masterlist.yaml` in their root directory. The LOOT team maintains a set of official repositories for the games that LOOT supports by default.
Masterlist Repository Branch | The branch of the masterlist repository that LOOT should get masterlist updates from.
Install Path | The path to the game's folder, in which the Data folder lies. Either this or a registry key must be supplied.
Install Path Registry Key | The registry key, in `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE`, that contains the install path of the game. This is used to obtain the install path if LOOT has no previous record of the game's install path, or LOOT's stored install path is invalid. Either this or an install path must be supplied.

## Themes

LOOT's user interface has CSS theming support. A dark theme is provided with LOOT: to use it, rename `dark-theme.css` in the `resources/ui/css` folder to `theme.css`. A working knowledge of CSS is required to create new themes, though the provided dark theme CSS file is commented to provide some assistance.

## Contributing & Support

LOOT is very much a community project, and contributions from its users are very welcome, whether they be metadata, translations, code or anything else. The best way to contribute is to make changes yourself at GitHub! It's the fastest way to get changes you want applied, and you'll get your name automatically immortalised in our credits.

If you encounter an issue with LOOT, check the Frequently Asked Questions page in case a solution is available there.

Otherwise, general discussion and support takes place in LOOT's official forum thread, which is linked to on LOOT's homepage.

If you want to submit metadata, the easiest way to do so is to add the metadata to your own LOOT install, then use the Copy Metadata feature to easily get it in a form that you can then edit into a masterlist on GitHub or post in the official forum threads.

Information on dirty plugins is very welcome, but for such information to be useful we require at least the filename and the CRC of the dirty plugin. The CRC may be calculated using Wrye Bash or 7-Zip, with other sources being unverified as correct. In the case of 7-Zip, the CRC checksum for data is the one required. In addition to the CRC, the number of records removed (the ITM count) and/or undeleted (the UDR count) are also welcome.

## Credits

LOOT is developed on GitHub, and a full list of GitHub contributors may be found here.

LOOT's masterlists were largely converted from BOSS's masterlists, and so credit is due to the very large number of sources and people who have contributed to them.

In addition, the following are credited with application-related support:

- Original icon: jonwd7
- Translations:
  - Brazilian Portuguese: Kassane
  - Chinese: bluesky404
  - Danish: Freso
  - Finnish: 3ventic
  - French: Kaos
  - German: lpradel
  - Korean: SteamB23
  - Polish: Łukasz Niemczyk
  - Russian: Tokc.D.K.
  - Spanish: Sharlikran
- Beta testing: Too many to list, thank you all!

LOOT is written in C/C++, HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, and uses the Boost, Jed, Jed Gettext Parser, libespm, libgit2, libloadorder, Marked, pseudosem, Polymer and yaml-cpp libraries, and the Chromium Embedded Framework. Copyright license information for all these may be found here.

## License

LOOT is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, aside from the documentation, which is distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3. The full texts of the licenses are included with LOOT in the accompanying GNU GPL v3.txt and GNU FDL v1.3.txt files.

While the GPL license allows anyone to make derivative works of LOOT, the LOOT Team encourages those thinking of doing so to first discuss their reasoning for such an endeavour with the Team. It may be that what the derivative work would do differently is already planned for a future version of LOOT or would be happily integrated into LOOT, thus avoiding any extra effort by others.

LOOT has been specifically designed to prevent it being locked into the LOOT Team's official masterlist repositories. Nevertheless, the LOOT Team appeals to the community to avoid the distribution of unofficial masterlists, as this would only hamper the effort to create one set of stores for load order information. Any issues with a masterlist are best brought to the attention of the LOOT Team so that they may be remedied.

GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.3 Notice:

> Copyright (C) 2012—2016 WrinklyNinja
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
> A copy of the license is included in the file named "GNU FDL v1.3.txt".

## Version History

Only program history is recorded here. A full history of masterlist changes may be viewed by browsing the GitHub repositories.

