Clogging DLS
- Thread starter boleyd
- Start date
ray_whiley
Active member
Does this really 'clog' the DLS? I would have thought that the amount it could hold was (almost?) infinite. And everything is of value to someone. There is no need to download anything one is not interested in.
Ray
Ray
This does happen. The signs (platform numbering assets) were not identical but represent different styles and (possibly) periods. A similar problem also occurs with multiple copies of the same loco or wagon appearing, with differences in colouring, ownership, etc.
The only alternative is for the creator to spend a great deal of time and effort developing a scripting asset that will allow all the different designs to be built into the one asset and then let the user, usually through a HTML control asset, select the design to be used. But this is far from a simple operation - it is often hard enough to be able to use 3D software to create the asset without having to be a programming guru as well.
The only alternative is for the creator to spend a great deal of time and effort developing a scripting asset that will allow all the different designs to be built into the one asset and then let the user, usually through a HTML control asset, select the design to be used. But this is far from a simple operation - it is often hard enough to be able to use 3D software to create the asset without having to be a programming guru as well.
BLACKWATCH
Mechanical Engineer
And often as not, the person complaining (as in this instance), has created nothing according to a search on the DLS. 
"Clogging" depends on who's using the plunger
I asked when I first started uploading;
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=59945
Main difference between the download station and other websites is everything is uploaded in CDP format. I select six reskins of the same loco with different numbers and degrees of weathering for MSTS or Railworks, package them into a zip file along with a readme.txt and File_ID.diz, there's only one file showing up in the new files list. I can't do the same thing here since it won't accept zip files, and if I package all six engines into a single CDP they get separated into six individual files.
It would be nice if things like signs could be uploaded and downloaded as a single package, but AFAIK it's not possible. So anyone searching for what's new today on the download station is going to get multiple listings of something like the platform sign, and anyone who wants the whole set has to select each one for download instead of having the option to download the entire set all in one step.
I asked when I first started uploading;
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=59945
Main difference between the download station and other websites is everything is uploaded in CDP format. I select six reskins of the same loco with different numbers and degrees of weathering for MSTS or Railworks, package them into a zip file along with a readme.txt and File_ID.diz, there's only one file showing up in the new files list. I can't do the same thing here since it won't accept zip files, and if I package all six engines into a single CDP they get separated into six individual files.
It would be nice if things like signs could be uploaded and downloaded as a single package, but AFAIK it's not possible. So anyone searching for what's new today on the download station is going to get multiple listings of something like the platform sign, and anyone who wants the whole set has to select each one for download instead of having the option to download the entire set all in one step.
johnwhelan
Well-known member
I think the thing to do is ignore them which is what I tend to do with US diesel locos. Layouts that need them will bring them in as dependencies.
I happen to like UK platform signs so I'm pleased to see them.
Cheerio John
I happen to like UK platform signs so I'm pleased to see them.
Cheerio John
This is the kind of ungrateful miserable moaning that can really put creators off. I'm working on a set of overhead accessories for tramways - I have 187 variants so far, and I'm probably not halfway through yet. Perhaps I shouldn't bother either - it might 'clog the DLS' and cause you seconds of extra scrolling to fing the stuff you want. I'm also about to start work on a UK road kit - I don't suppose you'd be interested in that either...
Perhaps I ought to moan when I see pages of US boxcars or trestle bridges? No, of course not, because I know that they have taken many unpaid hours of effort and care, and that they will benefit many people in this community. Personally I'm very glad to see honeymonster's signs on the DLS. I will be downloading most of them (not exactly big files), and using them when I need a platform number sign. I'm also glad that he didn't use the 'name name' property, as then they wouldn't be in the correct font. It's also good to see a mesh library being used as this should improve performance.
Sniper has a fair point about not being able to group stuff together - this has disappeared over the years, presumably for technical reasons. The very first Trainz (pre-SP3) used .exe archives on the DLS, but then if you needed one item for a route, you'd have to download the whole pack. Later versions had a link between items that were uploaded in the same CDP (a download pack link), that was very useful. No version of Content Manager recognised these, so I guess they died a death.
Anyway, rant over.
Paul - who WILL be inflicting several hundred overhead poles on the DLS sometime in the not-too-distant future...
Perhaps I ought to moan when I see pages of US boxcars or trestle bridges? No, of course not, because I know that they have taken many unpaid hours of effort and care, and that they will benefit many people in this community. Personally I'm very glad to see honeymonster's signs on the DLS. I will be downloading most of them (not exactly big files), and using them when I need a platform number sign. I'm also glad that he didn't use the 'name name' property, as then they wouldn't be in the correct font. It's also good to see a mesh library being used as this should improve performance.
