-EDIT-
Version 0.5b is out. Try it out...it's got a BIG new feature: Get Map List. It also has an exit button and I fixed a few little problems. :)

Hey guys...

Here's some software I compiled. It should be pretty self-explanatory and you'll hopefully see how it works once it starts up.

Just give me feedback. If you like it, I'll finish it and make it look pretty (as long as the filesize is really small).

It downloads PMS, ZIP, PMP, and...hell, any file type in the world.

If I do finish it, we'll need a really good host to put all the maps on.

Here's how it will sort of work:

1) User posts map on good host
2) People see game in lobby using custom map
3) People start up software and connect to the site and type in "mapname.zip" at the end of the URL
4) If the host has it, the map will download quickly to the folder

TO DOWNLOAD: RIGHT CLICK YOUR MOUSE, SAVE TARGET AS...
http://www.geocities.com/cjlemmy/autodownload.zip
TO DOWNLOAD: RIGHT CLICK YOUR MOUSE, SAVE TARGET AS...


Enjoy

i dont understand how it works :/

btw - gj on making a program with game maker lol...

Ffs,the link is broken.. =\

"TO DOWNLOAD: RIGHT CLICK YOUR MOUSE, SAVE TARGET AS...".

Interesting... I thought GM was only good for games.

You can make anything in Gamemaker now that it has binary functions. Nice bit of work. Have you thought about using an online database [aka a txt file with all the filenames of the maps in] then when the program is started it checks what files it needs to download and does it totally automatically? I know there is a way this can be done.

xaNox.Xero: You must right click and save target as because the file is on geocities. Unless he's out of bandwidth.

funny program i think i figured out how to use it????

Does this kind of site excist yet ?

Thanks Enjoy even though I don't know how it works.

it doesnt seem to be working for the test download that you gave it enjoy, (i.e. your mappack) it has some weird click function error

hey hey, he just made it. give hum some time to work out the bugs. i don't see you making one...


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just a thought

? it worked fine on me

could you add that i see dl procent (50% downloaded) how much is left

and fix that when im dl file i cant move that program or close it/minizes :/

but it's a good program when someone start hosting all these maps :P

Yeah, I have some ideas on how to make it better. I'm going to try to do something along the lines of what Irritant said, but I don't think it will be fully automatic. You have to choose the map you want.

I would make a progress bar, but I'd first have to learn how to do that, and then make it. :P If these files were like 3MB each, then maybe. But since maps are usually between 45 and 200 KB, it's really not needed.

I'm going to be buying a website (probably) soon and I'll have lots of hosting for maps. I'll continue working with this stupid Geocities site till then.

Next version should be out later today with a menu of maps to download...hopefully. :)

Good Job! I still hope it will be implemented in Soldat.

whenever i right click i can't use save target as, i never have been able to =/

yeh..thats interesting T, you are using IE arent you? frickin weird

and hey gunny, the point of me posting that was so that he could try and fix it, im pretty sure that post didnt sound at all close to some kinda half-assed complaint, so please, dont be an idiot, it would be quite helpful :D (btw, its called betatesting, it happens with soldat too :D)

Ok...I'm going to get a different host later today for the program itself.

Here's what I've done since my last post:

Added new button that downloads the map list. It gives you the maps that the host has, the file sizes, and who made the map. It does this through a text file, but here's the problem. Instead of finding a very good way to do this, I did it half-assed - which means the text file must be updated by a person. It's no problem for me to do that, and I may change it later, but it also means every time you log on you need to get a new txt file. It'll be cool though. :)

I added a scrollbox for the map list. I figured that all of these maps will be on one central host, so I'm closing all the real gaps that the program has. It'll be easier to use than Steam or AOL. :P

If the file size is small enough, I'll ask Michal if he'll put it in the Soldat download. That's the best way for people to get the "client", IMO...they won't come back for it on the Soldat Download page.

www.webspace4free.biz is a good site for webs, it has no ads, unlimited bandwidth and up to 200 mb

the only problem with www.webspace4free.biz is 400kB file limit.
But that wont be a problem if its for maps only.

