Resource 'category' tag

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What should the default for 'category' be?

No default, it should be required.
3
30%
"unsorted"
5
50%
"" (an empty string, or the root category)
2
20%
 
Total votes: 10

Luke-Jr
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Resource 'category' tag

Post by Luke-Jr »

The 'category' attribute of the 'Resource' element defines the category a resource belongs in, and affects its unique resource filepath.
For each of the three options, the resulting filepath for:

Code: Select all

<Resource name="foobar" author="Nobody" version="0.0.1">
would be:

No default: Parser error, AA will refuse to load the map or assign it a filepath. The map would be invalid until a 'category' attribute is added.

"unsorted":

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Nobody/unsorted/foobar-0.0.1.aamap.xml
"":

Code: Select all

Nobody/foobar-0.0.1.aamap.xml
Luke-Jr
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My comments

Post by Luke-Jr »

Note that since the categorization is hiearchy, defaulting to a blank category would refer to the root node.
So while you may categorize winzone-based maps under "zonebased/winz" and deathzone-based under "zonebased/deathz", you may want to place a mix of the two under "zonebased" directly, but probably not "zonebased/unsorted" which would coincide with the "unsorted" option.

Therefore, IMO, I think the "unsorted" default option is nonsensical. Were categories non-hierarchial, it might make sense, but that is not the case.
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

*sigh* here we go again.

Making "" the default would, if the default is used, put everything into an innocent users's root directory. Later, when he realizes he's probably making more resurces than he expected and when a good sorting scheme has entered his mind, he'll regret the mess there.
The other tow options are fine by me, as would be sorting by resource type by default, i.e. making the default category for maps "maps". I vote "unsorted" because that's what we do now and nobody except Luke has complained about it.
Edit: I follow the hierarchy argument, but, and this is a big but, we're only talking about the default. The default is for the case where the author has not yet decided where the resource should go. The case where he hasn't spent a single thought on it, where maybe he hasn't made enough resources to know how he'd like them categorized. Nothing stops the author from explicitly specifying an empty category if the resource fits in none.

I think this poll comes way too early. It's too late for 0.2.8.0, but our users haven't had enogh experience yet to work with the current system, thinking that we're only forcing the correct filepath on them since rc4.
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Post by Luke-Jr »

Also note that we have (at least some of) the infrastructure in place to allow the "innocent" map designer to delete (hide from lists, really) his old maps that were uncategorized, leaving only his newer ones (which are in a proper category).
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wrtlprnft
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Post by wrtlprnft »

I don't really think that the mess gets smaller when putting maps into an "unsorted" category, it would just be more confusing to the map maker.
It is already hard to convince people (see iF, Lucifer, me) to even use the correct path since it works just fine with any other. If you add that unsorted mess to it it would just be even more likely to stop map makers to adhere to the path standard.

So I would say the default should be "", but making the tag a required one would also be fine for me.
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Z-Man
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Post by Z-Man »

RC4 enforces the correct filepath by checking where the resource wants to be and comparing it with where it was loaded from, so no more convincing is needed. Just anger management :)
See here: http://forums.armagetronad.net/viewtopi ... 4466#44466
Luke-Jr
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Post by Luke-Jr »

z-man wrote:RC4 enforces the correct filepath by checking where the resource wants to be and comparing it with where it was loaded from, so no more convincing is needed. Just anger management :)
That doesn't change the fact that "unsorted" is still a bad default, and should never have even made it into a beta/rc.
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Post by Luke-Jr »

Also note that it is not too late to fix this for 0.2.8.0 final, as we need to do a DTD version bump anyway, and this affects only the DTD without breaking anything old.
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