Sniper has a fair point about not being able to group stuff together - this has disappeared over the years, presumably for technical reasons. The very first Trainz (pre-SP3) used .exe archives on the DLS, but then if you needed one item for a route, you'd have to download the whole pack. Later versions had a link between items that were uploaded in the same CDP (a download pack link), that was very useful. No version of Content Manager recognised these, so I guess they died a death.
Anyway, rant over.
Paul - who WILL be inflicting several hundred overhead poles on the DLS sometime in the not-too-distant future...
Well, I've known Dick for a couple years now, and I suspect that was his point - not "ungrateful miserable moaning" but a query as to why this stuff ain't in packages. Only thing that's unique to the download station is you CAN'T pack it all together, I've seen gripes about creators who had the option to upload a pack for something like MSTS and instead uploaded 86 reskins of the same boxcar in 86 individual zipfiles, for example. The "ingrates" were usually people using the "new files" feature to see what's new;
http://www.trainsim.com/file.php?cm=SBYDATE&TodayStart=1289015999&TodayEnd=1289102400
And with 10 listings per page had to go back 8 pages to find something other than the boxcar reskin. Got high speed cable not a big deal, got 56k dialup then it becomes a chore waiting for each new page to load.
With other trainsims and other websites it's useful to let creators know that packs are preferable when you have more than 2 or 3 of the same type of asset, with Trainz and the download station the only thing you can do is make the end users aware that the creators can't do anything about it so they just have to grin and bear it.
http://www.trainsim.com/file.php?cm=SBYDATE&TodayStart=1289015999&TodayEnd=1289102400
And with 10 listings per page had to go back 8 pages to find something other than the boxcar reskin. Got high speed cable not a big deal, got 56k dialup then it becomes a chore waiting for each new page to load.
With other trainsims and other websites it's useful to let creators know that packs are preferable when you have more than 2 or 3 of the same type of asset, with Trainz and the download station the only thing you can do is make the end users aware that the creators can't do anything about it so they just have to grin and bear it.
Are we just talking about the web based (AKA Black Pages) DLS here ?
I ask this because anybody with TS2006 or later can use Content Manager to view the contents of the DLS as a list (text view) or as pictures (thumbnail view). The content can be sorted by date by clicking on the column header titled "Installation Time" and more details obtained by clicking on the asset. Scrolling through content (especially in list view) only takes a fraction of a second and unwanted content can be filtered out using the options in the "Search" pane.
Using Content Manager the number of items put on the DLS in any one day is no problem as far as I am concerned.
Or have I just missed the point ?
I ask this because anybody with TS2006 or later can use Content Manager to view the contents of the DLS as a list (text view) or as pictures (thumbnail view). The content can be sorted by date by clicking on the column header titled "Installation Time" and more details obtained by clicking on the asset. Scrolling through content (especially in list view) only takes a fraction of a second and unwanted content can be filtered out using the options in the "Search" pane.
Using Content Manager the number of items put on the DLS in any one day is no problem as far as I am concerned.
Or have I just missed the point ?
OK - I guess we're seeing the same comment from opposite ends. To me it seems to be a complaint about a creator uploading too many similar items. I agree that it would be nice from the point of view of browsing the DLS for new items if packs of items could appear as a single line, but I guess that would require a substantial re-write of the DLS black pages. I just don't think that's what the comment was aimed at, and if it was, it was done in a particularly tactless way.
Paul
Well of course we're seeing it from opposite ends, from my perspective you're looking at it upside down! :hehe: And yeah, it's easier to do in content manager, set today's date (actually yesterday's since it's tomorrow in Australia) and location download station in the filter, and you can skim past all 165 signs, or SHIFT click to select all 165 for downloading. Not at the moment of course, the download station seems to be having it's weekly breakdown. 
ray_whiley
Active member
This is a very important point made by Paul. I have always regretted the fact that it is not possible to choose the font to use when creating a renameable object and that the only way to get the right appearance is to use a texture file (unless anyone knows different?)
Ray
ZecMurphy
Community Assistant
A couple of things here...
Some items may require many variations to be 'viable'... An example is signs. You may see 50 identical signs. But then, what if each has a different number? Or a slightly different design (example here being different 'eras' for a rail system - you can often end up with mixes in a particular period of time).
You really don't want to be scripting too many assets, as the more scripts present in-game, the lower your performance will be (imagine if every single object had a script, simply so you don't end up with lots of 'similar' objects on the DLS! - You would be complaining about frame rates instead).
