benu

Nice one, Kegetys. But i think using filenames with spaces you are limited to piping everything through xargs -i or use find -print0 | xargs -0, which you otherwise (using no delimiter or underscores) wouldn't be. But as i seem to be the only one seeing a problem in this i consider myself beaten. As i wrote in the original thread i am using filenames containing spaces myself at the moment

Hehe, may be nitpicking, but: linux supports capitals in filenames, only the ofp linux server doesn't (actually i haven't tried whether it does, but the readme said to convert everything to lowercase) Regarding other fields in the name: IF you put other fields into the name template they have to be MANDATORY. Or else some will use them and some won't and one map may have different names on different servers. To be able to fill in these fields they have to be standardised. As there will be new mappers and new addons all the time those have to be standardised too. For each admin to know what the abbreviation for each given mapper/addon is there has to be a central page where all standardised abbreviations for mapper and addons can be found. This is more work for the admin (look up the names) and even more for those who make those central page and keep it up to date. In other words, i don't think it is a good idea to put mapper names or addons into the name convention, cause it would make the convention so complex that nobody would use it. BTW: There is no need for this as the mapper can put their names into the mapname or the briefing and the addons are in the readme (for new maps) or in the server addon pack (for maps on the server) already.

Thanks Hitman, i will try this. But i think the crashes in 1.88 came from wrong xml urls where the dedi server tried to access that file locally, i.e. blocking web access wouldn't have helped in that case. And if the problem in 1.90 has the same cause it likely won't help now. But as a fix is already coming it wouldn't be that bad if the proxy thing wouldn't help

Lt_Damage: constructive post, really... Whisper: Prove me wrong, i'm alway happy to learn a new trick. Show me a shell script that (for example) calculates the md5 hash of all map files, looks for duplicates, matches them to a naming scheme and sorts out the falsely named ones. I can do that without problems AS LONG as the mapnames do not contain spaces. Terox: You wrote: </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> They do not cause any problems to Linux o/s. The o/s filesystem does not see any difference between the following examples ctf@ 32 mymapname v1 & ctf@32mymapnamev1 It sees both files as the same file, so i can only assume from this, that it ignores spaces. <span id='postcolor'> They are NOT the same file, the system does NOT ignore spaces. That is simply wrong and everyone working with unix knows that. I wrote that 2 days ago and elaborated on that point just 3 posts before yours. Mapnames containing spaces DO work with the linux ofp server. Mapnames containing spaces DO work with all direct unix commands using shell globbing. Mapnames containing spaces do NOT work (at all or without considerable extra work, so far nobody could show they work at all) with scripts that filter maps for eg md5sum as lists. Linux admins would have to do everything manually without the possibility to script their work. I know the topic is not closed yet, but most people here seem to be windows admins and know nothing of unix and they should base their decision on facts. When you tell them "spaces look better and cause no problems on linux" they will decide on spaces. Therefore, in a way, you are kind of closing the topic prematurely. The truth is "spaces look better, they WORK on linux, BUT they cause problems." I think when the current (squad logo?) instability in the ofp linux server is fixed those servers will become even more popular. Many people in this forum have asked for a linux server for 17 month now... Most gamehosters here run linux servers . I think it is best to consider the needs of the linux operating system too. Commercial game hosters will most likely not give everyone shell accounts, and the less problems there are when making scripts for web frontends the greater the possibility that this naming scheme will be widely used.

