Tracks Database

Post by **dede** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 3:55 pm

Hello guys,

I was thinking about starting a new project: a database for TS tracks, so that everybody can upload tracks to this website. I wanted to know your opinion about this (expecially what trackmakers think, if they will use it, if they'll upload all their tracks here). Suggestions are welcome.

dby · Post by **dby** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:20 pm

Great! I would use it fo sho.

Suggestions off the top of my head:

Would be nice if people could rate/review tracks.

Sorting after most popular, track type or track maker.

Maybe you could try making the database more generic, so other content like cars, tile sets and so on, also could be searched and rated?

Post by **dede** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:29 pm

dby wrote:Maybe you could try making the database more generic, so other content like cars, tile sets and so on, also could be searched and rated?

Yeah, after the trackdb will be ready, it shouldn't be hard doing the same for cars, tiles, etc. Actually now we have already a section where trackmakers can add their tracks (without file hosting though), and it doesn't seem any popular. TracksDB would be good since we have it now already for "Ranking Tracks", so it can be extended to other tracks as well.

dby · Post by **dby** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:32 pm

dede wrote:it doesn't seem any popular

I've been a bit lazy/busy... getting to it soon

Post by **dede** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:53 pm

Then new Tracks DataBase has been released. You can now populate it, browse it, vote for tracks and so on!
I know it could be hard to upload all tracks for those who made many. There will be a way to upload many tracks all in one zip file, in a week or so.
For now I hope you like it and it will be useful.
More news later!

P.S.
Special thanks to Hengari and Tijny for the support

Post by **dede** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 1:45 am

I managed to complete the script to add many tracks all at one time to the DB. Here's the way it works.

Create a zip file containing these files for each track you want to add:
- trk file (e.g. de_Tail.trk - iT'S CAsE sEnSItIvE)
- zip/rar/gz file containing all track-related files (e.g. de_Tail.trk and de_Tail-pat.png. Remember to add your tiles also, if your track uses them). File name must be the same as your trk file (in this case, it should be de_Tail.zip or de_Tail.rar, or again de_Tail.gz - iT'S CAsE sEnSItIvE).
- txt file containing the description of your track (you may leave the file blank if you don't want to add a description. But this file must exists! File name must follow this path: "<trackname>.<category>.txt". Category is just the id of the category. Categories: 1->Racing (Default Cars); 2->Racing (Custom Cars); 3->Fun/Rough Tracks; 4->PunaBall; 5->Battle/Infiltration; 6->Xbumpz; 7->Other. So, in case of de_Tail, since it's a racing track, the filename must be: de_Tail.1.txt - iT'S CAsE sEnSItIvE)
- jpg/jpeg/gif/bmp/png preview image (this is optional, you may also not add this file. But if you decide to add it, remember to call it just like your trk file: e.g. de_Tail.jpg or de_Tail.gif (...) - iT'S CAsE sEnSItIvE)

Once your trackpack is ready, just upload it to some hosting service and contact me/post a link in here. I will provide to add your tracks to the database in a couple of days.

In case you don't have any place where to upload your trackpack, just use one of those free file hosting services available on the net, just like this one:
http://www.mediafire.com/

Got the way it works? Still a bit hard? Okay, so let's see another example:

I want to upload four tracks to the database:
- de_Tail
- de_Funct
- de_Best
- de_Bello-Civili

The first step is to create a zip file. Let's name it "mytracks.zip". This is what's needed in my zip file:
- de_Tail.trk
- de_Tail.zip
- de_Tail.1.txt
- de_Funct.trk
- de_Funct.zip
- de_Funct.1.txt
- de_Best.trk
- de_Best.zip
- de_Best.1.txt
- de_Bello-Civili.trk
- de_Bello-Civili.zip
- de_Bello-Civili.1.txt

This might be enough, but I also want some previews for my tracks. Let's add then:
- de_Tail.jpg
- de_Funct.jpg
- de_Best.jpg
- de_Bello-Civili.jpg

Now my zip archive is really complete! Let's upload it to http://www.mediafire.com/ and contact dede so that he'll add my tracks to the database!

I know, if you created many tracks, it might be long to create this trackpack. But if every trackmaker will contribute with a trackpack, we could soon have racing statistics and lap times for every track!

mikko · Post by **mikko** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:08 am

Congratulations for all contributors, absolutely great work! With track database the ts.com will really start to pay off. It is important now that all trackmakers take it 100% seriously and make their contributions. If this is what will happen, the database will offer huge possibilities.

It might be useful to have a possibility of adding user comments on the track descriptions, like "this track is great with anti but sucks with speeder because...".

Punatiainen · Post by **Punatiainen** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:05 am

- de_Tail.trk
- de_Tail.zip
- de_Tail.1.txt

You have forgotten the pat-file. So i think de_Tail-pat.png should be there too?

Btw, what size preview image should be?

Ivan Drago · Post by **Ivan Drago** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:24 am

Punatiainen wrote:
- de_Tail.trk
- de_Tail.zip
- de_Tail.1.txt
You have forgotten the pat-file. So i think de_Tail-pat.png should be there too?

Btw, what size preview image should be?

Nope. Both trk and pat (and custom tiles) are in the de_Tail.zip.

Punatiainen · Post by **Punatiainen** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:48 am

But they aren't mentioned in this example, which people will follow.

Jarno · Post by **Jarno** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:05 am

Punatiainen wrote:
- de_Tail.trk
- de_Tail.zip
- de_Tail.1.txt
You have forgotten the pat-file. So i think de_Tail-pat.png should be there too?