Why make such a program if it can't autodetect/download?

Well, not yet. But I'll talk to Michal about including it in 1.2. Perhaps he will...

Then, when you try to join a server and get the message "Map ***** not found", the program will start up and see if the map is in the database.

Anyway, I'm releasing v0.5b now. It's got a little tutorial and a new map list feature. It's still quite limited, but I'm working on it little by little.

Give me any ideas on things you want...I'll see what I can do.

The map list will probably be in alphabetical order. It will have a scrollable window (I know you guys take that for granted, but with what I'm using, that's usually not seen. :P) for the map list. Hopefully you guys all get it to work now.

READ THE INSTRUCTIONS NOW IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IT. :)

quote:Well, not yet. But I'll talk to Michal about including it in 1.2. Perhaps he will...

I think we having a php web based map auto-download in 1.2...

The way to do it... ehh... maybe:
1 Give every map a unique ID (map name + size)
2 call a function when you get the "not found" error, get unique ID
3 connect to file database / ftp and find match
4 download -> enter server

I don't think you could do it in any other ways.
It would be rather easy to make a program that connected to a database and listed all the maps, but why do that when there's plenty of websites?

quote:
I think we having a php web based map auto-download in 1.2...


Thats music

Well, I heard that Auto-download thing wasn't going to work out after all.

The reason I think this would work better than a website is because this would be included IN THE SOLDAT DOWNLOAD PACKAGE. People don't like to search google for places to find maps. If that did work, we would have more custom map servers. :/

Anyway, the link was screwed up. I fixed it. It had a VERY OLD version on the last link. :S

I still don't know how to use this :P...

Well... it would still be alot faster to find the maps on the Internet than finding your program, download it, connect to a server, download map.
There's already some nice big map servers online.

The program will be of no or little value, if it doesn't auto-download (which you can't make without an output from the server list)

I'll explain it once more. If I finish this and Michal approves it, THE PROGRAM WOULD BE IN THE SOLDAT FOLDER WHEN YOU DOWNLOAD VERSION 1.2.

Then, when you try to join a server you don't have the map for, the game would close and this program would pop up. Then you can search through the maps and find the one you need.

How is that hard? You would already have the program, so you wouldn't be downloading it. You just connect to the server, get the map, and then BOOM you're in. End of story. Of course, the maps aren't magically appearing in your folder by themselves. If that makes it difficult, I'm sorry. :-/

confused. i am.

n00bers, it's easy! no offence.

enjoyincubus -> That's a pretty big "if" isn't it? I don't think that M would start to include all kinds of addon programs into his game. I'll bet that he could make a function to download from a website also...
What he need to do is to make a auto download that download the map off the game server if the player don't have it.

enjoy : I have some good ideas for your program, I could help you implement them in if you want. I have worked quite a bit with the download.dll and a browser .dll in Gamemaker.

Yeah, I was going to ask you for help. I know you're a big member of GM. I've taken your n00b test, and I'm...just a n00b on it. :)

I'll talk to you on MSN and give you the source for it.

I know how to get the map list and all...but I don't know how to download the map...

It keeps saying invalid url...or something like that

uh. still confused.

Ok, Irritant's been working on it lately...and I must say, it is quite impressive.

Here's a list of fixes from the last version. I think everything was dumped except for the main idea of the program.

- Now has scrollbar with a news list for things like new maps added and changes to the client software.

- Map list is automatically downloaded and in .lst form, to prevent from user tampering.

- Now has search button to let you search for a map of your choice.

- New hosting at http://maps.soldatworld.com that will have over 300 maps hosted by end of month...maybe :D

- Pretty, nice little new icon that I made. :P

- Easy-to-understand interface.

Irritant's done quite a good job...and I...uhh..well...what did I do?

Well, I'm hosting the maps, and I guess I started this project off. :P

Quick screenie for those of you interested.

Version 1.0 will be out pretty soon.

