Download Station Cleanup

The Download Station has historically been rather lax about checking the validity of uploaded content, relying on the individual content creators to ensure that various data fields (including dependencies) were specified correctly. Aditionally, Auran has been slow in providing up-to-date content examples, documentation, and validation tools. As a result, due to misunderstandings and human error, quite a lot of the current DLS content has configuration errors or missing dependencies.

There are two steps that need to be taken to resolve this situation:

• The current DLS content is repaired;
• Mechanisms are put in place to ensure the quality (from a configuration perspective) of future uploads.

Neither step is as easy as it first seems, since complete validation of an asset is not reasonably possible. Validation is a moving target, and with each improvement to the validation toolset, it is expected that some number of "good" assets will become flagged as "faulty". In practice, this means that the first step must be repeated with each update to the validation toolset.

In preparation for TS2009, the Download Station will be fully cleaned. Auran will assume responsibility for repairing all current faulty DLS content such that it passes our internal validation processes (similar to those performed by CMP.) The repair process will involve the following steps:

• Faulty content is identified.
• Trivial mistakes (eg. obvious typos and missing dependency information) will be silently fixed.
• An attempt will be made to contact any content creator who has faulty content on the DLS. They will be given the option to provide a fixed version of the content.
• Auran will fix any remaining content where feasible.
• Auran will remove from listing any content which cannot be fixed.

As a result of updated dependency information and faulty content removal, it may occur that various dependencies are missing from the Download Station. This scenario will be treated in a similar fashion to the content being faulty; meaning that Auran or the original content creator will update content such that it does not depend on any missing assets, or that the content will be removed from listing.

Discussion Items

• It may be best to split the DLS between TS2009 assets and older assets. This split would be transparent to users, and it would allow users of older Trainz versions to continue working completely unaffected by the updates while TS2009 users get the benefits of the new changes. The disadvantage of this approach is that pre-TS2009 users do not get the benefit of a cleaner DLS.
• TS2009 will feature improved validity checking. This means that attempts to upload TRS2006 content which has passed TRS2006 validity checking may fail. One possible resolution here is to release a CMP update for TRS2006 users.

Some Common Errors In config.txt Files

=> means "should be changed to". All typo corrections only apply when used as keywords. Do not change when in a filespec unless that is changed too.

• KUID folders within KUID folders (in TRS2004 terms).
• Mismatches between KUID folder names and KUID tags in config.txt files (in TRS2004 terms).
• kind "behaviour" => kind "behavior"
• colour => color
• discription => description
• independent => independant
• kuid { => kuid-table {
• kuid{ => kuid-table {
• kuid table => kuid-table
• kuidtable => kuid-table
• obsolete { => obsolete-table {
• obsolete{ => obsolete-table {
• obsolete table => obsolete-table
• obsoletetable => obsolete-table
• table{ => table {
• any character other than a space or a tab, immediately followed by an open curly bracket => insert the space
• any character other than a space or a tab, immediately followed by an open angle bracket and kuid => insert the space - but not in HTML where this is valid
• "utc" => 1.5 (in a trainz-build tag)
• Two forward slashes, when intended to be a comment. Probably delete the whole line.
• organization => organisation (not sure if this one is critical)
• Open-double-quote and close-double-quotes used inside normal double-quotes in name tag parameters, often rendered as accented characters and the Euro currency symbol, and cause the asset to be sorted out of natural alphabetical order. They can be deleted.