Making mods easier to install

[Wolfie]

Even with the modules system out, there are some that want to do things the hard way, so to ease the pain some, possibly quite a bit depending on the mod...

The "act={name}" design, have that be databased, with some defaults that cannot be deleted. To add a new mod that has it's own "act" setup, either the Admin could add it, or the mods installer script could do it. (Mod makers: You could design your mods to let the admin decide what name they want to use based on this scheme!)

This could enormously increase the power of mod adding as functions such as "showtopic", etc, could be made to call on either a different script (which would in turn load the proper file), or perhaps have a "preload" section. The preload could either be PHP file to load or direct php code to run - add a new box to add another section of code to load, delete a box, re-order them, etc. This could give modders the ability to generate variable and data that would become available within template bits to use.

Along with that, the same when loading index.php. If something needs to be done for all page-loads (an example is Cy's mod-center), then a small bit of code could be added. Perhaps a way to modify a default routine for loading information that could allow more information to be loaded easier.

The overall idea is the same, but that's what I had in mind. The big part of it is being able to modify the 'act' function to open up flexibility. (Maybe even a backup file include in case the table isn't detected?)