[Feature]: When uninstalling a mod, generated @thumbs directories should be auto-removed

[JonnyOThan]

Problem

I just handled support for someone who had tried to uninstall USI LifeSupport using CKAN but apparently didn't click "Yes" on the window that asks if extra folders should be removed. This then caused other mods to think USI LS was still installed and caused fatal errors on startup.

I can understand the need for this window, but 99% of the time the answer should be Yes and it's a stumbling block for people that aren't familiar with what might have happened. It's also an annoyance when installing/uninstalling mods frequently.

Suggestion

Often, these extra folders are from generated @thumbs folders inside Parts directories. It would be awesome if CKAN could just automatically remove those folders specifically, and then if there's no extra folders left to remove that extra window doesn't even need to be shown. The other situation where this happens a lot is when mods write out a config file or user preferences. Since there's no formal pattern for that, I'm not sure if CKAN can do anything about those. And that's a case where someone might want to grab their user preferences before uninstalling too.

Alternatives

Just remove the extra folders 100% of the time like CKAN used to do. Or make an option for that (and ideally leave it enabled by default).

Additional context

No response

[HebaruSan]

Just remove the extra folders 100% of the time like CKAN used to do

Just to clarify, CKAN never did this. It went from always leaving the folders regardless, to asking the user whether it's OK to delete them (see #2962).

[HebaruSan]

Do you think the explanatory text could be improved? The checkboxes are checked by default because deleting is the most expected action, but maybe the current text doesn't get that point across as well as it could. I notice that the consequence about ModuleManager breaking everything is mentioned last, so maybe users get bored and stop reading before they get to that part? We could look into adding a blacklist of dirs that are treated as always-delete, but in the general case it's just not safe for CKAN to go auto-deleting files that it doesn't know the purpose of.

CKAN/GUI/Controls/DeleteDirectories.resx

Lines 120 to 121 in 858d71f

	<data name="ExplanationLabel.Text" xml:space="preserve"><value>The below directories are leftover after removing some mods. They contain files that were not installed by CKAN (probably either generated by a mod or manually installed). CKAN does not automatically delete files it did not install, but you can choose to remove them if it looks safe to do so (recommended).
	Note that if you decide not to remove a directory, ModuleManager may incorrectly think that mod is still installed.</value></data>

[HebaruSan]

@JonnyOThan, are there any other known folders like this that are auto-generated by the game at run time and could be deleted unconditionally? I have a dev branch that might be able to do this, and I'd like to make sure all the bases are covered.

[JonnyOThan]

Do you think the explanatory text could be improved?

Maybe, but no matter how simple it is there will always be some people that don't read it. Maybe the last sentence could be changed to something like "Leaving these directories in place may break other mods." and make it red and bold if possible.

are there any other known folders like this that are auto-generated by the game

I can't think of any off the top of my head...physics.cfg is kind of an interesting one; I could see a world where some mod changes how drag cubes are generated, and then if you uninstall it you'd want the drag cubes to go back to default. I think there is a real bug here somewhere - the mk16 parachute sometimes doesn't work properly for people after uninstalling mods because its drag cube gets messed up in physics.cfg.

I think FAR also leaves a .cfg file in the root gamedata that I've sometimes seen people not delete.

[HebaruSan]

This is essentially a duplicate of #3484, but that was transformed into a ConsoleUI enhancement request (which still makes sense to add).