SimTools Dev Diary – May 2026
05/16/2026SimTools v4 — Development Roadmap
It's been a long road building SimTools from the ground up, and today I want to share a transparent look at what's coming — the full roadmap toward a polished, publicly distributable v4 release. This post covers the core application, the tooling ecosystem around it, and the miscellaneous utilities that will make development and community contribution far more sustainable long-term.
Let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
🧩 SimTools v4 — Main Application
The centerpiece of everything. SimTools v4 is a ground-up reimplementation of the utility suite, built on WPF with a modern, extensible architecture designed to support The Sims 1, 2, and 3 from a single unified interface.
At its core, v4 is about bringing together everything the community needs — mod management, save cleaning, gameplay fixes, and bug patches — without having to juggle a half-dozen separate tools or manually dig through game directories.
Gameplay Fixes — A collapsible, per-game fix browser presenting every available fix in an organized layout. Users can apply fixes individually or in bulk, with clear descriptions of what each fix does.
Save Cleaner — Tooling to inspect and sanitize save files, catching corruption or bloat before it becomes a game-breaking problem.
Bug Fix Dispatcher — Context-aware fix routines that check game installation paths, verify file hashes, and handle third-party tool downloads with version comparisons — all surfaced through a clean, right-click-friendly interface.
Music Player — An in-app music player window with dockable layout, shuffle support, and compatibility across WAV, FLAC, MP3, and M4A formats. Because sometimes you just want the right soundtrack while modding.
Localization — Full multilingual support shipping with Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and German, with infrastructure in place for community-contributed translations. v4 is the version I'm proud to put in front of the broader community. It's the version built to last.
What's being completed in v4:
Mod Management — A structured workflow for installing, removing, and verifying mods across all three game titles, with path validation and hash checking to confirm mod integrity.Gameplay Fixes — A collapsible, per-game fix browser presenting every available fix in an organized layout. Users can apply fixes individually or in bulk, with clear descriptions of what each fix does.
Save Cleaner — Tooling to inspect and sanitize save files, catching corruption or bloat before it becomes a game-breaking problem.
Bug Fix Dispatcher — Context-aware fix routines that check game installation paths, verify file hashes, and handle third-party tool downloads with version comparisons — all surfaced through a clean, right-click-friendly interface.
Music Player — An in-app music player window with dockable layout, shuffle support, and compatibility across WAV, FLAC, MP3, and M4A formats. Because sometimes you just want the right soundtrack while modding.
Localization — Full multilingual support shipping with Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and German, with infrastructure in place for community-contributed translations. v4 is the version I'm proud to put in front of the broader community. It's the version built to last.
🔄 Updater App
No one should have to manually track GitHub releases and re-download a zip every time a patch ships. The SimTools Updater is a standalone companion application that handles version management cleanly and without ceremony.
Planned behavior:
Startup version check — On launch (or on demand), the updater pings the configured repository base URL for the latest release manifest.
Delta awareness — Compares the running version against available releases and surfaces a modal confirmation dialog before any action is taken. No silent auto-updates.
Configurable endpoints — The base URL for update checks is surfaced in the Settings dialog, allowing power users or contributors running forks to point the updater at their own release channels. Graceful fallback — If the update check fails (no internet, repo unreachable), the updater fails quietly and lets SimTools continue as normal.
The updater ships as its own lightweight executable, invokable both from within SimTools and independently — useful for scenarios like automated deployment or scripted environments.
Planned behavior:
Startup version check — On launch (or on demand), the updater pings the configured repository base URL for the latest release manifest.
Delta awareness — Compares the running version against available releases and surfaces a modal confirmation dialog before any action is taken. No silent auto-updates.
Configurable endpoints — The base URL for update checks is surfaced in the Settings dialog, allowing power users or contributors running forks to point the updater at their own release channels. Graceful fallback — If the update check fails (no internet, repo unreachable), the updater fails quietly and lets SimTools continue as normal.
The updater ships as its own lightweight executable, invokable both from within SimTools and independently — useful for scenarios like automated deployment or scripted environments.
📦 Installer
Distribution matters. A raw zip file with a README asking users to sort out their own install path is a friction point that keeps casual users away. The SimTools Installer brings that friction down to essentially zero.
What the installer handles:
Guided setup flow — Language selection up front, followed by destination path configuration with sensible defaults.
Prerequisite detection — Checks for required runtimes (.NET, Visual C++ redistributables) and prompts for installation if they're missing.
Start menu and desktop integration — Proper shortcut creation with versioned uninstall entries in Add/Remove Programs. Clean uninstall path — Full removal support, with the option to preserve user configuration and game path data between reinstalls.
Silent install support — For power users and IT-adjacent community members who want scripted deployment. The goal is that anyone — regardless of technical background — can go from download to running application in under two minutes.