Scripts can be the answer for some items, but for 'simple' objects, different versions can be better. Particularly if using a mesh-library...
As to 'grouping' items on the DLS. What happens if someone creates a 50MB 'pack' that is only available as a pack (we don't want all those separate signs shown separately). This could contain hundreds, or thousands, of signs. You would need to download all of these (50MB, which was the last 'maximum' for the DLS, without an FCT will take some time to complete - approx 4 hours by my calculations - just so you can get one sign from that pack).
In the end, you end up with lots of BIG packs, with lots of small items in them. And if a creator just happens to use 1 item from that pack, you suddenly need to download the whole thing.
Doing this completely defeats the purpose of the DLS, which is to allow CM's download helper to download each asset when required, and only download the required items.
Please also remember to re-read your posts prior to submitting them, so as to see how your comment is going to 'sound'. Please remember that these items (and the DLS itself) are a free service (with a 'first class' subscription available for the DLS, so as to cover costs). As such, some creators (as we have seen) may take your comments very literally (the content was 'over the top' as an example), which may cause them to not want to create.
Some items may require many variations to be 'viable'... An example is signs. You may see 50 identical signs. But then, what if each has a different number? Or a slightly different design (example here being different 'eras' for a rail system - you can often end up with mixes in a particular period of time).
You really don't want to be scripting too many assets, as the more scripts present in-game, the lower your performance will be (imagine if every single object had a script, simply so you don't end up with lots of 'similar' objects on the DLS! - You would be complaining about frame rates instead).
Scripts can be the answer for some items, but for 'simple' objects, different versions can be better. Particularly if using a mesh-library...
As to 'grouping' items on the DLS. What happens if someone creates a 50MB 'pack' that is only available as a pack (we don't want all those separate signs shown separately). This could contain hundreds, or thousands, of signs. You would need to download all of these (50MB, which was the last 'maximum' for the DLS, without an FCT will take some time to complete - approx 4 hours by my calculations - just so you can get one sign from that pack).
In the end, you end up with lots of BIG packs, with lots of small items in them. And if a creator just happens to use 1 item from that pack, you suddenly need to download the whole thing.
Doing this completely defeats the purpose of the DLS, which is to allow CM's download helper to download each asset when required, and only download the required items.
Please also remember to re-read your posts prior to submitting them, so as to see how your comment is going to 'sound'. Please remember that these items (and the DLS itself) are a free service (with a 'first class' subscription available for the DLS, so as to cover costs). As such, some creators (as we have seen) may take your comments very literally (the content was 'over the top' as an example), which may cause them to not want to create.
A comment on this- the default setting for the DLS display is 10 assets per page, but you can actually reset it to display 100 assets per page which is helpful as we all know there is a delay in displaying the next page. I've done this myself, but can't remember how and can't access the DLS just now. I'll have a look once it's back up.
"I have always regretted the fact that it is not possible to choose the font to use when creating a renameable object and that the only way to get the right appearance is to use a texture file (unless anyone knows different?)"
I don't want to hijack this thread, but you can choose the font to a limited extent. See Itareus' response: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=63707.
I don't want to hijack this thread, but you can choose the font to a limited extent. See Itareus' response: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=63707.
Wait a minute, I'M supposed to do the sniping around here!
Altho I gotta agree with Mike, just because someone is not a content creator don't mean they don't contribute in other ways. OTOH the whole "status" thing really shouldn't be relevant, but it's human nature to give more weight to the opinions of the biggest contributors.
Zec, you got some valid points, however;
"What happens if someone creates a 50MB 'pack' that is only available as a pack"
That should be up to the individual creator, a reasonable size pack rather than a megapack, if the set contains fifty 100 kilobyte objects it makes sense to pack it into a single 5 meg zip, if it's fifty 10 meg objects then you need to split it up. Nothing new here, this issue has been around since high speed cable came along and some creators chose to ignore all the people in Zimbabwe chugging along with a 28k dialup connection.
"some creators (as we have seen) may take your comments very literally (the content was 'over the top' as an example), which may cause them to not want to create."
Also nothing new, I can't count how many suffering sensitive artistes creating for MSTS over the last decade have decided to take their toys and go home rather than growing a thicker skin. I'll take all the criticism I can get, if I think it's valid I'll see what I can do to improve it, if I think it's rivet counting I'll just tell them they'll have to live with it.
