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How would you like your arrr,chief?

Of course anyone can simply run a website mirroring tool like wget or HTTrack to save all the stuff on this site. However I know that people like one simple click much more. So there will be one huge non-compressed zip with all the files inside. But what should get inside?

a) Everything (all zip files and the descriptions)
b) Everything (all zip files and the descriptions (minus speedmapping packs))
c) All zip files
d) All zip files minus speedmapping packs

My preference would be b). What’s yours (or is it something different maybe?)?

Apart from that “your instant Quake collection”-package I will provide a site backup (descriptions.tar.gz and screenshots.zip or something like that) and a torrent containing everything (zip files and the descriptions).

Warning, technical stuff ahead: One thing I wanted to do is convert the descriptions to XML and let browsers render them with XSLT. That would make it a bit easier for me to change things globally plus the description files would be even smaller (=faster). I toyed around with it during the winter and the results were promising. But then I discovered that my beloved Firefox browser has some damn stubborn developers. The javascript workaround seems rendered defunct by some changes that lead me to the conclusion that the developers infact are complete retards (as disable-output-escaping seem to be half implemented now, not functioning but killing the workaround). So that plan is iced until Firefox keeps up with all the other browsers. To quote everyone’s favorite reviewer: Bleh.


12 Responses to “How would you like your arrr,chief?”

  1. negke Says:
    29.05.2008 08:51

    a)

  2. Gilgamesh Says:
    29.05.2008 13:45

    a)

    And about the bandwidth use, is it ok for your host?

  3. Spirit Says:
    29.05.2008 15:26

    Bandwidth is a non-issue even if it goes into the Terabyte/month range. :)

    The only problem could be the space (depending on what else I decide to host in the future) but that is still in the green range. If it would become a problem I would put the big zip on the http://shub-hub.com

  4. negke Says:
    29.05.2008 19:13

    How much space does the entire archive use up now and how large would a zipped version be?

  5. Spirit Says:
    29.05.2008 19:22

    ~1.7 gigabytes.
    As all files are zip already I will use “storing mode” with no compression. Compressing would be a waste of time. So it would be the same size.

    The descriptions are a couple hundred of kilobytes and the screenshots ~100 megabytes.

  6. sielwolf Says:
    30.05.2008 19:37

    As always great idea Spirit, I have all my Quake stuff scattered over many cdr’s, would be great to d/l all maps in one package; and pls make also a speed-mega-pack with all speedmaps. Thanks.

  7. Bad Sector Says:
    01.06.2008 23:02

    a)

    Also, how about writing some sort of script that uncompresses all zip files in their respective directories (like foo.zip -> foo directory) and compress the whole thing using 7zip? I believe it will eat much much less space than zip.

  8. Spirit Says:
    02.06.2008 08:08

    Nah, that I won’t do. Don’t tinker with the zip files is a widely used “legal term” in the readmes and I really like it that way.

    That would also be a load of additional work (which is planned for some kind of launcher program at some point in the future) as many maps and mods come with non-standard paths.

  9. amoe Says:
    02.06.2008 21:25

    I support option B. Also it would be cool to have a pack containing all the speedmaps.

    Just a question, would the zip be updated every now and then, or would it just be a snapshot of the archive at a given time?

  10. Spirit Says:
    05.06.2008 13:41

    Probably there will be one “all.zip”, one “dateofthefirstone.zip” and then a couple of “monthly.zip” with new files that miss in the first one.

    The all.zip would always contain everything.

    I haven’t really thought about this yet though.

  11. Anonymous Says:
    07.06.2008 05:56

    What about a .torrent?

  12. inertia Says:
    10.06.2008 21:07

    Use 7zip on the big archive, or at least bzip2.

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