Download Station Cleanup?

trainzlova8989

i like trains and bugs
I've been using Trainz for the past decade. I've seen quite a few changes in that time period - quite a few positive.

But there's one that's been bugging me for a while, and it's DLS clutter.

I have a habit of absentmindedly browsing the DLS and picking up interesting things. While browsing for routes - hoping upon another hidden gem - I found that it's nearly impossible to browse through em nowdays, because the DLS has been hopelessly cluttered by mobile routes. I'm sure someone could do something interesting using mobile. However, i do not think that the layouts being uploaded showcase creative talent. For example;

-There are 449 copies of City and Country USA

-Around 300 of British Midlands

-313 routes with Autosave in the title

-356 routes simply titled New Route.

Although there are over ten thousand routes on the DLS, i fear the majority of those have become low-quality - either edits of existing routes or blank baseboards. Of course, that's not to imply people who aren't Trainz Masters shouldn't upload to the DLS - It's just primarily that there's a lot of routes that are uploaded from mobile with a few segments of track, and those are abandoned by their creators and clutter up the DLS.

I think that the DLS needs stronger moderation - I understand it's an incomprehensibly large platform, but i feel a couple quick searches to remove duplicates, blank routes, etc, could really go the extra mile in making it enjoyable. Or, at least, add a filter, so one can remove mobile uploads entirely from their viewing.

I hope this doesn't come off as aggressive. It's just the amount of obvious low quality routes disheartens me.
 
Test is another with an infinite number of entries. A lot of these routes are ipad and android "creations" and can be filtered out in CM. There is a thread somewhere which explains how but cannot readily find it. From memory you save the filters AND NOT: Minimum build version 3.8: OR: Minimum build version 3.6.
I did start a thread asking for favourite DLS routes but I ended up being the main contributor.
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...es-TANE-Friendly-Classics-The-best-of-the-DLS
That may help find a few and get rid of the mobile clutter.
cheers
Graeme
 
Many of those routes, particularly those named "Autosave" and probably all/most of those named "New Route", will be from mobile platforms. These have been the source of many complaints like this.

With other routes the problem will be that one person's "poor quality" will be another's "this will actually run on my system".

There are just so many issues involved in this situation.
 
First of all; Thank you for telling me you *can* filter them. I wish it'd be more intuitive.

Second - in my head, there's a line between low quality and for older versions. I'm not talking about, say, 2004-standard flat grassy plains and cardboard box buildings, as you can arrange those into something that looks very good.

I'm complaining about 2 pieces of track on a baseboard, where it's more-than-obvious someone just hit the post button.

Anyway, my complaint was primarily about said mobile versions - At the very least, uploading should have to go through basic filtering so that we don't get a thousand copies of City And Country.
 
Perhaps we should ask why someone would upload some of the most egregious examples. Perhaps a close look at the upload process and some may not even know their "experiment" made it to the database..
 
There was a claim made some years ago when these mobile "layouts" started appearing that the DLS was the only viable storage available for those platforms. Since I do not run Trainz on a tablet, I do not know for sure.
 
Everyday there's a new 'Rosworth Vale' appearing on my install of TS2012's 'Today' tab. It's like some awful curse that won't go away. When the mobile versions of Trainz were set up there should have been a seperate server for them. It's too late now of course since the mobile uploads are like weeds in a cornfield and there will be no getting rid of them.
 
Some time ago I made a filter like Grazlash describes above. I was going to paste it here, but when I go to "Edit Filters", the only option is to delete! I can't display what the filter does, I can't even fix a mis-spelling typo it has in the name. I just think that is odd and somewhat annoying. Sorry I could not be more helpful.
 
Some time ago I made a filter like Grazlash describes above. I was going to paste it here, but when I go to "Edit Filters", the only option is to delete! I can't display what the filter does, I can't even fix a mis-spelling typo it has in the name. I just think that is odd and somewhat annoying. Sorry I could not be more helpful.

Yeah I hate that as well.

I use this one quite successfully:

On Download Station = True
Minimum Build Version _____ (put in version)
Obsolete = False
Installed = False
AND NOT
Minimum Build Version _____
 
I don't think getting rid of all mobile uploads is feasible, but i feel at least N3V could comb through the most obvious examples and remove them - every copy of Banks Heath, Rosworth Vale, etc.
 
There was a claim made some years ago when these mobile "layouts" started appearing that the DLS was the only viable storage available for those platforms. Since I do not run Trainz on a tablet, I do not know for sure.

I don't know about the iPad version but the most recent version for android can save locally but it makes uploading very easy. It has a tab for uploading as well as for downloading. Just pick your route and press the upload button.

To me this behavior of uploading unchanged or very plain routes is similar to "tagging" behavior.

William
 
It helps your ego to see that creation under your name and in public view. It is a public therapeutic service.:confused:
 
The current DLS makes it very difficult to find assets of quality, since they’re often under the same naming schematic as assets that are over a decade old, and the lack of a real thumbnail worsens that.

I think there needs to be an automatic ‘PBR’ tag, as well as an embedded asset data that consists of drawcall count and poly count; obviously, higher quality assets will have more of both. These will allow people to search by the categorizers that make an asset worthwhile (particularly to those w/o an FCT).
 
When I used the (original) iOS version, the only option was to save to the DLS. That explains a lot of the "test" routes with just a simple loop etc.
The other problem is with multi-player routes - each player needs the same layout, with the same assets and consists. Hence a lot of e.g. "Roswell Vale" layouts with just a few differences, but proliferating as different users want to customise theur multi-user sessions.

If you use the filters to reduce the clutter, remember that you can click on a column's heading and sort by that header - e.g. click on "author" and the list is sorted alphabetically.


COlin
 
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