Wiimm's Custom Archive/Distribution

Wiimm's Custom Archive is a service (website https://ct.wiimm.de/) by Wiimm. It allows an easy access to custom tracks and arena archive. This article focuses at the distribution support of the website.

Introduction

Wiimm's Custom Archive[1] is a download archive for many thousands of custom track files as WBZ. It supports Custom Track Distributions too.

Features

• List of all supported distributions.
• A distribution info page for each distribution shows some information and also a cup and slot oriented track list. If the track is known, a popup and a link to the track is available.
• Direct download of tracks.
• A custom distribution list is part of the track details.
• The search form supports custom track distributions.
• A track reference for a row of distributions. Easy integration into this wiki by template:distrib-ref.

To support a distribution, the user has to download Wiimms SZS Tools version ≥1.55a (≥1.55b recommended) and to execute the command »wszst DISTRIBUTION« (or the short form »wszst dist«). The command scans the tracks and create (or edit) a custom track definition file. The user has to edit the file and to upload it [2].

wszst DISTRIBUTION

Since v1.55a, tool wszst knows the command DISTRIBUTION. It expects a list of directories where the tracks of your distribution resides.

If all your tracks are in one directory, then enter this directory and execute the command:

wszst distrib .

Don't forget the point at the end of the line. It means: Scan the current directory for tracks. Once done, the file »distribution.txt« is created. If it already exists, it is scanned and re-created. Edit the file. The file itself and the section below explain the parameters. After each edit you can run the command again.

If the file is completed, you can upload it. Wiimm will verify the definitions and enable it. If you set @DISPLAY-MODE to value 1, the access is only possible by using the UUID. Usually only the author of the files knows the UUID.

Either the track name of your configuration file, or the official track names of the database are shown. Anyway, if the database doesn't know your track, the name of the file is used as fallback. In a second decision you have the choice to hide the attribute part (part in square brackets »[...]«).

Once uploaded and enabled, each visitor can see some attributes of your distribution ans also a list of tracks. Track downloads are possible. And if you search an update for your track, simply press the family button to the other versions of the same track.

Here you can see an example for Wiimms Mario Kart Fun 2017-12:
→ https://ct.wiimm.de/dis/32

Parameters of the configuration file

Each configuration file if divided into 2 parts:

• Parameters
• Track list

Each parameter line begins »@«. So it can be distinguished from track lines. The order of the lines is irrelevant on scanning, but the output is well organized into sections separated by comments.

If a parameter is defined multiple times, only the last definition is used. Parameter names are case insensitive. The line length is not limited to 1000 characters. Lines beginning with a »#« are comments and ignored.

Comments for personal use

The first section consists of 5 user comments (@COMMENT1...@COMMENT5). So each user can enter any informational lines, that are exported to the next version of the file. These comments will never imported to ct.wiimm.de.

Identify yourself! (private section)

The next section gives you a chance to identify yourself. It's no problem to leave all parameters empty. But on issues, Wiimm will use one of theses field to contact you.

Distribution parameters

The distribution parameters identify the distribution. NAME, @VERSION and @AUTHORS are free text field and mandatory. RELEASE-DATE is mandatory too and contains the first release date of the distribution of format yyyy-mm-dd.

All 4 parameters of above are used to create a keyword list for your distribution. @KEYWORDS allows you to add some more keywords. All keywords are used for the distribution search at the main page.

With @PREDECESSOR you can identify exact 1 predecessor of the distribution. Predecessor and successors (plural!) are shown at the info page for easier navigation between distributions.

@INFO-TEXT is a free not formatted information text and @INFO-URL is a link to a description of the distribution page in the web (typical to this wiki). Both parameters are optional.

Settings for ct.wiimm.de

With this section you define, how your distribution is displayed at ct.wiimm.de. If not set, default values are used.

@DISPLAY-MODE decides if and how your distribution is displayed.

• 0: The distribution is disabled (like not defined). This setting makes only sense to verify a distribution file by the scanner.
• 1: The distribution is hidden, but can be accessed by the UUID with https://ct.wiimm.de/dis/UUID. The UUID acts like a password to limit the access to the maintainer.
• 2: Like 1, but the distribution name is shown without a link in the track reference lists.
• 3: The Distribution is fully visible and reachable by links.

The track lists contains the names of your files. You can edit it to give each track another name. Parameter @DATABASE-NAME decides, if names of this file are displayed (value 0), or the global names of the archive (value 1).

The track following a name schema. Many of the track names have a comment and attribute part at the end enclosed in square brackets. These attribute are only shown, if @VIEW-COMMENT is set to 1. Otherwise all parts of the name beginning from the first »[« will be hidden.

Automatically created parameters

@UUID is a randomly created Universally Unique Identifier to identify the distribution. If it does not exists, or is empty or invalid, then a new UUID is created. In general, a UUID is assumed as unique identifier worldwide. The UUID is used to identify updates of your configuration. Do not change it under any circumstances!

@WSZST-VERSION and @WSZST-REVISION are values for the scanner to identify after changes of syntax or semantics. @FIRST-CREATION and @LAST-UPDATE are only statistical values.

User defined parameters

This section is only visible, if the scanner detects unknown parameters. All of these unknown parameters are listed here.

Track listing

The track listing. For each track, 3 columns are printed:

• SHA1 of the decoded file. The checksum is used to identify the track at ct.wiimm.de.
• Detected slot: Please add slot info, if you see »---«. Otherwise the track isn't assigned to a slot.
• Name of the track: This part is free editable, but wszst will overwrite it by the filename.

The track names can contain one or more of the following attributes. They are scanned by ct.wiimmi.de and shown as status:

new

A new track. Use this attribute to mark tracks, that are used the first time in the distribution.

again

A track, that were used in an old version of the distribution, but not in the last one.

update

An updated track.

upd

Short form of update.

boost

This track is a boost version.