### 0.9.2 - 3 August 2016

- Fixed error when applying filters on startup.
- Fixed hidden plugin and message counters not updating correctly after sorting.
- Fixed an error occurring when the user's temporary files directory didn't exist and updating the masterlist tried to create a directory there.
- Fixed the installer failing if LOOT was previously installed on a drive that no longer exists. The installer now always gives the option to change the default install path it selects.
- Fixed startup errors being reported incorrectly and causing additional errors that prevented the user from being informed of the original issue.
- Fixed the metadata editor's CRC input field being too short to fully display its validation error message.
- Fixed errors when reading some Oblivion plugins during sorting, including the official DLC.
- Fixed some cases where LOOT would fail to start.
- Fixed the conflict filter not including the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch's plugin (and any other plugin that overrides a very large number of records) in results.
- Fixed the "not sorted" message reappearing if the load order was sorted twice in one session and cancelled the second time.
- Fixed version numbers where a digit was immediately followed by a letter not being detected.
- Theming support and the dark theme have been reimplemented and reintroduced.
- Plugin filename and Bash Tag name fields will now autocomplete in the metadata editor.
- The in-game load order indices of active plugins are now displayed in the sidebar.
- Most URLs now use HTTPS.
- The Danish and French translations have been updated.
- The CEF (3.2743.1442.ge29124d), libespm (2.5.5), Polymer (1.6.0) and Pseudosem (1.1.0) dependencies have been updated to the versions given in brackets.

### 0.9.1 - 23 June 2016

- Removed support for Windows Vista.
- Added support for Fallout 4's Contraptions Workshop DLC, and the upcoming Vault-Tec Workshop and Nuka-World DLC. Support for the latter two is based on their probable but unconfirmed plugin names, which may be subject to change.
- Fixed user dirty metadata being read-only in the metadata editor.
- Fixed LOOT incorrectly reading a tag with no name from plugin descriptions containing `{{BASH:}}`.
- The content refresh menu item is now disabled during sorting.
- The conflicts filter toggle buttons have been removed from the plugin card menus, and the filter re-implemented as a dropdown menu of plugin names in the Filters sidebar tab.
- Enabling the conflicts filter now scrolls to the target plugin, which is no longer highlighted with a blue border.
- The layout of the Filters sidebar tab has been improved.
- The CEF (3.2704.1427.g95055fe), and libloadorder (9.4.0) dependencies have been updated to the versions given in brackets.
- Some code has been refactored to improve its quality.

### 0.9.0 - 21 May 2016

#### Fixes

- Redate Plugins attempted to redate plugins that were missing, causing an error.
- LOOT would not launch when run by a user with a non-ASCII local application data path.
- Sorting processed priority value inheritance throughout the load order incorrectly, leading to some plugins being positioned incorrectly.
- The conflict filter displayed only the target plugin when enabled for the first time in a session.
- The behaviour of the search functionality was inconsistent.
- Duplicate messages could be displayed under certain circumstances.
- Opening the metadata editor for one plugin displayed the metadata for another plugin under certain circumstances.
- Changing the current game quickly could leave the UI unresponsive.
- Applying a filter then scrolling the plugin card list would display some cards with no content.
- Plugin cards would disappearing when jumping to a plugin card near the bottom of the load order using the sidebar.
- Clicking on a disabled element in a dropdown menu would cause the menu to close.
- The UI font size was too large, due to a misunderstanding of the Material Design guidelines.
- Attempting to build native Linux and 64-bit executables produced errors. Such builds are unsupported and no official builds are planned.

#### Additions

- Support for Fallout 4.
- A warning message is displayed in the General Information card if the user has not sorted their load order in the current LOOT session.
- An error message is displayed in the General Information card when a cyclic interaction sorting error is encountered, and remains there until sorting is next attempted.

#### Changes

- Improve sorting performance by only reading the header when loading game's main master file.
- References to "BSAs" have been replaced with the more generic "Archives" as Fallout 4's BSA equivalents use a different file extension.
- The sorting process now recognises when the sorted load order is identical to the existing load order and informs the user, avoiding unnecessary filesystem interaction.
- The metadata editor has been reimplemented as a single resizeable panel displayed below the plugin card list instead of a separate editor for each plugin card.
- Editable table styling has been improved to more closely align to the Material Design guidelines.
- Minor UI changes have been made to scrollbar and focus outline styling to improve accessibility.
- UI interaction performance has been improved, especially when scrolling the plugin card list.
- The PayPal donation link now points to the PayPal.Me service, which has a more polished UX and lower fees.
- LOOT's settings file handling has been reimplemented, fixing crashes due to invalid settings values and allowing missing settings to use their default values.
- Plugin version string extraction has been reimplemented, improving its accuracy and maintainability.
- Plugin CRC, file and version condition evaluation has been optimised to use cached data where it exists, avoiding unnecessary filesystem interaction.
- The French and Danish translations have been updated.
- The installer now only creates one shortcut for LOOT in the Start menu, following Microsoft guidelines.
- A lot of code has been refactored and improved to increase its quality.
- The Boost (1.60), CEF (3.2623.1401.gb90a3be), libespm (2.5.2), libgit2 (0.24.1), libloadorder (9.3.0) and Polymer (1.4) dependencies have been updated to the versions given in brackets.

