Plug-in posting

Some questions

1. Zacha Pedro says in his guide the files should be sitx, but in the 'Submit A File' text it says, they should be sit. Which one is correct?

2. How long does it take for a plug after I posted it to the Add-ons page to release in one of the sections? I posted one friday, but it's still not there.

3. Is it possible to change the description of a submitted file, or even the entire file?

Thanks

1. I would normally say .sit is better than .sitx, because it's what I was taught over here a year ago, but I don't know if ZP has changed his mind since

2. pipeline is the one who uploads the files, and he does so when he finds the time. So, anything from five minutes to a month.

3. If you want to change something, I would suggest sending an e-mail/a PM to pipeline asking very politely if he'd be ready to do it, and stating exactly what you would like changed (be nice, otherwise he won't do it 😉 ).

Pace (haldora), on Aug 21 2005, 09:34 PM, said:

3. If you want to change something, I would suggest sending an e-mail/a PM to pipeline asking very politely if he'd be ready to do it, and stating exactly what you would like changed (be nice, otherwise he won't do it 😉 ).
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I saw it at the battle arena text, first Gutless said nothing about the version and after one page of bug reports about a picture there stood version 1.0 Probably the file changed, too. I'm sure pipe will see what I missed in the description (very stupid of me, please don't ask).

PS: I would never be rude to pipe.

Zacha also says in his guide that .sit is prohibited. Anything Zacha says overrides whatever the 'Submit A File' text says.

Zacha if you're reading this, what is the recommended method? .zip or .sitx?
And what exactly does DropStuff's zip do when you check 'Preserve Macintosh Content'?

What you'd expect it to do - it .bins the files ehere appropriate. Or maybe it .bins them all, not sure.

Frequency 245, on Aug 21 2005, 02:15 PM, said:

I saw it at the battle arena text, first Gutless said nothing about the version and after one page of bug reports about a picture there stood version 1.0 Probably the file changed, too. I'm sure pipe will see what I missed in the description (very stupid of me, please don't ask).

PS: I would never be rude to pipe.
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Say what now? Sorry, but as I'm mentioned I took a careful look here...and I got confused.

The description for my plug on the add-ons page is, and always has been, thus:

"EV:N Battle Arena has a single purpose: to provide an Arena that will allow the player to test their piloting skills against "super-ships" more powerful than anything currently in Nova (with the possible exception of ATMOS ships, et. al.). It is designed particularly to be challenging, providing some more difficulty and entertainment after one of the Six Major Strings has been completed. This is version 1.0, uploaded on July 19th, 2005. It was created by Kenneth "GutlessWonder" Webb - strongman169@hotmail.com The .zip archive should contain two (2) files: "EVNBattleArenaReadMe.html" and "EVNBattleArena.rez". Mac users will need to convert the .rez plug-in to be able to play, instructions are included in the read-me file."

I may have neglected to mention this in the topic on the EVN boards, which is my bad, but as I linked to a page where this description is available, and since the readme made it clear as well, I hope there was no sense of confusion on your part. So far only one version is available, version 1.0.

I'm working on 1.1, however it will be some time yet before I release it, as I want to include as many bug fixes as possible, plus I still need to test some fixes. As I am in the middle of changing apartments, things are quite hectic.

And, just for future reference, if you have any questions you'd like answered, please don't hesitate to PM me on the boards here, or post in either of the Battle Arena topics on the EVN and EV:DC forums.

I hope this helps. 🙂

orcaloverbri9, on Aug 22 2005, 01:10 AM, said:

What you'd expect it to do - it .bins the files ehere appropriate. Or maybe it .bins them all, not sure.
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Nope, it doesn't bin anything. It preserves it some other way but I don't know what.

Guy, on Aug 22 2005, 12:40 AM, said:

Zacha also says in his guide that .sit is prohibited. Anything Zacha says overrides whatever the 'Submit A File' text says.

Zacha if you're reading this, what is the recommended method? .zip or .sitx?
And what exactly does DropStuff's zip do when you check 'Preserve Macintosh Content'?
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Should I post the plug again, but this time as .sitx?

