Icons display improvements?

[NTG]

Hey guys/gals,
for some time I have been thinking about using some of system's API options and here comes my ideas:

I hope you like it.
As far as I am concerned Windows (and Linux most likely as well) provides API for thumbnails (PDF readers, Crysis, Open Office... - matter of registering library) and for details (eMule, ...) - so why not to use it to preview maps (minimap; size, some other data) and mods (loading screen; some data about content)? It would really help managing and organising all those files.

What do you think about it?

[bartvbl]

+1
That would generally be awesome!
OpenOffice is open source, so we could (perhaps) use some of their code?

[manolo_]

really good idea

[hoijui]

this adds unitsync dependency to the OS
eg, your OS will die if you have an invlid map, or unitsync has a problem, or the OS plugin is written for an other unitsync version then you have installed, or cant find unitsync, ...
in short, your OS would get as bugged as before + spring bugs.

[NTG]

this adds unitsync dependency to the OS
eg, your OS will die if you have an invlid map, or unitsync has a problem, or the OS plugin is written for an other unitsync version then you have installed, or cant find unitsync, ...
in short, your OS would get as bugged as before + spring bugs.

Hmm, why not to use external plugin and:

Code: Select all

// check unitsynch interface version
if (unitsynch supported) get proper data
if (unitsynch doesn't return error / throws exception) return data to system
// unsupported unitsynch or error during operations:
return predefined image/ don't return anything*

And btw, if it would be distributed with Spring, there shouldn't be any problems with unitsynch - except it's internal errors - interface changes should block compiling.
By the way, about most of errors - can't find library, library doesn't return thumbnail etc - system tolerates it pretty well... Took me some time to register (and debug it when failed couple of times) FLV, MKV, RMVB, HTML extensions family, URL and MHT.

*No image returned = default application icon as in registry.

[bartvbl]

I agree. If the icon of the map/mod is mossing, just use the spring icon.

[Satirik]

No need for that, just chill.

[AF]

Nothing stopping us from opening the archive and checking the map filename against a folder of jpegs or bitmaps which is already written out by the lobby as a cache.

Or even better, some maps already bundle minimaps to speed up generation, or add water, in the form of a DDS.

I would say if this is implemented, it would be hundreds of times easier to implement in C# using the new windows 7 APIs.

[smoth]

I would be cool unfortunately this probably falls into that pile of cool ideas that no one is going to put the work into. However, good news is that this is an open source project! It would be a great learning experience for you if you tried to make this happen.

[bartvbl]

we should have a thread somewhere with all features like this, that no one wants to code, but were quite nice to have. That makes it much more inviting to others to pick one of them, and code them.

[NTG]

I think I've just found proper interface (thumbs, not additional data) and short course how to use it. I'll try coding in 2-4 weeks - too busy at the moment.

[bartvbl]

awesome!!

[CarRepairer]

I hate to be discouraging, but I'm curious of what use would this be? Users don't need to know map and mod files even exist. Would an experienced content creator benefit from this, if so how?

[smoth]

when getting ready for a lan, I like to reduce the size of my spring dir to specific maps so I can transfer quicker. If the files have icons it makes the copy paste faster :)

[CarRepairer]

when getting ready for a lan, I like to reduce the size of my spring dir to specific maps so I can transfer quicker. If the files have icons it makes the copy paste faster :)

Interesting, an understandable scenario (that I never considered). Any others?

[MidKnight]

I have 4 files named Ice_mountain.sdz, each with a different map inside.

[NTG]

I hate to be discouraging, but I'm curious of what use would this be? Users don't need to know map and mod files even exist. Would an experienced content creator benefit from this, if so how?

If I download map/mod, use ArchiveMover and after a battle or two I think it sucks and want to delete it - it's easier to find.

Swapping files as smoth said - when my Spring dir is huge I usually delete some maps or burn them to DVD. Going back to old maps/mods is easier with that.

Searching for maps I don't remember name of - SpringLobby loads minimaps for quite a long (at the moment I have 150+) and Windows cache is pretty much faster.

Sometimes when I want to play some battles with friends I like to decide what maps to play (or which would suit me). This way I can easily prepare list, send maps they don't have (if LAN or fast connection) instead of sending list to search... Not everybody likes/have SpringDownloader.

Plus it's pretty good for newbies like me ( ) who like some personalisation and new gadgets... especially colourful gadgets as it's more inviting

[bartvbl]

true. The generation of minimaps by SL is darn slow. Vista (and I suppose win7 too) has some nice features on resizing the size of the images. Overall it would be a great help

[Tobi]

Why do you think Windows can extract data from 7-zip files faster than 7-zip?

[CarRepairer]

I hate to be discouraging, but I'm curious of what use would this be? Users don't need to know map and mod files even exist. Would an experienced content creator benefit from this, if so how?

If I download map/mod, use ArchiveMover and after a battle or two I think it sucks and want to delete it - it's easier to find.

Swapping files as smoth said - when my Spring dir is huge I usually delete some maps or burn them to DVD. Going back to old maps/mods is easier with that.

Searching for maps I don't remember name of - SpringLobby loads minimaps for quite a long (at the moment I have 150+) and Windows cache is pretty much faster.

Sometimes when I want to play some battles with friends I like to decide what maps to play (or which would suit me). This way I can easily prepare list, send maps they don't have (if LAN or fast connection) instead of sending list to search... Not everybody likes/have SpringDownloader.

Plus it's pretty good for newbies like me ( ) who like some personalisation and new gadgets... especially colourful gadgets as it's more inviting

Well thank you for coming up with the idea and working on it. What I was hinting at was that it would be more useful for lobby clients to handle the management of maps and mods, but it couldn't hurt to have this too. It would certainly help in some scenarios.