#### Removals

- The Flattr donation link.
- The experimental theming support, as its implementation was incompatible with Polymer 1.2's styling mechanisms.

### 0.8.1 - 27 September 2015

- Fixed crash when loading plugins due to lack of thread safety.
- Fixed masterlist updater and validator not checking for valid condition and regex syntax.
- Check for safe file paths when parsing conditions.
- Updated Chinese translation.
- Updated Boost (1.59.0), libgit2 (0.23.2) and CEF (branch 2454) dependencies. This fixes the masterlist updater not working correctly for Windows Vista users.

### 0.8.0 - 22 July 2015

- Fixed Cannot read property 'push' of undefined errors when sorting.
- Fixed many miscellaneous bugs, including initialisation crashes and incorrect metadata input/output handling.
- Fixed metadata editors not clearing unsaved edits when editing is cancelled.
- Fixed LOOT silently discarding some non-unique metadata: an error message will now be displayed when loading or attempting to apply such metadata.
- Fixed userlist parsing errors being saved as general messages in the userlist.
- Fixed and improved LOOT's version comparison behaviour for a wide variety of version string formats. This involved removing LOOT's usage of the Alphanum code library.
- Improved detail of metadata syntax error messages.
- Improved plugin loading performance for computers with weaker multithreading capabilities (eg. non-hyperthreaded dual-core or single-core CPUs).
- LOOT no longer displays validity warnings for inactive plugins.
- LOOT now displays a more user-friendly error when a syntax error is encountered in an updated masterlist.
- Added support for loading custom user interface themes, and added a dark theme.
- Metadata syntax support changes, see the metadata syntax document for details.
- LOOT's installer now uses Inno Setup instead of NSIS.
- LOOT's installer now uninstalls previous versions of LOOT silently, preserving user data, instead of displaying the uninstaller UI.
- Updated German and Russian translations.
- Updated libgit2 to v0.23.0.

### 0.7.1 - 22 June 2015

- Fixed LOOT UI opening in default browser on launch.
- Fixed No existing load order position errors when sorting.
- Fixed message filters being ignored by plugin cards after navigating the list.
- Fixed output of Bash Tag removal suggestions in userlists and the API's `loot_write_minimal_list()`.
- Fixed display of masterlist revisions where they were wrongly interpreted as numbers.
- LOOT now uses versioned masterlists, so that new features can be used without breaking LOOT for users who haven't yet updated.
- Moved content filter into Filters sidebar tab. The `Ctrl-F` keyboard shortcut no longer focusses the content filter.
- Checkbox-toggled filters now have their last state restored on launch.
- Darkened background behind cards to increase contrast.
- Added content search, accessible from an icon button in the header bar, and using the `Ctrl-F` keyboard shortcut.
- Added Copy Load Order feature to main menu.
- Updated French translation.

### 0.7.0 - 20 May 2015

#### Fixes

- The `settings.yaml` included with the installer was very old.
- Inactive incompatibilities were displayed as error messages. They are now displayed as warnings.
- Masterlist entries that matched the same plugin were not being merged. Now one exact match and any number of regex matches will be merged.
- Masterlist updating failed when a fast-forward merge was not possible (eg. when remote has been rebased, or a different repository is used). Such cases are now handled by deleting the local repository and re-cloning the remote.
- Masterlist updating failed when the path to LOOT's folder included a junction link.
- Masterlists would not 'update' to older revisions. This can be useful for testing, so now they can do so.
- Crashes when trying to read corrupt plugins and after masterlist update completion.
- LOOT would crash when trying to detect a game installed to a location in which the user does not have read permissions, now such games are treated as not being installed.
- Plugins with non-ASCII description text would cause `codecvt to wstring` errors.
- LOOT would accept any file with a `.esp` or `.esm` extension as a plugin. It now checks more thoroughly, by attempting to parse such files' headers.
- LOOT would only detect Skyrim plugins as loading BSAs. Plugins for the other games that also load BSAs are now correctly detected as such.
- Depending on the plugins involved, sorting could produce a different load order every time it was run. Sorting now produces unchanging load orders, using existing load order position where there is no reason to move a plugin.

