So you have made some cool custom content, and you want to share it on the Steam Workshop. How do you go about this? How does the uploader work?

This guide is here to guide you through the steps of what "addons" are, and how it really works.

A package as defined by Nimble Writer is essentially a zip file. When Nimble Writer starts, it will look for a folder named "Packages" first. If it exists, it will find all zip files inside of that folder and - if they are valid zip files - load every file and mount them so that files inside of it can be used as if they were available from the root directory of the application.

For example, if Nimble Writer wants to list all files in Themes/Backgrounds in order to make the list of backgrounds available in the settings dialog, it will first go over the physical files (which is files on disk, outside of packages) and list them, but also adds mounted files from packages to this list, for example:

• Themes/Backgrounds/SkyBlue.png
  
• Themes/Backgrounds/Pink.png
  
• Themes/Backgrounds/Light.png
  
• Themes/Backgrounds/Khaki.png
  
• Themes/Backgrounds/Dark.png
  
• Packages/TalosPrinciple.zip/Themes/Backgrounds/Talos_Wallpaper07.jpg
  
• Packages/TalosPrinciple.zip/Themes/Backgrounds/Talos_Wallpaper08.jpg

The same goes for when Nimble Writer tries to open a file. So in the example above, if you select Talos_Wallpaper07.jpg as your background, it will use the file in the package instead of a file on disk.

There are some rules you should remember with this system, though:

• If there is both a physical file and a file in a package, the physical file will be used.
  
• If there are multiple packages that define the same file, the last loaded package will be used.
  
• Packages are loaded in alphabetical order for packages in the Packages folder.
  
• Packages are loaded in order of Steam Workshop subscription in the case of Workshop packages.

Packages from Steam Workshop are loaded from your Steam user data directory, so that is outside of the Packages folder. This is also why the order of loading is different for these.

Below will be a few sections on creating packages, where I give a few examples on how to create packages for:

• Themes
  
• Custom note models
  
• Addons (Lua scripts)

Creating themes is probably the easiest, because there's a button in the settings dialog for quickly packaging up entire themes into a zip file, ready to be uploaded to the Steam Workshop.

Therefore, the easiest way to create packages for themes is to use the "Save theme" button:


You will see the following dialog. Make sure you check "Prompt to save as a zip file" in order to automatically create a package for the Steam Workshop:


When you click Save, it will prompt you were to save the json file for your theme first. Simply save this file inside of your Themes folder. Next, it will ask you were you want to save the zip file. This can be anywhere! So save it somewhere you'll remember.

You can now directly open the Steam Workshop Uploader dialog and upload your item to the Workshop. Or - if you'd like - you can check out the contents of the zip file in your favorite zip packaging program:


In the above picture, notice that there's a Themes folder, and inside of that folder there is a Default folder and your theme's json file.

Instead of using the settings dialog to save the theme's zip file, you could've also created it yourself. In the next section, we'll make a package for custom note models ourselves.

Let's say you have created a custom note model. There's no easy button to save these as a zip file. To upload these to the workshop, you'll have to create a package manually. To do so, create a zip file anywhere: (Note: not a Rar file!)


Inside of this zip file, you first want to create a folder called NoteModels, just like there is a NoteModels folder in the application directory.


Now drag your files inside of that folder, and the package is done. Ready to be submitted to the Steam Workshop.

Creating packages for addons is the same as creating packages for custom note models, except there's just a few different files involved, depending on how complex your addon is.

Essentially all you have to do is create a zip file with the following structure:

To upload your newly created package to the Steam Workshop, click the addons button and select Steam Workshop Uploader:


Next, navigate to your created package (zip file), find a nice image for your item, and type in your Workshop item details, and click on Upload.


You're done!