MM is a collaborative module manager for DCS, hence it's name. MM will setup a project structure for you to use in your DCS projects. MM will dynamically load your modules during development with the use of two triggers. For production, you can generate a static file containing all code, or a static file that remotely loads code from GitHub at runtime. All of this is accomplished through a suite of command-line development tools.

1. Git, For command-line functions.
2. Curl, This should be included in your window's installation if you are using Windows 10 or 11. If not, you can get it from here. Make sure to add to your path.

I recommend creating a fork of MM, so you can track your user script files. If this is your own organization's repository, skip this step.

To do this:

1. On the repository page on GitHub, click the fork button on the top right.
2. Adjust owner as necessary and name the repository whatever you want.
3. If you want, change the description and unselect Copy the main branch only if you want to use newer features.
4. Click Create Fork.

1. If you are unfamiliar with Git, I recommend learning basics before continuing to use MM.
2. You can use command-line or download the code directly from GitHub.
3. Clone the repository into any directory you like.

Lua 5.1.5 is included and is needed to run MM from the command-line to make use of it's features. This is the same version that DCS uses, but in theory you could use a newer version. Simply add to your path, the location of the Lua folder included with this installation.

1. Go to your Environment Variable settings and add [PathToYourRepository]\Lua to Path

   

You only need to do this once!

Source control is made easier with sym-linking. Files will automatically be linked to your DCS Scripts folder and tracked with git. The mission initialization script (MM.lua) will dynamically add your scripts for you. You can instead work out of your script's folder should you wish.

1. Download and install Link Shell Extension
2. Restart explorer if necessary.
3. Right-click your repository directory and select Pick Link Source
4. Navigate to ?:\Users\[username]\Saved Games\DCS.[version]\Scripts
5. Right-click and select Drop As.. > Symbolic Link
6. Rename the dropped link directory as anything your would like, preferably the same name as your repository.

The order of triggers is very important! Note: You cannot use the initialization script function for this. Make sure to replace [YourRepository] with the correct path.

1. Go to triggers in ME, and add a mission start trigger called Load Config
2. Add a Do-Script action with the following text: dofile(lfs.writedir() .. [[Scripts\[YourRepository]\Config\Config.lua]])
3. Repeat and add another mission start trigger called Load MM.
4. Add a Do-Script action with the following text: dofile(lfs.writedir() .. [[Scripts\[YourRepository]\MM.lua]])

Your mission will initialize MM and all of your user scripts dynamically, meaning you can change code without having to add your script to the mission again.

To execute code on the mission, MissionScripting.lua must not be sanitized. You must be careful when downloading missions from other users to prevent unwanted code execution.

1. Navigate to [DCS installation]\Scripts\MissionScripting.lua
2. Adjust the file to no longer sanitize by adding comments. This is necessary to allow MM to operate the File System.

do
 --sanitizeModule('os')
 --sanitizeModule('io')
 --sanitizeModule('lfs')
 --require = nil
 --loadlib = nil
end

MM needs to know a couple of things. Inside your project directory, there is a Config directory. Inside is .Config.lua. The defaults should work fine except for the Project Name which you must change.

1. Copy the file into a new file called Config.lua in the same directory.
2. Follow all the instructions within.
3. If you want to, you can delete the .gitignore file to add your Config.lua back to tracking. Add whatever you want into your config.

You can add a .env to manage your secrets inside of the Config directory. You may need to provide a GitHub PAT to increase your API limit with some of the command-line functions. eg. GITHUBPAT='[YourToken]'

This is the whole reason this framework exists. Instead of including every Module into the framework, you can pick and choose what you want. For this to work, you must have added lua to your path. MM.lua can be executed from the command line and has a number of useful functions. All commands can be executed from your project directory.

To install a module:

1. Run: MM list -a to list the available repositories.
2. Run: MM install moose to add the MOOSE module to your project.

To update a module:

1. Run: MM update -i moose or MM update -a to update all modules in the project.

To remove a module:

1. Run: MM remove moose

MM includes a simple listener that listens to the dcs.log file. To use:

1. Run: MM listen

1. Run: MM help to see other things you can do.

The only folder you need to be concerned about are Modules\User. MM dynamically and statically loads modules in this order: Core -> Community -> User. In each of these module directories there must be an Init.lua file. This file dictates in which order modules are loaded. MM includes an example of how this should be done. The Community modules are automatically initialized for you.

Example:

Modules\User\Init.lua

do
   local Init = {
      'src', -- Load the src directory
      'test1' -- Then load the test1 directory
   }
   
   return Init
end

Inside each directory you must include another Init.lua file to specify which files should be loaded by MM.

Example:

Modules\User\src\Init.lua

do
   local Init = {
      'Test.lua' -- Load a file called Test.lua. Must be a relative path if you have more nested directories.
   }
   
   return Init
end

MM will now load everything in the correct order! Because MM dynamically loads modules, anything added by MM into Community will be accessible to Test.lua.

During development it is useful to dynamically load modules. Your server should probably not do this because this would require you to set-up MM. Your server should be as simple as possible and your production .miz file should statically load MM with one mission trigger. You have two options with MM: you can generate a lua file that contains all your code, or you can generate a lua file that loads the code from your repository. To do this we will use freeze.

Generate one file with entire code:

1. Run MM freeze

Generate one file that downloads code from GitHub at runtime:

1. Run MM freeze -r

This is particularly interesting because you can easily share you missions with custom code with little to no set-up from end-user.

Modify your .miz file in the ME to only include the lua file generated in the Builds directory:

1. Go to triggers in ME, and add a mission start trigger called Load MM (or whatever you want).
2. Add a Do Script File action.
3. Open the file generated in Builds. Only use the remote file or static file.

Creating your own commands are very easy.

1. Create a new file with the name of the command in Modules\Core\Commands

Lets look at the List.lua command as an example.

-- Define your options. Options are passed like "MM list -a"
-- This is completly optional, you can manually get the arguments using "arg" global.
local Options = {
    -- Flag to list installed modules.
    i = {
        fun = function(self) self.Mode = 'i' end,
        desc = 'Update all modules.'
    },
    -- Flag to list all modules.
    a = {
        fun = function(self)
            self.Mode = 'a'
        end,
        desc = 'Update an individual module.'
    },
    -- You can store parameters supplied by arguments in the following way. They will
    -- be accessible after instantiation if the user supplies them.
    x = {
       fun = function(self, param) self.Example = param  end,
       desc = 'Example description',
       param = 'Example'
    }
}

-- Instantiate a new COMMAND
-- The first argument is the name, the second the description of the command,
-- and the third is the Options you defined earlier.
local List = COMMAND:New('list', 'List installed or available MM modules.', Options)

-- You can create any function you want.
function List:_List(Table)
    for Name, URL in pairs(Table) do
        self:Out('%s <%s>', Name, URL)
    end
end

-- This function automatically gets executed by MM if user runs the command.
function List:Execute()
    if not arg[2] then self:Help() return end

    if self.Mode == 'i' then
        if not REPOSITORIES then self:Out('No modules installed.') return end

        self:_List(REPOSITORIES)
    elseif self.Mode == 'a' then
        self:_List(_REPOSITORIES)
    end
end

return List

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1. Lua 5.1.5
2. LuaFileSystem (LFS)