#### Additions

- Danish and Korean translations.
- If LOOT can't detect any installed games, it now launches to the settings dialog, where the game settings can be edited to allow a game to be detected.
- A Copy Content item in the main menu, to copy the plugin list and all information it contains to the clipboard as YAML-formatted text.
- A Refresh Content item in the main menu, which re-scans plugin headers and updates LOOT's content.
- LOOT is now built with High DPI display support.
- Masterlist updates can now be performed independently of sorting.
- A First-Time Tips dialog will be displayed on the first run of any particular version of LOOT.
- Attempting to close LOOT with an unapplied sorted load order or an open plugin editor will trigger a confirmation dialog.
- Support for GitHub Flavored Markdown in messages, minus features specific to the GitHub site, such as @mentions and emoji.
- Support for message content substitution metadata syntax in the masterlist.
- Display of LOOT's build revision has been added to the About dialog.
- Plugin location metadata can now be added through the user interface.
- A content filter, which hides plugins that don't have the filter text present in their filenames, versions, CRCs, Bash Tags or messages.

#### Changes

- New single-window HTML5-based interface and a new icon, based on Google's Material Design.
- LOOT now parses the masterlist and plugin headers on startup, and the resulting content is displayed with the plugins in their current load order.
- Each plugin now has its own editor, and multiple editors can be opened at once.
- Drag 'n' drop of plugins from the sidebar into metadata editor tables no longer requires the conflicts filter to be enabled.
- CRCs are calculated during conflict filtering or sorting, so are not displayed until either process has been performed.
- The View Debug Log menu item has been replaced with a Open Debug Log Location menu item to make it easier to share the file itself.
- Debug logging control has been simplified to enable/disable, replacing the Debug Verbosity setting with an Enable Debug Logging toggle.
- Changes to game settings now take immediate effect.
- Masterlist updating now exits earlier if the masterlist is already up-to-date.
- Masterlist revisions are now displayed using the shortest unique substring that is at least 7 characters long.
- Making edits to plugin metadata before applying a calculated load order no longer causes LOOT to recalculate the load order. Instead, the displayed load order is applied, and the metadata edits will be applied the next time sorting is performed.
- All references to UDRs have been replaced by the more technically-correct Deleted References term.
- The Hide inactive plugin messages filter has been replaced by a Hide inactive plugins filter.
- Copied metadata is now wrapped in BBCode `[spoiler][code]...[/code][/spoiler]` tags for easier pasting into forum posts.
- The Summary and General Messages cards have been combined into a General Information card.
- Sorting performance improvements.
- Updated Boost (1.58.0), libgit2 (0.22.2) and libloadorder dependencies.

#### Removals

- Messages with multiple language strings can no longer be created through the user interface. User-added multiple-language messages will be converted to single-language strings if their plugin's editor is opened then closed using the OK button.
- The Copy Name menu item has been removed, as plugin names can now be selected and copied using `Ctrl-C`.
- As LOOT no longer generates reports, it doesn't save them either.

#### API

- Fixed some documentation errors.
- Fixed the API creating a LOOT folder when being initialised.
- Fixed false successes for `loot_create_db()` when invalid paths were supplied.
- Fixed `loot_load_lists()` ignoring userlist paths, and accepting invalid paths.
- Fixed `loot_eval_lists()` accepting invalid language codes.
- Fixed `loot_get_dirty_info()` never outputting the `loot_needs_cleaning_no` code.
- Fixed `loot_write_minimal_list()` causing a crash when passed an invalid output path.
- Added load order sorting and application functions.
- Added masterlist update and revision checking functions.
- Added support for native Linux builds.
- Added unit testing of API functions to help ensure correctness and consistency of functionality.
- Added `loot_get_build_id()`, which outputs the shortened revision ID that the API was built from.

