Tailmark

A safer installer and manager for War Thunder user skins and sound mods

Inspect archives before installation, resolve conflicts deliberately and recover from mistakes through automatic backups.

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Overview

Tailmark is a Windows desktop manager for War Thunder user skins and sound modifications.

Rather than extracting an unknown ZIP directly into the game directory, Tailmark first analyses the archive, classifies its contents, predicts the destination and flags conflicts. Installation operations are backed up and can be rolled back if something fails.

The result is a mod workflow designed around inspection and recovery, not blind file replacement.

Why Tailmark

Community mod archives are rarely packaged consistently. A download may contain:

• An extra wrapper folder
• Loose skin files
• A complete UserSkins structure
• macOS metadata
• Several unrelated packages
• Existing folder names
• A sound mod that requires configuration changes

Tailmark normalises these layouts, explains what it found and lets the user decide what should happen before any game files are changed.

Features

Archive inspection

• Drag and drop one or more ZIP files
• Import an entire folder of archives
• Inspect archive contents before installation
• Classify packages as user skins or sound mods
• Identify unsupported or suspicious layouts
• Display the planned destination
• Flag duplicates, conflicts and malformed packages
• Ignore common archive debris such as __MACOSX
• Never execute files found inside an archive

User skin management

• Install skins into War Thunder's UserSkins directory
• Handle loose files and nested wrapper folders
• Install multiple packages in one queue
• Detect identical content even when archive names differ
• Choose how existing folders are handled
• Keep the game running while installing user skins
• Optionally move successfully imported source archives to the Recycle Bin

Conflict policies include:

Policy	Behaviour
Skip	Leave the existing folder untouched
Replace	Back up the existing folder, then replace it
Merge	Back up the destination, then merge package contents
Install as copy	Create a separate renamed folder

Sound mod profiles

• Import sound packages into Tailmark's managed library
• Activate a single package immediately
• Combine multiple packages into a custom profile
• Deploy active content to sound/mod/
• Enable or disable sound modifications through config.blk
• Reconnect existing managed content
• Adopt unknown sound folders into the library
• Detect changed or partially managed installations
• Avoid deleting files Tailmark cannot verify it created

War Thunder and its launcher should be closed before activating or deactivating sound packages. Tailmark checks for this condition before writing.

Safety and recovery

• Create backups before replacement, merging, removal or activation
• Roll back failed installs automatically
• Keep restorable snapshots in the Library
• Configure backup retention
• Record installs, removals, activations and failures
• Export activity history for troubleshooting
• Preserve user data when the application is uninstalled

Queue management

The Installer includes filters for:

• Ready
• Problems
• User skins
• Sound mods

Each queue item can be inspected individually to review its destination, warnings and conflict state before the batch is committed.

Appearance

Tailmark includes several interface themes, including:

• Everforest
• Catppuccin
• Nord
• Tokyo Night

Theme selection does not affect game files or installed packages.

Installation

1. Open the latest release.
2. Download Tailmark-Setup-<version>.exe.
3. Run the installer.
4. Choose an installation directory.
5. Launch Tailmark from the Start Menu or desktop shortcut.

The installer does not modify War Thunder. Game files are touched only when the user performs an install or management operation.

First launch

1. Open Settings.
2. Select the War Thunder directory containing config.blk and aces.exe.
3. Use automatic detection or browse to the directory manually.
4. Review import and backup behaviour.
5. Add one or more ZIP files to the Installer.
6. Inspect the proposed destinations before installing.

Archives can be analysed without a configured game path. Installation requires a verified War Thunder directory.

Main sections

Section	Purpose
Installer	Analyse archives, inspect problems and install ready items
Library	Manage skins, sound packages, profiles and backups
Activity	Review operations, errors and exported logs
Settings	Configure paths, conflicts, retention and appearance

How installation works

ZIP files
    │
    ▼
Archive scan
    │
    ├── Layout normalisation
    ├── Package classification
    ├── Duplicate detection
    └── Conflict analysis
    │
    ▼
Proposed installation plan
    │
    ▼
User approval
    │
    ├── Backup existing content
    ├── Write files
    ├── Verify operation
    └── Roll back on failure

Data locations

Tailmark manages three distinct categories of data:

• Files installed into the War Thunder directory
• Imported sound packages held in Tailmark's library
• Backups, settings and activity records held in application data

Uninstalling Tailmark removes the application itself. It does not automatically remove imported packages, backups or user settings.

Technology

Layer	Technology
Desktop runtime	Electron 43
Frontend	React 19 and TypeScript
Build tooling	Electron Vite and Vite
State	Zustand
Validation	Zod
Archive reading	yauzl
Archive writing	yazl
Packaging	electron-builder and NSIS
Testing	Vitest
Image processing	Sharp

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or newer
• npm
• Windows for NSIS packaging
• A War Thunder installation for end-to-end testing

Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/IEver3st/Tailmark.git
cd Tailmark
npm install

Run in development

npm run dev

Type checking

npm run typecheck

Tests

npm run test

Build the application

npm run build

Build the Windows installer

npm run dist:win

The resulting installer is named:

Tailmark-Setup-<version>.exe

Useful scripts

Command	Purpose
npm run dev	Start Electron Vite development mode
npm run build	Type-check and build the application
npm run test	Run the Vitest suite
npm run test:watch	Run tests in watch mode
npm run fixtures	Generate test archive fixtures
npm run assets:installer	Generate installer artwork
npm run dist:win	Build the Windows NSIS installer
npm run package:dir	Create an unpacked application build

Testing archive behaviour

Mod management is unusually dependent on malformed inputs. Contributions should test packages such as:

• Loose user skin files
• One unnecessary wrapper directory
• Several nested wrappers
• Duplicate content with a different ZIP name
• Existing folder conflicts
• Mixed skin and sound content
• Empty archives
• Archives containing executables
• Interrupted writes
• Existing unmanaged sound folders

The fixture generator can be used to produce controlled test cases.

Known constraints

• Windows 10 and Windows 11 are the supported platforms
• Only ZIP archives are analysed directly
• Sound activation requires the game and launcher to be closed
• Automatic detection cannot account for every custom installation path
• Tailmark cannot guarantee the quality or compatibility of third-party mods
• Backups reduce risk, but users should still retain copies of irreplaceable custom work

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome.

For bug reports, include:

• Tailmark version
• War Thunder installation type, Steam or standalone
• The archive layout
• The selected conflict policy
• The relevant Activity log
• Whether rollback completed successfully

Do not upload copyrighted mod packages without permission. A minimal synthetic archive is preferable.

Licence

Tailmark is distributed under the MIT Licence.

Add a root LICENSE file if one is not already present so the repository licence is detected correctly by GitHub.

Disclaimer

Tailmark is an unofficial community utility. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or supported by Gaijin Entertainment.

War Thunder and its associated names and assets are trademarks of their respective owners.

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Know what an archive will do before it does it.