PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?

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"PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????"

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joe_carlson (16 posts)
Jul-04-01, 04:20 PM (EST) "PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????" Naming Conventions Attention to all you skinners, developers, route designers and 3D developers: I have been keeping a very detailed list of all available downloads. Currently my list now has over 450 items.Many items are difficult to figure out exactly how to rename. I have several files that I don’t even knowWhat they are. Inside the zip files were 2 ace files, which I don’t have a clue what they are. In the short Time MSTS has been out, there are already a great number of add-ons you can find. I suggest to keep keep things under control, we devise a naming convention. This proposed naming convetion should do a few things: · Uniquely identify each file· Give a concise, brief description of what the file is or contains· Identify what kind of add-on the file is Here is just an idea on a few standard rules I had in mind. · The zip file should be a different name from the actual directory file inside the zip.· There should be separate files for every different type of car or locomotive. For example, if there is a release that has 10 boxcars, maybe each with different numbers, then there should actually be 10 separate releases made from that authoer· Each zip file should contain an info file in text format I thought about doing something like this for a naming convetion. Anyone in here that is a programmer will realize now I am also J Abbreviation Description Example
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loc Locomotive locCSX(Dash9)#3108.zip

aut Auto Car autCP(50ft)#CP34213.zip

tan Tanker Car tanBNSF(50ft)#4253.zip

act Activity actNorthside.zip
As you can see, the 1st 3 letters are in small caps. Then the 1st letter of the next word is in upper caps, unless that word is all upper caps anyways. I thought that the naming system should work like this: For locomotiveslocRailLine(EnigineType)#EngineNumberExample: locCP(Dash9)#4256This would be a Canadian Pacific Dash 9 Locomotive Engine #4256 With the Operation Lifesaver paintjob For rolling stock·tanRailLine(AdditionalCarInfo)#CarNumber
Example: tanBNSF(36ft)#BNSF346214This would be a BNSF 36 Foot Tanker Car, with the numbers #BNSF346216 that has been weathered I felt that if we did it like this, every file could have a different name, be as short as possible, and still give a lot of information. Please let me know what you think about this. If it sounds good, then I will work out the entire format, keeping it as simple as I possibly can.If we all did this, it would make it much easier in the future! I also had ideas for standardizing the info files and what should be contained in the zip files.I hope to also get support from the site ops, hoping that they will only accept correctly named files.I am also willing to start an FTP where people could upload their files, I could but the naming attributes in affect for them, then upload it to a download Site. Anyways, please let me know what you developers out there think about all this.
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and d... wza24 Jul-04-01 1 RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and d... joe_carlson Jul-06-01 2 RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and d... jt93 Jul-06-01 3 RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and d... joe_carlson Jul-07-01 4 RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and d... Nels_Anderson Jul-07-01 5

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wza24 (2 posts)
Jul-04-01, 05:52 PM (EST) 1. "RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????" Hi!I'ts very good idea!
Also I'd like to suggest more different directories under train-sim.com file areas. For example, there could be route directories under activities plus on dir for custom routes. Also I suggest some different directories under locomotives (like diesel, electric etc.) WZA
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joe_carlson (16 posts)
Jul-06-01, 02:23 PM (EST) 2. "RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????" Could I please see more responses for this?I feel that a standardized naming system will be very beneficial once many more add-ons become available! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jt93 (5 posts)
Jul-06-01, 04:48 PM (EST) 3. "RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????" one thing i would like to add:
i will be working on an object installer / manager for ts. one thing it will require is a text file (depend.nfo) that lists all the dependencies (cabview, sound folders for example) that an object will need and where they need to be moved to. i should have a document ready by sunday that details the layout. but it should be something like:ObjectName = GP 900BasePath = \trains\trainset\gp900this would reference from the TrainSim base directory. (i'm doing this from work, so i hope i remembered the path correctly for this example, if not, you know what i meanDepend1Src = \trains\trainset\gp38\cabview
Depend1Dest = \trains\trainset\gp900\cabviewand we could support an arbitrary # of depends. this would copy the cabview folder from gp38 to the new gp900file1 = gp900.eng
file1Dest = \trains\trainset\gp900.endthis section would allow you to specify where the files end up (for routes and such). this would also help assure everyone has the same cars & engines in the same directories, so downloaded activities will work.one last thing i can think of, an optional line called OutsideDependencies, which would list non stock files needed to use this object. as an example, say the route you design needs some engine, you could specify it here and when the route is extracted from the zip file, the manager could display a message informing you that a needed file is missing.i'm sure it will get better as i work on it, but that's what i'm thinking about at present.anyone have any comments?jt
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joe_carlson (16 posts)
Jul-07-01, 01:32 AM (EST) 4. "RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????" This exactly what I mean by needing some sort of standard namimg system. I wanted to write a program that listed the downloads that are available and match them against what you had, then giving you a list of the downloads you didn't have.But without a standard of naming, I can't write a program looking for such things. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Nels_Anderson (364 posts)
Jul-07-01, 11:06 AM (EST) 5. "RE: PLEASE: ATTN all skinners and designers.. Naming Conventions?????" This sounds like a great idea, especially for things like activities that require such a large collection of files to work properly. People always have trouble installing things, even when they are relatively simple, so I think you'll have a popular utility if you can get it to work.
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