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This program is a great idea, and I have something to add to it. When I first read about it I thought it was brilliant, so i actually had a go at making my own version just for fun. Anyway, yours seems to be going along great, so i'll just share something i tried...

If you put all the maps into zips on the server, and make sure they all have the correct folder subdirectories inside them (pms files go in maps\, scenery in scenery-gfx\ etc.), then you can get this little exe from winzip that allows you to unzip files without having to show the whole winzip gui and everything. It's called Winzip Command Line Support Add-On and the file you want is WZUNZIP.

So how it goes is you find the map, download it temporarily somewhere, then run this wzunzip with the correct parameters (-d zipfile destination) and it will basically 'install' the map for you into your soldat directory. Then you can delete the downloaded zip file and everything is clean.

This makes getting maps extremely easy and also allows whole map packs to be installed just the same. Anyway, it worked perfectly in my version, so it should be great for this too. Contact me if you need any help; we so need this program to get custom maps played more!

Would that make the user have to run two .exe files? First to download the map, then a second to install it? I guess that would not be too bad...but Irritant said something about a .zip dll that would open the .zip while still using our program, and then move everything like you said. Maybe it's the same exact thing, but this would actually run in our .exe. If that's not the case, we'll surely use WZUNZIP. :)

Yeah, the WZUNZIP program is run from within the autodownload program, so all the user does is search for the map and click 'download' and it will be fully installed. No need to run it seperatly. Irritant's dll is probably either very similar or the same as this, so you could use either.

Yes I'm not sure if I'll get around to finishing mine [B)]

Though it DOES work in it's current state.

[IMAGE]

wow cabbage! it looks really cool. i was gonna make a site of just maps but it seems like u guys have this under control.

NightCabbage, enjoyincubus [:-thumbu][:-thumbu] that looks pretty damned cool.

Guys this is awesome. What language are you guys writing your programs in? I say, if you're using the same language, once you're done send each other your sources and then make one incredible downloader using the best of both worlds. ...just my two cents.

I think they're different... I believe NC's is HTML and some scripting language, and EI's is definitely GML (red ball icon).

yeh NC's thing is an actualy website

EI's is a GML-made program, so thats quite different, and NC's i believe is more of an archive tthan an autodownloader, i mean its pretty similar but not quite

Last time Michal said anything, the PHP map download system which NightCabbage is in charge of was ready to be included in 1.2 if NightCabbage would just get around to finishing the site. Therefore, I presume there is no point for this program.

NightCabbage: Damn you, I've TOLD you I'll help! I'll upload file, the works! Just FINISH it!

If you'd read the whole thing, you'd see that I already said that the program isn't needed.

It's basically for my own enjoyment now. I realize that NC's thing will work...but that doesn't mean it's a pointless project.

Oh. I did read the topic, I just didn't see that. Never mind then. All we have to do is get NightCabbage off his ass and get him to finish the damn site!

And your program will come in use outside of soldat - you could just run it and search for a site, instead of having to go to the Soldat Maps site.

For the record, I haven't downloaded this program (yet), and I don't know if this is already implemented, but could you make it able to search multiple sites at a time, giving it further advantages over the searches in the basic sites?

Hmm here's the little problem with that...

This proggy connects to one site, d/ls a .lst file, and reads the maps from that. Then you can search, and if the map string is found, the file must be there, and it's downloaded and installed automatically.

Never mind the version I have posted on this forum...it's much different now.

This feature is something they should implement into Soldat 1.2 or the next version. Auto map update/download.

link broken?

why not dl it from host, and add an autodownload on/off thingy for client side. since maps are so small, lag would last for 5 secs or less.

Hey enjoy - I gots an idea, perhaps a good one...

Hows abouts:

My map site is where people download the zipped up map files from.

They then put these files into a 'zip' directory in Soldat.

Then they run your program, which unzips the maps, uses the included list file in each zip, and puts everything where it should go.

What r ur thoughts?

Ok...but it wouldn't really use the software very well.

The auto-installer can be made quickly and much more efficiently (file size-wise) through command prompt and a few addons for Winzip.

Hmm...finish teh site! Finish teh site done!