WHO SHOULD READ: Everyone, players and developers.

WHAT IF YOU IGNORE THIS: You might ask yourself "why is my savedHeroes folder acting funny?"

I will be periodically editing this post as the plan is refined.

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Part One: NEW WoS Folder Layout
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In brief, I have moved the savedHeroes folders. These are the folders which contain your actual character files. Before, they were stored inside the worlds themselves, which made it inconvenient to back them all up at once, without also backing up a large amount of world information.

Also, it complicated publishing a new world since you had to manually strip out your own savedHeroes or risk publishing them to your world's consumers. (how embarassing!)

TODAY'S SAVEDHEROES LOCATION:

WoS\Worlds\Evergreen\savedHeroes\*.her

NEW LOCATION (as of A57):

WoS\Save\Evergreen\savedHeroes\*.her

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To put that another way, there will now be two world-related folders in WoS.

WoS\Worlds

This folder contains the actual worlds, as published. With each world in its own sub-folder. Nothing should change inside of a world folder unless the world developer publishes a new version.

WoS\Save

This folder also contains a sub-folder for each world. But instead of holding the worlds themselves, these folders contain only your savedHeroes and any other data which YOU THE PLAYER have created while playing that world (for example, your world diary where you have written notes to yourself about your discoveries).

If I am successful, you should be able to backup your WoS precious commodities simply by archiving the entire 'WoS\Save' folder (which should be considerably more compact that backing up your entire WoS installation).

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So, it's win win win, right? The first time you play a world while using A57, I will offer to copy all your old saved games to the new folder. (hint: accept my offer, coz I will only offer once)

But in no case do I actually delete your old savedHeroes folders.

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PART TWO: One-Button-Publishing
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OK, only world developers need to read this bit.

I have added a button to the /version dialog called "PUBLISH"

What this does is automatically create:

1.) An INFO file with the proper matching version stuff,

2.) and a ZIP file containing all the files in your world's folder.

These are the files you need to upload to your web site in order to publish your world to other players. The ZIP file can also be handed out manually to friends, who can us the IMPORT feature of the game to install your world off-line.

When the two files are created, they are saved in a new WoS folder ("WoS\Publish") under both your world name and the specific version. So this folder can hold all your old releases, as well as your current one. In an archived format, to save space!

WoS\Publish\MyWorld\Version\MyWorld.zip
WoS\Publish\MyWorld\Version\MyWorld.txt

So, say you used /version and set your world "Dystopia" to version 1.3, the publish button will create:

WoS\Publish\Dystopia\1.3\Dystopia.zip
WoS\Publish\Dystopia\1.3\Dystopia.txt

After building the files, I also generate a custom set of instructions with the details of what you need to do next (which files you need to upload to which URLs of your web site.) I even save those instructions on your desktop so you don't have to worry about losing them!

I'm hoping this will put an end to broken versioning and incorrectly zipped files.

You are free to archive your old versions as long as you like, or delete them as soon as you care to. I just make 'em, I don't look at 'em or delete 'em.

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PART 3: Free Web Hosting Problems
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We have a growing problem with free web hosting sites not supporting direct downloads. A free web site has every right to insist that you encounter its advertising.

What A57 does in this case is:

1.) It notices that the ZIP file is too small to be a real world (the web host gives an error HTML page instead of the actual ZIP file). I have this set to 100K at the moment, to handle the world's wordiest error message. I've yet to see a real world ZIP file that small, so I hope this will be OK.

2.) It pops up an explanation to the user that this world appears to be hosted on a web site which is incompatible with WoS automatically downloading

3.) It instructs the user to download the ZIP file manually using the browser. A good world developer will have a link to the ZIP file right on the world's home page, with matching instructions, since they will know pretty quickly if their website has this restriction or not.

4.) The user clicks on the link in the browser, is taken to some advertising page and must click again to actually get the file, which they must SAVE TO DISK and REMEMBER WHERE THEY SAVED IT. (the eternal bane of the programmer, made worse by the free web hosts)

5.) after it is downloaded, they press the IMPORT button on the WoS dialog which has been sitting there this whole time, and navigate to the location they saved the ZIP file, at which point life continues in its wonderful automated fashion.

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 07-07-2001).]

1.) Do nothing today. This does not affect anyone until I actually push A57.

2.) When I push that version, I will include the final instructions, which are to do nothing but answer YES when I ask if I should copy your savedHeroes to the new location.

3.) And I DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING, so your old heroes should be completely safe.

A: It is actually very unlikely to mess you up, unless:

1.) You actually delete your old savedHeroes folder before I have copied it to its new location. So, inaction is your friend. You don't gotta do NUTHIN. Just let me handle it for you.

2.) You are so used to backing up and restoring your savedHeroes from the old location that you don't realize you should start doing it from the new location (the old location, once copied, will never be used again by the game)

Most people are unaware of their World Diary, which is where you can record your thoughts about the world... where the best stores are, where the best monsters are, etc.

but some people use their World Diaries a lot, and those people will freak out when, in A57, their diary appears to have been deleted.

Your old diary is still where it always was:

c:\WoS\diary.doc

Just copy it to the appropriate place in the SAVE folder, such as:

c:\WoS\Save\Evergreen\diary.doc

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The big difference here, aside from it being 'user-created data' and hence worthy of the save folder, is that now you get a separate diary for each world, instead of one diary for ALL worlds. (stupid me)

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NOTE TO WORLD DESIGNERS:

If you include a wordPad document called "blank_diary.doc" in your worlds folder, as in:

c:\WoS\Worlds\Evergreen\blank_diary.doc

Then that will be seen as the initial contents of the World Diary seen by a new player. (once they have made any changes to their diary, however, you will never be able to overwrite them, even if you publish a new version with a better blank diary)