Please please please Terox, ASK about linux if you don't know instead of assuming something which just is not true. Spaces DO make a difference in linux and ctf@ 32 mymap v1 and ctf@32mymapv1 are really different under linux. I can send a screenshot of those two files coexisting in the same folder if you want. Files named " " and " " (3 spaces and 4 spaces) are possible and DIFFERENT files. Besides that spaces destroy nearly all possibilites of working with those files. It's like making them hidden, write protected system files under windows. It's even worse actually. Upper- or lowercase is actually the same. Not for linux, but for windows. You can use what you want with windows (big, small, capitalized). For linux all files have to be lowercase, but as for windows ctf@32mymapv1 is the same as CTF@32MyMapV1 it won't download the same file again. So, yes, in linux the files have to be lowercase (which the tool tolower does), but it's really no concern with windows. And i for one am not agreed on spaces in filenames without a GOOD reason for spaces, cause they actually CRIPPLE the unix admins. You only have a text console to administrate the server and most shell tools just fuck up when filenames contain spaces. The normal way of doing things in unix (pipes and variables) just don't work when filenames contain spaces. Apart from that (which i'm kinda pissed about, cause i wrote this multiple times and you chose to ignore it multiple times) your article is good work.

Removing was just an example. Normally i do things like md5 checking, renaming or moving. If you use spaces in filenames nearly all shell commands will cease to work in scripts. They work when you use single commands and glob the filenames, but not after you pipe the list of filenames through a few commands to filter them (sort, uniq, awk, grep, cut, md5sum are the ones i use more often). The only thing that works with filenames containing spaces seem to be to let the shell do all expanding or use find -print0 | xargs -0, which limits possibilities to nearly zero. So, yes, basic stuff will work even with filenames containing spaces (renaming, deleting according to filename), but advanced stuff will not (renaming, deleting according to md5 checksum for example). I don't know everything about shell programming and if anyone has a simple solution for this problem (kegetys reply seemed to imply that he can script things like this easily) then please tell me and this issue is no point in the naming convention anymore. But until someone does i think this a serious issue to consider in regard to the naming convention in favour of underscores.

oo7vet: I really don't see your problem. As an admin i have to test every map before putting it on the server (i atually use an exact duplicate of my server to test them, but could do so on my client box using the -mod parameter if i wanted to) so sharing maps with other servers isn't really a problem. Either the map runs on my server, in which case no further work is required, or it doesn't, in which case i have to add the missing addons to my addon pack anyway. No need for an addon tag containing server names. I guess most player would rather d/l an addon update for the server they play on then a big addon from another server which may contain lots of addons they already or never use. Apart from that, i hope that mapmakers will adopt the naming convention and no renaming will be necessary in the future. This would be easy if addons would be marked for example with an @. WHICH addons you need would be described in the readme. If they had to put in a server tag.... How would they do it? As the map is new it isn't running on any server yet, maybe it has new addons which aren't in any pack yet. So making the addon tag anything other than a simple and UNIFORM tag is imho a bad idea. JRMZ: We a trying to reach a consensus, that means one has to argue for or against points. I actually think that the more is thought of now, the less problems the standard will have in the future. whisper: what i am thinking of are pipes and backticks. "rm *.pbo" works even for files containing spaces, and your read command does so too. But try something like this (dumb example to grep for, but i wanted to use pipes): </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ touch a\ test [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ touch nother\ test [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ ls | grep t a test nother test [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ export TFS=`ls | grep t` [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ echo $TFS a test nother test [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ rm `ls | grep t` rm: cannot remove `a': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove `test': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove `nother': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove `test': No such file or directory [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ rm $TFS rm: cannot remove `a': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove `test': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove `nother': No such file or directory rm: cannot remove `test': No such file or directory [benu@ofp /tmp/tmp]$ rm "$TFS" rm: cannot remove `a test\nnother test': No such file or directory <span id='postcolor'> If you (or anyone else) knows an easy solution for this i'd be happy about mapnames using spaces...

