A Plea To Developers

[ubersu 78]

A fascinating film - I was around then and never knew the story, though I was a aware of the fight. Thanks for pointing this one out!DJ

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

er, you don't like rars becuase they "cost money to buy" but you don't "put on freeware things." That's quite a conundrum you've got there. Rars have been around for ages, there are several freeware apps that work perfectly (in fact, I'm pretty sure the app that I use unzips all the various compression formats, not just rars. I've been using it so long I don't even remember what it's called) and they don't in any way interfere with any other operations on your PC.

[Guest danny68]

It's not a problem for me reallyPayware stuff never supplies anything in a RARThe better freeware usually zips or makes and installerI can't remember the last time I put some freeware stuff on my machine.Windows live messenger I think, but that's not really freeware in the true sense. I purchase sms messages for it and for the privalage of phoning out on it so I guess it's a commercial package in some way. Also got advertising on it..Not a conundrum at all.Just giving a heads up example to developers as the original poster suggested that's it's not a good idea to use RAR. Really little point if you think about it.Dan

[duckbilled 310]

I would definitely pick up winRAR. It unzips a lot of formats and it is much quicker to use that winzip for unzipping. I an not sure about its functionality for zipping. I actually have two other complaints and I have never voiced them because don't want developers to think I am unappreciative of their hard work.1. When repainting aircraft, please tell us the specific model/engine variant/version that you used for the repaint. 2.If they are not copyrighted, please include all of the textures - not just the ones you modified. It simplifies the installation process quite a bit. Many people are now using high speed connections and I wouldn't worry about a large download. After all, they downloaded the entire aircraft in the first place.Glad I got that of my chest:)

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

>>The better freeware usually zips or makes and installer>I wouldn't know. I have the facility on my system through the use of some very handy freeware aps to uncompress virtually any package. I don't even bother to check the extension - I double click on it and the app just starts right up and I can choose to unzip it. It's marvelous. It means that developers are free to compress their work in whatever format they choose to use (like the more efficient and option-filled rar format) without worrying about consulting me in the case that I don't want to unzip that format. :)

[n4gix 4,947]

>A fascinating film - I was around then and never knew the>story, though I was a aware of the fight. Thanks for pointing>this one out!You are welcome. Much to my embarrasment, at the time this debacle was unfolding I was one of the ardent "PK supporters." It wasn't until several years later that I discovered the suppressed part of the story, and learned the truth. This is my small effort to make amends to Thom for my own blind acceptance of the "spin" that the "PK PR Machine" published.What is fascinating though is that the "mistake" that Phil made when he ripped off Thom's code was in not taking the time to edit the "comments" in the code. That is what convinced the court. Although the suit was legally filed as "Look and Feel" violation, the facts revealed that the actual offense was outright theft of code.I think that the major lesson to be learned from this sad tale is for those who feel that their work product has been stolen or misappropriated:Do not make the mistakes of judgment that Thom and his partner made by feeling that "being in the right" is all there is to the matter!

[Bill Womack 7]

>2.If they are not copyrighted, please include all of the>textures - not just the ones you modified. It simplifies the>installation process quite a bit.One of the features I love most about repainting FSX aircraft, at least the defaults, is the texture.cfg file you can include with repaints. It provides a set of fallback directories to use in case the current texture folder doesn't contain all required bitmaps. As long as a base texture remains unchanged in a new repaint, you do not have to include it in the download, only the files you changed. I repainted the default 737 and CRJ recently, and the zips I provided ended up being much smaller than they would have been had I included every bmp, whether changed or not. thanks,

[scott967 62]

ISTM if you work outside of Windows-centric world, you see RAR quite a bib. Of course, that it OT for Flt Sim.For repaints, I don't really care what files are included, as long as it is clear what other downloads are needed for a complete install.scott s..

[Tabs 2,790]

Disagree on the folders and the .rar... Folders within archives are great for a lot of things where you'd have to go through a bunch of extra steps putting multiple groups of files into different folders etc. Example, you download an aircraft that needs files placed into (within the FSX root) SimObjectsAirplanes, Gauges, Effects, and Sound - that's 4 and possibly more operations if the archive does not have folders, plus you need to look at a readme to figure out which files should go where.With folders, you just have everything already contained in a "Flight Simulator X" folder and it's a one step process to install the aircraft. Is is seriously that hard to extract to a temporary folder on your desktop if you need a specific file or something?RAR is technically a better compression algorithm than ZIP - ZIP got popular through its name and marketing, no reason to disallow use of something better. Especially when just about every compression program out there can open both of them. 7-Zip, WinZIP, WinRAR etc all open and make both ZIP and RAR.

[boshar 6]

>Yeah, appriciate that Brian, but I don't put on freeware>things normally and especially when I've already got a good>program that does similar. In other words, I've got XP so I>don't download any RAR files as to me there is no point of>installing aother program that may clash with something else.>>I do appreciate thought your efforts to give me a link.>>Dan7-zip is so much easier its way better then unzipping via Windows-XP's standard tools and its free. 7-zip doesn't clash with XP's standard unzipping so you can continiue unziping the hard way if you like.