What the installer handles:
Guided setup flow — Language selection up front, followed by destination path configuration with sensible defaults.
Prerequisite detection — Checks for required runtimes (.NET, Visual C++ redistributables) and prompts for installation if they're missing.
Start menu and desktop integration — Proper shortcut creation with versioned uninstall entries in Add/Remove Programs. Clean uninstall path — Full removal support, with the option to preserve user configuration and game path data between reinstalls.
Silent install support — For power users and IT-adjacent community members who want scripted deployment. The goal is that anyone — regardless of technical background — can go from download to running application in under two minutes.
🛠️ Miscellaneous Tools
📁 Repo Maker Tool
This tool can be used to create a remote or local file repository. The Base URL option in the main SimTools app is what points to the repo, and can be made to point to any URL, so long as the files that are expected; exist. Using this tool, you could mirror the repo remotely for others to use, or even create your own localhost repo to use locally using apache.
Managing a multi-game, multi-locale project means a lot of moving parts across a lot of directories. The Repo Maker Tool is an internal utility for generating and scaffolding the repository structure that SimTools expects — ensuring consistent layout whether you're setting up a fresh development environment or onboarding a new contributor. Think of it as a project bootstrapper: run it once, get a clean, correctly structured workspace ready for development without manual directory ceremony.
This tool will also be useful for community contributors who want to fork SimTools or spin up their own game-support modules — a structured starting point matters when you want contributions to land cleanly.
Managing a multi-game, multi-locale project means a lot of moving parts across a lot of directories. The Repo Maker Tool is an internal utility for generating and scaffolding the repository structure that SimTools expects — ensuring consistent layout whether you're setting up a fresh development environment or onboarding a new contributor. Think of it as a project bootstrapper: run it once, get a clean, correctly structured workspace ready for development without manual directory ceremony.
This tool will also be useful for community contributors who want to fork SimTools or spin up their own game-support modules — a structured starting point matters when you want contributions to land cleanly.
🌐 Translation Tool
Localization is only as good as the workflow behind it. The Translation Tool is a purpose-built utility for managing SimTools' string resources — making it easy for translators (many of whom may not be developers) to contribute without touching raw resource files or XML by hand.
Planned features:
Side-by-side string editor — Source language on one side, target translation on the other, with missing or outdated strings clearly flagged.
Export/import pipeline — Round-trip support for handing off translation files to community contributors and merging them back in cleanly.
Coverage reporting — At a glance, see which languages are fully translated, which have gaps, and which strings have been modified since the last translation pass.
Multi-locale support — Designed from the start for the full set of supported locales: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, and German, with the architecture to add more without code changes.
With the Translation Tool in hand, expanding language coverage becomes a community effort rather than a development bottleneck.
Planned features:
Side-by-side string editor — Source language on one side, target translation on the other, with missing or outdated strings clearly flagged.
Export/import pipeline — Round-trip support for handing off translation files to community contributors and merging them back in cleanly.
Coverage reporting — At a glance, see which languages are fully translated, which have gaps, and which strings have been modified since the last translation pass.
Multi-locale support — Designed from the start for the full set of supported locales: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, and German, with the architecture to add more without code changes.
With the Translation Tool in hand, expanding language coverage becomes a community effort rather than a development bottleneck.
📅 Looking Ahead
Here's the rough priority order as things stand:
1 SimTools v4 Main Application — feature complete
2 Updater App — functional and integrated
3 Installer — tested across clean environments
4 Repo Maker Tool — internal tooling release
5 Translation Tool — community-facing release
The core application comes first. Everything else exists to support it — distribution, updates, localization, and contributor onboarding all follow once the application itself is solid.
1 SimTools v4 Main Application — feature complete
2 Updater App — functional and integrated
3 Installer — tested across clean environments
4 Repo Maker Tool — internal tooling release
5 Translation Tool — community-facing release
The core application comes first. Everything else exists to support it — distribution, updates, localization, and contributor onboarding all follow once the application itself is solid.
Final Thoughts
SimTools v4 is the version I've wanted to build for a long time — comprehensive, extensible, well-distributed, and genuinely open to community contribution. The roadmap above isn't wishful thinking; it's the work already underway, laid out transparently so anyone following the project knows what to expect and when.
Updates will be posted here as milestones land. If you want to follow development more closely, the repository is public, and mirrors progress as we get closer to a stable release.
Thanks for reading — and for your patience as this thing comes together.
— David. SimTools Dev.
Updates will be posted here as milestones land. If you want to follow development more closely, the repository is public, and mirrors progress as we get closer to a stable release.
Thanks for reading — and for your patience as this thing comes together.
— David. SimTools Dev.
Developer of SimTools. Long standing fan of Maxis and the sim-style franchise. First game ever played was the original SimCity on DOS. I work full-time as an Armed & Unarmed Security Officer, going where clients need me most.