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@joshtigerheart, on Jun 10 2008, 10:52 AM, said in Cleaning up the addons page:
Conversely, Mac users have to find and download the convertor on their own, Mac Nova comes with none. Or, for those without a convertor such as myself, they have to open it in Mission Computer and save it in Mac format. I mean, that latter one requires me to double click Mission Computer, select Open Plug-in, click Save As, name the plug, and then drop it into the plug-ins folder!
You know, even if, for some reason, you don't want to download the convertor, it's also in MissionComputer's Utilities menu.
At this stage, it's unlikely that the uploads section will be pruned or converted. Reason? We'd really need to manually check everything and verify it, and that's a pain.
We will, at some stage, be doing some sorting; maybe some of what you want will get done then (even if it's just a coda to say that "this may not work for you").
@nonconventionally-creative, on Jun 11 2008, 01:58 AM, said in Cleaning up the addons page:
I did immediately before posting. Twice. Perhaps the .zip compression algorithm you're using is set to low quality, or the .sit to high. I was using the defaults in Stuffit on a single file. At least the .sitx being larger makes sense, since it's aimed at compressing multiple files of specfic types.
I've never seen zip compress better than sit, even when using something like AdvanceZIP. Sitx is the replacement for sit and has even better compression.
Actually, I was talking opening a Mac plugin for use on windows. Do you have any idea how many gestures it takes to extract that .bin? Especially, when doing multiple files? First, if it's improperly compressed with .sit.bin, you have to decompress that. With the .sit file, one has to right-click, choose Stuffit->Expand Mac Archive -> MacBinary Fork Encoding, then click through the shareware nag, click "Same as Original" and finally drag the bin onto the plugin converter. Then drag the file to the plugins folder.
Oh, you mean de compression on windows is nastier. Well we all know that and it's what we're wanting to fix, right? That's part of the purpose of Plugin Archiver.
#1 Priority that should be done right now, no matter what = Adding a search function to the Addons Page. Google could be used and that alone would make a world of a difference.
#2 = Taking all .hqx and .bin and re-compressing them into .zip. Everyone on all platforms can easily open those. File size doesn't matter anymore.
#3 = Taking any .sitx or .sit and re-compressing them into .zip. If you really want to have organization harmony and have the time, I say do them all into .zip.
#4 = Converting any old OS Classic readme's to txt. By this I mean any of those self-contained old school OS Classic text files which is a classic program itself. Someone with Classic environment ability could simple copy and paste it into a new .txt, which is easily opened on all Platforms. rtfs are not really needed.
#5 = Removing older versions of plugs. I feel this should be done only after the first four have been taken care of, since what good is trying to clean up, when you can't even OPEN some, due to legacy formats.
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Checking would only need to be done after the first four from my list. At that time, the addons page will have been made searchable, with all current compression or readme formats.
If you guys are really serious about doing this, please heed my suggestions.
This post has been edited by GodzFire : 11 June 2008 - 12:28 PM
@godzfire, on Jun 11 2008, 01:24 PM, said in Cleaning up the addons page:
I wouldn't approve of re-packaging plug-ins without their creators' permission, and it's debatable whether Ambrosia even have the rights to do so.
Are you referring to DocMaker, where the document is a self-contained application? Those are fairly rare; the only plug-ins I can think of to use them are Martin Turner's.
More common are SimpleText documents, which are standard text files, except that they have a styl resource which gives them styling information (which would be lost if you just saved them as plain text). Mac OS X's TextEdit still can read these, though, and re-save them as RTF (it even preserves the images).
@captjosh, on Jun 10 2008, 01:15 PM, said in Cleaning up the addons page:
JTH, for MC, at least in OSX, just right click(ctrl+click if you have a one button mouse) on the plug and you should find that you can open it in Mission Computer directly from the context menu you get, compressing steps one and two.
@david-arthur, on Jun 10 2008, 03:07 PM, said in Cleaning up the addons page:
I was just making a bit of a small joke on Nonconventianlly's complaint on the number of gestures. Honestly, some other games require a bunch more effort to get mods to work. For example, JK3 for the Mac required me to figure out a bunch of stuff on my own since the "base" folder on the Windows version isn't on the Mac one, plus I had to hunt down obscure, official patches buried on unofficial websites to even get the things to work.
There's two problems with that. First, Mac plugs with only .zip compression literally drop dead and become useless. Second, the recommended Mac compression format is .bin.zip, which is easily achieved with plug-in archiver.
I'm sure he meant .bin.zip. Zip is the primary format there so saying just 'zip' doesn't exclude the possibility of bin files inside it.
@godzfire, on Jun 12 2008, 05:24 AM, said in Cleaning up the addons page:
RTFs are needed. If you really want to know why you can read Zacha's distribution guide which should be found in the important links topic.