whisper: I will try, but to be honest i doubt it will work. Variables in "" get resolved, but for example "rm co 16 mymap.eden.pbo" will try to remove the files "co", "16" and "mymap.eden.pbo". You would have to escape the spaces like "rm co\ 16\ mymap.eden.pbo" which afaik is not possible when expanding variables. If anyone knows better you're welcome. oo7vet: Two possibilites: I use the addonpack for my server for all my maps or i don't. If i do there is no point using ANY other addon pack on my server and therefor NO use naming ANY map after the addon pack of another. If i don't i have most maps on my server using my mappack, but as every map has ONLY ONE addon pack in it's name the players on MY server have to d/l a whole additional addon pack just to play that ONE map. Oh and btw, WHO gets to decide which server can rename a map after it's addon pack? I mean, lots of servers have addon packs with which one could play a lot of the same maps, so after which pack to name the map. I don't think your system is bad, quite the opposite, if i had to run one or more big servers i would do it in a similar way. But your system is tailored for one (set of) server(s) really. Anyone wanting to play maps you renamed has to either download your addon pack or accept the fact that the name will run on his server but be named after a different addon pack, in that way limiting ones own ability to offer more than one pack ("yeah, the addons for this map are in one of my packs, but sorry, i can't tell you which one cause the map is named vetpack"). Regarding testing: I AM currently testing all the maps on my server and i don't need to reinstall ofp to do it. I have all my addons sorted into modfolders and when i start ofp without the -mod= option i have a clean ofp without addons running. And even if you don't, you would need only ONE reinstall, as you can have as much ofp installations in parallel as you like. Or just copy the ofp folder and delete all unofficial addons. Not that much work. If we talk about a map deposit where one downloads maps... that's what readmes are for. I may be mistaken, but i thought the two goals we were pursuing were: to help voted admins select maps and to prevent players from downloading the same map multiple times. Your system doesn't help more in the first part than the one proposed before (the @ sign) and actually hinders/destroys the second.

oo7vet: Your system is really good for ONE server, not as a common naming convention. Cause using your system the same map would have a different name on each server, depending on the addon pack that server uses. If i really want to know the addons a map uses i start ofp without addons and load the map, i get the list of required addons then. Or i decompile it and look into the mission.sqm... Kegetys: why do you write something like this? I don't know, do you work with unix on regular basis? Spaces are field separators in lists, and when i want to copy/move/rename/anything a list of maps stored in a variable and the names contain spaces the operation fails. One can get around the problems caused by spaces (and be it by using perl), but that makes scripts less portable and takes away from the power of the shell (through which linux servers are administrated normally). And there is really nothing gained by using spaces.

How does your program (or ofpam btw) "disable" addons? What is done to those addon files?

Actually, spaces DO make problems with linux, not while running the server but with using mapnames in shell scripts. The ampersand is bad for the same reason. So i'd go for underscores as delimiters and for example "ad" instead of "a&d" as maptype.

Worst time so far according to my logfile: 9 crashes in 47 minutes

I am using spaces as delimiters between the fields, it works on windows and linux (as would underscores or the example zinco made with putting the player number in brackets. Actually, underscores beat spaces in linux, cause spaces can be difficult in scripts). What i would like to know: are there points/arguments for or against any of those delimiters? Or would a consensus just be a matter of taste? Speaking for me, all solutions seem good to, as long as there IS a delimiter. Putting it all together like co@16mymapname is just unreadable... Regarding duplicate maps with different names: Thats no problem (at least with linux). </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> find mpmissions -type f -name '*.pbo' -exec md5sum -- {} >> md5.list \; <span id='postcolor'> Then grep, sort, uniq, diff and rm and all duplicates are gone... just did something similar today. Finding 33 duplicates in 340 maps and deleting them was just a matter of a few minutes.