Sure, then you can fix the desc as well and ask pipe to ignore the first one.

Okay.

Okay.

EDIT: My last question:

4. Must I ever use .sitx.bin, or is only .sitx also allowed?

EDIT2: A double post???? I didn't use the 'Fast Reply'. Silly Firefox, why does my Safari not work?!

This post has been edited by Frequency 245 : 22 August 2005 - 03:07 AM

No, don't bin a sitx.

Pace (haldora), on Aug 22 2005, 06:34 AM, said:

1. I would normally say .sit is better than .sitx, because it's what I was taught over here a year ago, but I don't know if ZP has changed his mind since

The reason for this is that PC Stuffit 7.5 couldn't handle .sitx files, while the (relatively) new Stuffit 9 can.

- Now there is Stuffit 9.0 on Windows, sitx should be used instead of .sit. And just in case anyone hasn't guessed yet I was the expert on this stuff, well I am, and my word is the final word, just that I'm not really taken seriously by the Powers That Be.

- I don't know about "preserve Macintosh content" of zipping with DropZip - must be a new fancy thing in a version I don't have. Or it still does bin before zipping, but you don't even realise it as, when you unzip this file with Stuffit Expander, it recursively expands by default so you don't even get to see the .bin files.

- I really mean the choice between ".sitx" and ".bin.zip" to be made by the plug developer. I state their advantages and drawbacks so that he can make up his mind, and they are both equally acceptable. I'll see how this turns out in the long run.

Zacha Pedro, on Aug 26 2005, 05:02 PM, said:

- I don't know about "preserve Macintosh content" of zipping with DropZip - must be a new fancy thing in a version I don't have. Or it still does bin before zipping, but you don't even realise it as, when you unzip this file with Stuffit Expander, it recursively expands by default so you don't even get to see the .bin files.
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DropZip is gone. In Stuffit Standard 9 it's an all-in-one DropStuff.
I expanded it again using OS X's unzip but there were no bin files.

This post has been edited by Guy : 26 August 2005 - 08:08 PM

Then it's fancy stuff that should not be used at all. I'll investigte that as soon as I can install Stuffit 9 on a Mac that supports it (i.e. not mine).

Okay, one other questions: Once we've binned the plug-in files, what exactly is the problem with using OS X's zip?

Guy, on Aug 31 2005, 02:11 PM, said:

Okay, one other questions: Once we've binned the plug-in files, what exactly is the problem with using OS X's zip?View Post

The problem is that OS X's "zip" function does not use the standard zip format- it adds features to store extra information such as resource forks and Mac metadata, and I suspect that even if you strip a file down to just the data fork, the OS X zip function will add empty framework for the extra data, making the file unreadable.

(NOTE: This is all extrapolated from ZP's uploading guide, so someone should correct me if I made any mistakes.)

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 31 August 2005 - 04:37 PM

Guy, on Aug 31 2005, 09:11 PM, said:

Okay, one other questions: Once we've binned the plug-in files, what exactly is the problem with using OS X's zip?
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Theoretically, it does work, you just have this extraneous folder with the information about (lack of) resource forks and Finder info and other such extraneous Mac-only info, which could confuse users.

However, the main problem is, by doing it that way, you have no way whatsoever of knowing whether you indeed MacBinary-encoded all the files with a resource fork or whether you forgot some, since by reexpanding it with Stuffit Expander in order to check, you will obtain your original distribution folder, when people on PC (and OSX<10.3, and OS9 users) will have the file you forgot to .bin be 0kb in size. Moreover, by using this people would think MacBinarying first is unnecessary, since they do obtain the distribution folder back when testing if they forget/ignore/are too lazy to encode each individual file in MacBinary first. By using ordinary zipping they get the same result as someone using a PC/OS9/Jaguar would and can realise which file they messed up.

Guy, on Aug 21 2005, 10:24 PM, said:

Nope, it doesn't bin anything. It preserves it some other way but I don't know what.

Odd, I definitely remember it .bin-ing. Maybe it was an older version...sigh