Altho I gotta agree with Mike, just because someone is not a content creator don't mean they don't contribute in other ways. OTOH the whole "status" thing really shouldn't be relevant, but it's human nature to give more weight to the opinions of the biggest contributors.
Zec, you got some valid points, however;
"What happens if someone creates a 50MB 'pack' that is only available as a pack"
That should be up to the individual creator, a reasonable size pack rather than a megapack, if the set contains fifty 100 kilobyte objects it makes sense to pack it into a single 5 meg zip, if it's fifty 10 meg objects then you need to split it up. Nothing new here, this issue has been around since high speed cable came along and some creators chose to ignore all the people in Zimbabwe chugging along with a 28k dialup connection.
"some creators (as we have seen) may take your comments very literally (the content was 'over the top' as an example), which may cause them to not want to create."
Also nothing new, I can't count how many suffering sensitive artistes creating for MSTS over the last decade have decided to take their toys and go home rather than growing a thicker skin. I'll take all the criticism I can get, if I think it's valid I'll see what I can do to improve it, if I think it's rivet counting I'll just tell them they'll have to live with it.
ZecMurphy
Community Assistant
However, Jim, by packing things into a single 'pack', you will break the functionality of the 'download helper', since this is designed to download each dependency as required. It won't download all 100 signs from a 'set' (unless they have each other as a dependency ). Instead, it will just download the required sign. This is the intended functionality of the Download Helper tools, and is not something that we would wish to break. To do so would make downloading a real pain.
If you look back at posts from just 2-3 years ago, there were asset packs for specific layouts. When a user used a single item from that pack (pretty sure it was one of prowler's layouts, and the item was one of the ground textures), people were getting annoyed at having to download this large file to get a single ground texture.
Now imagine if a person had to wait 1/2 an hour just to get 1 sign. As in your example, a 5MB 'cdp' file, containing all of the 'pack' - this will take 1/2 an hour without an FCT - the single sign will take 33.3333... seconds if the sign is 100KB at 3KB/s download speed.
Now, imagine you've downloaded a large, very detailed, route. You do to grab the dependencies. Instead of having 100MB of single dependencies, you may find that 15 or 20 items are in different 5MB or even 15MB 'packs' (you'll find that things like signal sets, catenary sets, road sets, fence sets, etc) will likely end up in these packs, to make life 'easier'. However, you've now got, instead of 15-20 individual items, 15-20 packs. Each item would be, say, 100KB in size (using your example). However, we've now downloaded 300MB instead of 1.5MB... Of course, that's now 3-4 days of downloading without an FCT...
This is the part that tends to be forgotten is that, although you've packed your items into one pack (great for creators), the user will be downloading many packs when they download the route. Sure, some routes may use the same packs as each other, but you'll find that many routes use very different asset sets at times as well. Think of how many 'more' items you download each time you grab a new route...
). Instead, it will just download the required sign. This is the intended functionality of the Download Helper tools, and is not something that we would wish to break. To do so would make downloading a real pain.If you look back at posts from just 2-3 years ago, there were asset packs for specific layouts. When a user used a single item from that pack (pretty sure it was one of prowler's layouts, and the item was one of the ground textures), people were getting annoyed at having to download this large file to get a single ground texture.
Now imagine if a person had to wait 1/2 an hour just to get 1 sign. As in your example, a 5MB 'cdp' file, containing all of the 'pack' - this will take 1/2 an hour without an FCT - the single sign will take 33.3333... seconds if the sign is 100KB at 3KB/s download speed.
Now, imagine you've downloaded a large, very detailed, route. You do to grab the dependencies. Instead of having 100MB of single dependencies, you may find that 15 or 20 items are in different 5MB or even 15MB 'packs' (you'll find that things like signal sets, catenary sets, road sets, fence sets, etc) will likely end up in these packs, to make life 'easier'. However, you've now got, instead of 15-20 individual items, 15-20 packs. Each item would be, say, 100KB in size (using your example). However, we've now downloaded 300MB instead of 1.5MB... Of course, that's now 3-4 days of downloading without an FCT...
This is the part that tends to be forgotten is that, although you've packed your items into one pack (great for creators), the user will be downloading many packs when they download the route. Sure, some routes may use the same packs as each other, but you'll find that many routes use very different asset sets at times as well. Think of how many 'more' items you download each time you grab a new route...
Can't argue with that, the automatic dependency download is one of the best features of Trainz. When it works, that is, and you don't have to play "google the KUID". :hehe: It would be nice to have a way to download as a pack or have the download helper pick out the needed bits from the pack, but I suspect most would prefer that getting rid of the dependency hunt would be a higher priority.