joltan: As i wrote in the other thread, it seems to be matter of preferences. I never think "there was this cool map from blake", i think in terms of "lets look for a nice 16 player coop map", so for me "maptype playernumber addontag" seems most intuitive. But this thread is about creating a standard. If the majority wants to use "maptype addontag playernumber" i can live with that and will rename all my maps. One has to make sacrifices Regarding the other points: IF you agree on something like Mapmaker field and version field then you would have to make those fields mandatory and create a database for all admins to check against, or you would destroy the uniform naming scheme. I would propose only essential fields in the name. The purpose of this whole standard is that 1) players don't have to d/l the same maps multiple times and 2) voted admins can select good maps. We should keep that in mind. I get the feeling some admins have featuritis and want to put as much as possible into the name. I don't think this is good. KISS. If you make it complicated nobody will use it. Mapmaker: When the mapmaker names a map after himself it's part of the name and should be left in (like in "co 16 benu coop"). Else it should be left out. It's "useless" info for downloading and for the casual admin and the mapper has other ways to put his name into the map. OFP Version: As Skunk Monkey said, the server is only running ONE ofp version and if a map doesn't work it gets deleted. Useless information field in my opinion. Map Version: How do i know? I have for example some maps from karillion in 3 different versions, without version numbers. It's essentially the same map, with the same (internal) name but with slightly different gameplay. IF a map has a version info in its name we can let that in, as part of the name. Same as with the Mapmaker field above. Else, it's better to let it out. It would complicate the naming scheme.

Lol, i don't think you got my point. Maybe i was too cryptic. If i as an admin have an addon-free server, then regardless of how you mark addons in the name, this will not apply to me as i only use maps NOT containing addons and therefor NOT having that symbol in it's name. The addon symbol is only important for servers and admins who WANT to use maps containing addons. As i do on my server for example. When i change map i see how many ppl are on the server and what they want to play (coop, ctf, etc). So most important is obviously the type (mostly coop on my server) and then maxplayer (cause a 30 ppl coop with 4 players is just as bad as a 6 ppl coop when 30 players are on the server). If the addons tag is BEFORE maxplayers i have to browse TWO lists, coop maps WITH addons and coop maps WITHOUT addons, which are far apart in the maplist. So i really lose lots of "comfort" when the addon tag is put before the maxplayers. If it is put BEHIND maxplayer ALL (for example) coop 20 maps are together, those needing addons first and those who don't second. So anyone NOT using addons cause of "not regular players" who don't have the addons loses no comfort at all but admins WANTING to use addons gain a lot. And lets face it: addon server play with regulars most of the time. Or else you NEVER could use any addons. I really see NO point in splitting maps of ONE TYPE into TWO lists because of addons. Maybe you could make your arguments a bit more clear. My experience is that players who don't want to d/l addons won't come back to addon servers anyway and those who do like to play the maps WITH the addons. Your concept looks to me like tailored for servers that have addons installed but don't want to use them Regarding symbols: # is ok, @ should be ok too, * is bad. Regarding further naming: I'd say mapname next. I don't know all the authors of all the maps on my server and there are so many authors that you run out of 3-letter acronyms for them anyway

Miles: You have a TNT2 so you shouldn't use the newest nvidia driver, those are optimized for GF4. Get some older 30.x or even 20.x or something. There are sites where you can check whats best for your card (sorry, have no link).

Lol, so soundblaster cards work by disabling them and letting all sound effect be computed by cpu power? Nice work. Luckily i don't have those static sound issue in ofp, but creative has given me enough headaches that my next soundcard will be a terratec or turtle beach or something.

You all should keep ONE thing in mind when talking about addons: When a server does NOT use addons, it's of no consequence whether there is an addon flag and what and where it is. When talking about the addon flag we are talking about servers that WANT to use addons, so whether the map has addons or not is not so important on those servers. Maptype and Maxplayers are more important. I'm interested in maptype first and maxplayers second. I'd like to have my maps sorted that way. Using an addon map or an addon-free map is really only my third thought. I haven't checked all maps on the server for addons and installed all those addons to never use them. I want to use the addons, i have the needed addons in the MOTD and if players don't have them... well, tough luck. I actually do have renamed all maps on my server and it doesn't complicated anything that addon maps are not sorted to the absolute beginning or end of the maplist. Quite the opposite, i have all my (for example) co 16 maps in view and can THEN choose which to play, addons or not. So i propose that the addon flag goes AFTER the maxplayer field, cause any other system makes sense only for servers that don't want to use the addons anyway...