Btw, what size preview image should be?

dede wrote:- zip/rar/gz file containing all track-related files (e.g. de_Tail.trk and de_Tail-pat.png. Remember to add your tiles also, if your track uses them). File name must be the same as your trk file (in this case, it should be de_Tail.zip or de_Tail.rar, or again de_Tail.gz - iT'S CAsE sEnSItIvE).

Post by **dede** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:57 am

Punatiainen wrote:But they aren't mentioned in this example, which people will follow.

Yeah, it's a bit hard to understand. In the main zip file (the trackpack), there should be:

- zip file with the name of the track (e.g. pu_Riona.zip -> containing trk file, pat file, tiles..)
- txt file <trackname>.<category>.txt (e.g. pu_Riona.1.txt -> containing description)
- trk file (e.g. pu_Riona.trk -> it's needed to extract track info such as trackhash, trackmaker, etc..)

And optionally:
- img file (e.g. pu_Riona.jpg -> preview image -> size doesn't matter!)

If you got more questions, please ask!

I also forgot that the project isn't complete yet. These are the features that I'm planning to implement in next weeks:
- comments for tracks
- race statistics for ranking tracks (when the new racing ranking will be released)
- tracks in the players profile (tracks created by each player AND favourite tracks for each player -> based on votes -> for each category

)
- views & downloads count for each track

If you got more suggestions, you're welcome

Janne · Post by **Janne** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:16 pm

http://www.mediafire.com/?ce150pftdxw

There's all my tracks excluding the two already uploaded. I hope I did things right.

Anddru · Post by **Anddru** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:22 pm

I also hope I have done it right (after all it did take some time)

http://druerne.org/ts/mytracks.zip

Post by **dede** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:44 pm

Anddru wrote:I also hope I have done it right (after all it did take some time)

I checked your pack, and it seems quite ok, BUT all the images. As I wrote in the main thread, it's CaSE sEnsiTivE! This means that all files have to be called EXaCtLy! in the same way the trk file is:

- MyTraCk.zip
- MyTraCk.trk
- MyTraCk.1.txt
- MyTraCk.jpg

Fix the pack and tell me when it's ready

(I know I could do this myself, but please understand that correcting all potential errors could take hours for me, hours I could dedicate to improve the website)

Anddru · Post by **Anddru** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:33 pm

The link is updated now

Post by **dede** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:22 am

Very nice work guys. There were three or four images with wrong name in Janne's file and six in Anddru's. Fixed them in a couple of minutes and.. there! All tracks added in two clicks! Awesome trackpacks, Janne and Anddru. Thanks for the contributions!

Now looking forward to see all tracks by every trackmaker in there!

Post by **dede** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 10:27 am

I just fixed a bug (popups didn't work on Internet Explorer -> you probably had problems uploading your trk files, sine popup didn't work hehe).
Anyway, I added a couple of more features to the trackdb already:
- downloads/views counter for each track
- possibility to see who voted (and how much!), so votes are more clear

(to do this, just click to the rating bar)

Edit:
I had to fix other bugs. I uploaded Default tracks, and I converted tracks posted in TS.com to TracksDB entries

Now it should all be working and main things are complete!

Xerez · Post by **Xerez** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:21 am

Also it would be great if you could make the track-images visible in the tracklist itself. You'll have to get into every single trackpage to see what it looks like and if it's a track you might like. Also if you remember a track you just can't seem to remember the exact name, it'll be a lot easier if you could see the images right from the list and easily see if it's the track you're looking for.
I don't know if you could make a smaller image you could click onto and it'll popup in a larger size. or maybe if you just held your marker onto the trackname an image would show up.
I don't know whether it's too hard to implement, but it would certainly be a useful feature

Good job with the DB by the way!

Post by **dede** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:33 am

Yeah, I already thought about something like this. Unluckily there are two problems: there isn't room for that image (it was hard to find a room for those rating bars already), but the most important problem is: it would require thumbnails generated on the fly, automatically. This is possible (I already got a script working in that way, and it's nice), but it would require additional libraries to the server. For these reasons I think the main page will stay like it's now (you can click to the preview button to see a preview, anyway, without visiting the view_track page).

Right now I noticed that there's a problem with those trackpacks... Track size is wrong for all tracks added to the db.. There must be something wrong in the script, but at the moment I don't get it. Good that this isn't a very relevant info (wrong hashes would've meant a disaster, for example). I'll try to fix the database, but this could take time.

EDIT: yeah, it's a disaster.. all hashes are the same :S Now I got what's wrong.. well.. i'll try to fix this.. just don't care about hashes and size. And don't try to upload videos for these new tracks until the problem gets fixed (since they won't even be saved

).

EDIT2: phew, now it should all be working. There are still five tracks that weren't added to the db because of some mistakes (1 by Anddru, 4 by me). I'll try to fix that tomorrow, and hopefully we're done with bugs

Jarno · Post by **Jarno** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 1:23 pm

http://batman.jypoly.fi/~c2214/J-Tracks.zip

My racing tracks

Jarno · Post by **Jarno** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:17 pm

Couple of suggestions:

It would be good to have that search bar all the time available. Now you need open it every time again and again.

And it would be good to see which tracks you have been voted in main page. Something like little v or like that next to track.

Post by **dede** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 7:26 pm

Jarno wrote:Couple of suggestions:

It would be good to have that search bar all the time available. Now you need open it every time again and again.

And it would be good to see which tracks you have been voted in main page. Something like little v or like that next to track.

First suggestion seems to be good, but it would take too much time for a small detail like that. Maybe in the (not so near) future.

Second suggestion is just a detail again (and I don't know if everybody would prefer it like that or like it's now). More feedback before making any changes.

Punatiainen · Post by **Punatiainen** » Sat May 17, 2008 7:14 pm

Finally all my tracks have been uploaded as well. Better late than ever