### 0.6.1 - 22 December 2014

- Fixed: Default Nehrim registry entry path.
- Fixed: Messages in the wrong language being selected.
- Fixed: LOOT windows opening off-screen if the screen area had been changed since last run.
- Fixed: Read-only `.git` folders preventing repository deletion.
- Fixed: Unnecessary plugins in cyclic dependency error messages.
- Fixed: Bash Tag suggestions displaying incorrectly.
- Fixed: The current game can no longer be deleted from the settings window.
- Fixed: Plugin metadata being lost when the settings window was exited with the "OK" button, leading to possible condition evaluation issues.
- Fixed: A blank report bug when running on systems which don't have Internet Explorer 11 installed.
- Fixed: Reports appearing empty of all content when no global messages are to be displayed.
- Changed: Updated Boost (1.57.0), libgit2 (0.21.3), wxWidgets (3.0.2) and libloadorder (6.0.3) dependencies. This includes a critical security vulnerability fix in libgit2.
- Changed: The game menu is now updated when the settings window is exited with the "OK" button.
- Changed: Updated Russian translation.
- Changed: Updated Brazilian Portuguese translation.
- Added: German translation.
- Added: The Large Address Aware flag to the LOOT executable.

### 0.6.0 - 05 July 2014

#### Fixes

- The uninstaller not removing the Git repositories used to update the masterlists.
- Miscellaneous crashes due to uncaught exceptions.
- Plugin priorities are now temporarily "inherited" during sorting so that a plugin with a low priority that is made via metadata to load after a plugin with a high priority doesn't cause other plugins with lower priorities to be positioned incorrectly.
- The default language is now correctly set to English.
- Defaults for the online masterlist repository used for Nehrim.
- Endless sorting loop that occurred if some user metadata was disabled.

#### Additions

- Display of masterlist revision date in reports.
- Report filter for inactive plugin messages.
- The number of dirty plugins, active plugins and plugins in total to the report summary.
- A find dialog to the report viewer, initiated using the `Ctrl-F` keyboard shortcut.
- LOOT's windows now remember their last position and size.
- Command line parameter for selecting the game LOOT should run for.
- Finnish translation.

#### Removals

- Support for Windows XP.
- Support for loading BOSS masterlists using the API. This was a leftover from when LOOT was BOSSv3 and backwards compatibility was an issue.
- The ability to open reports in an external browser. This was necessitated by the changes to report generation.
- The MSVC 2013 redistributable requirement.
- The "None Specified" language option is no longer available: English is the new default.

#### Changes

- Unified and improved the metadata editors launched during and outside of sorting.
  - The metadata editor now resizes more appropriately.
  - The mid-sorting instance hides the requirement, incompatibility, Bash Tags, dirty info and message lists.
  - Both instances now have a conflict filter, priority display in their plugin list and drag 'n' drop from the plugin list into whatever metadata lists are visible.
  - The mid-sorting instance also hides the load after entry edit button, and the button to add new entries (so drag 'n' drop is the only available method of adding entries).
  - The metadata editor now displays plugins with user edits using a tick beside their name, rather than bolding their name text.
  - Plugins that have been edited in the current instance have their list entry text bolded.
  - Checkboxes have been added to set whether or not a priority value is "global". The UI also now displays the priority value used in comparisons (ie. with the millions and higher digits omitted).
  - A right-click menu command for clearing all user-added metadata for all plugins has been added to the metadata editor.
- Missing master/requirement and incompatibility errors are downgraded to warnings if the plugin in question is inactive.
- Masterlist update errors have been made more user-friendly.
- If an error is encountered during masterlist update, LOOT will now silently delete the repository folder and attempt the update again. If it fails again, it will then report an error.
- Masterlist update now handles repository interaction a lot more like Git itself does, so should be less error-prone.
- Cyclic dependency error messages now detail the full cycle.
- LOOT's report now uses a static HTML file and generates a javascript file that is dynamically loaded to contain the report data. This removes the PugiXML build dependency.
- Debug log message priorities adjusted so that medium verbosity includes more useful data.
- Updated dependencies: libgit2 (v0.21.0), wxWidgets (v3.0.1), libloadorder (latest), libespm (latest).

### 0.5.0 - 31 March 2014

- Initial release.