I have the european version too and never had this bug (playing every version since 1.00). So it doesn't seem to have to do with the european version...

Eilte: Which version are you using? Does the new 40.72 have 3d support or do i have to use 30.87? Also, i can't install the 3d driver as Poweruser, and when i install them as administrator i can only use them as administrator, and (as if that wasn't bad enough) starting ANY application which uses DirectX or OpenGL as (Power)User reboots my computer. OS here is Win2K Prof, but i just bought XP Prof and will likely install that tomorrow. Any hints?

Shrike: We too have occasional pauses when someone joins or crashes, but not that much. But my server isn't frequented that much after updating i think, or at least i didn't have too much time to test 1.90 in the last days. Coming to think of it, connecting took awfully long for all of us directly after upgrading the server to 1.90, but today i could join really fast. And i did switch my squad.xml in the meantime (a friend has made another squad.xml for all of us and we are testing it). I will switch back and test again (i hope tomorrow) and see if it really makes a difference, what's different between those two xml files and whether anything is in the logfiles regarding xml parsing.

Seems to be a matter of taste... so i'm trying to point out why i think the addon flag should go behind the size of the map: When i with 20 ppl on the server and they want to play coop i want to browse through all the 20 player coop maps, not through all addon maps first and then through all addon-free maps. I play with regulars mostly, who have all the addons, so i like having all maps grouped by type and size, addons or not are not that important. And the maps ARE sorted according to addons needed... first all 20 player coops with addons and then all 20 player coops without addons Even if there are "visitors" on the server, i have all 20 player coops in view and can select one without addons. But in most of the cases your system would require me to actually scan through 2 lists of maps. And BTW: I don't really like the addon flag being a letter, it should be something like @ or # or similiar. This makes grepping for addon maps easier and helps keeping sorting order. It also helps them stick out in the list. co and coa really do look too similar in a long list of maps. If someone thinks of implementing an coop-attack type of mission and calls it coa you are running into difficulties with the vetserver system...

Maybe we should try find ONE naming standard for all the server admins out there, so, as a player, you don't have to download and save the same mission again and again under a different name. I would only suggest 3 things: -Maptype FIRST, cause that is the biggest difference between maps, and maps should be sorted by TYPE. When i want to play a RTS map for example i want to have an overview of all available rts maps, not search through all installed maps. One would also have to define what types of map there are and how to mark them (are coop maps for example called "co" or "c"?).. -max players Second. I guess one could argue about that, but i think that Maptype is more important. When i want to play coop and maps are sorted according to maptype first and maxplayers second i can easily find coops for 20 players... they are between those for 18 and those for 24 If maps were sorted the other way round i would have to search for 20 player coop maps between all the maps for 20 players... As with maptype the format has to be defined (eg "2-18" or "18"?). -maps needing addons should be marked in any way. Best would be the symbol for maps requiring addons comes AFTER type and maxplayers, so it doesn't disrupt the sorting order. Obviously, mapnames have to be all lowercase (because of linux servers) and should not contain "funny" characters (backslash, apostrophe, hyphen or something). One should also define how the fields in the mapname are to be separated (underscore or blank). I would be willing to rename all our maps when there is a standard for naming maps.

As i said many postings before this one, strela works for me and always has (as far as i can tell, i'm sure i never got "pop ups"). It displays the strela itself and the ammo for it. We played a mission where one aa soldier has a strela and ammo, and the other only has one shot of ammo. Always showed up in the gear screen of the briefing for all players to see and caused no errors.

Logos and custom faces show up on our linux server. Custom faces did so right from the first version of the linux server, and logos work since 1.90. The crashing on linux servers seems to come from players using incorrect squad urls (i hate those idiots, too dumb to type a correct url like stated in the readme and we have to suffer because of them)...