Lands of Enroth - Maps system

Orzie wrote:

Unfortunately, we do not have a server for maps, so right now the map links will have to be sustained by some other means.
Perhaps GodRage can find a solution to this problem later.

Once upon a time, in the lands of Enroth...  
i started to work on a map upload system here:
http://homm2.free.fr/enroth.php?p=bestmaps
you'll need to create an account to upload a map. (and also to see the list of maps, for the moment.)
It was working on my computer... so it should be working in fact. I would just need some feedback, then i will finish it. (still some design to finish, some edit/delete button to add, this kind of stuff. )

edit: todo list :

1. Good looking display of uploaded maps. 50%done(2019/8/19)
   
2. password recovery system
   
3. EDIT system for the uploader (name/desc/spec./minimap/mapfile/delete underground) 50%done(2019/06/27) 95%done(2019/7/11)
   
4. Add "version" for H3SW maps. (0.8 ; 0.8.1 for the moment). Same for ironfist maps? done.(2019/06/23)
   
5. ------- Then, set the maps visibility to public -------
   
6. DELETE system for the uploader done(2019/7/11)
   
7. Minimap with underground. done(2019/06/25)
   
8. Members/Last logged-in (activity) done(2019/08/15)
   
9. when you post a map: get a link to direct download +bbcode for copy/paste to forum. 50%done(2019/8/15)
   
10. A git-like version system for maps would be awesome (map version/new upload)
    
11. /page "maps03"/ Design changes ; the space for the name will be wider. (needed for the listing design page) => will become "search maps" when there will be too many maps.
    
12. Need to find a way to display Human players/Computer players/Teams, in an "easily understanding single image" if possible.
    
13. Minimap.png and minimap-underground.png, 2 different images, in 2 separate windows done (2019/6/~30)
    
14. Search engine
    
15. Vote done(2019/08/21)/comments(let this forum do it for the moment)
    

If you have any idea of what you want to see, please let a reply.

So I tried to upload there. Seems to be working properly
Though I made a typo in map name and there is no apparent way to fix it... Gotta be careful next time

Ctesiphon wrote:

So I tried to upload there. Seems to be working properly
Though I made a typo in map name and there is no apparent way to fix it... Gotta be careful next time

Happy to hear it worked properly.
Yeah, for the moment, there isn't "edit" possibility, neither a "password recovery system". Hahaha... But in 1 month i'll be back in my country and i will be able to update it.
If you think about anything that i could add and be great/helpful for you (as a mapmaker), please feel free to let your imagination reach the sky and share it here.

GodRage wrote:

If you think about anything that i could add and be great/helpful for you (as a mapmaker), please feel free to let your imagination reach the sky and share it here.

Apart from edit function, I would appreciate:

• It would be great if you could get a link to direct download when you post a map
  
• A git-like version system for maps would be awesome, though I understand it would be probably an overkill for a simple map server
  

And the last map I uploaded cannot be downloaded as I noticed - the one with typo "[H3SW 0.8.1] Sthench from Below". What do I do now? Reupload it?

Ctesiphon wrote:

Apart from edit function, I would appreciate:

• It would be great if you could get a link to direct download when you post a map
  

[*]
Yeah, i thought about that, i never used git that much, but i wanted to put a "upload a newer version" button and some things of this kind.

Ctesiphon wrote:

And the last map I uploaded cannot be downloaded as I noticed - the one with typo "[H3SW 0.8.1] Sthench from Below". What do I do now? Reupload it?

Fixed. it's now downloadable.
The problem was that i thought 33 characters was enough for the filename, but because of the "[H3SW 0.8.1]" before the name, it reached 34 characters with the ".h3m".
For now, it would be better to put the version in the description, as i will add more Version possibilities later.


I had another version of "seeing the map list" :
http://homm2.free.fr/enroth.php?p=bestmaps&go=en
But in both pages, names areas seems too short.

I am extremely happy to see movement in the direction of maps. I will check the feature later myself. Writing and reading on the forums take a lot of time, unfortunately.

I added the possibility to add the versions of H3SW (0.8 or 0.8.1).
I edited 2 maps of Ctesiphon manually to see how they looklikes in the list.
The Edit function isn't coded yet, but it should be my next step.

Actually, the etc images are for the number of human players.
Do you think it's a need to add the number of total (human+bots) players ?

Looks better now
Though I would ask for widening the name bar. Ideally to 32 symbols (maybe 24 would do). I already see that "The Ultimate Mug of Ale" is not going to fit, and now way that I am changing the name...

And it would be nice, if you could show both number of players and AIs. But definitely not neccessary. We could also use number of teams indicator.

EDIT: And it would be great if there were better support for inserting both upper and lower level map.

Thanks for your feedback Ctesiphon
i agree, the space for the name will be wider.

Minimap :
agree I'll do something about that.

Humans/AI/Teams :
I agree, just i hope to make it in a single image ... because in fact the only way to make something simple to understand is to make a an image with all 8 colors of H3SW, and put "Human only" or "Human or AI" or "AI only" over each color, and then adding a number (or a sign) on each color to show if there is teams...
So, it's not in the priority, but someday... i hope.  

I tried to open Heroes II, failed. Same for the GoG version....I wanted to verify what how a map with 3 players but only 1 human display it ; or ?

edit :
Maybe i could export data from the h3m file itself, because seems it's possible to do "hex editing with php". But it will need further researches.

My feedback on the current maps system on Lands of Enroth.

First of all, let's see what has already been done on similar sites. The closest example would be HeroesPortal maps list.

There they have:
- arrangement by game version (in our case, this would be Heroes 1, Heroes 2, Heroes 2 Expansion, H2 Project Ironfist, H3SW)
- arrangement by number of human players
- arrangement by date of addition to the site
- arrangement by map size (in our case, this would be S, M, L, XL)
- arrangement by number of teams (perhaps this is less prioritized for the site: in Heroes 2 there is only yes/no, and only H3SW currently features a more dynamic team system)
- arrangement by language (there they have English, French, German, Polish, Russian, while we can decide what is needed)
- arrangement by number of players

Also they have:
- map rating (Like vs. Don't like) - I think some kind of map rating would be nice, but their system is questionable
- a separate page for each map and a comment section - I think it's not required for us since we have the forum and welcome users to comment there in the Mapmaking Guild
- an additional window for underground terrain - since this is only required for H3SW maps, it's not prioritized

Perhaps some of these arrangements are not required since the number of maps won't be anywhere near 4000+ in the foreseeable future. Yet, some of the features would be nice to have sometime. The popup information system is probably nice enough and we don't require separate page for each map simply because we won't have as many maps and it will be easier to navigate through the list.

---

After that, some comments on the current state of Lands of Enroth system can follow.

I suppose, the available string length for the map title should satisfy the maximum possible symbol number. In Heroes 3, this is limited to 30. Heroes 1 and 2 map names are anyway shorter. Same can be done for the username so that Ctesiphon's nickname won't be hindered by the map upload date.

I like that you try to feature the H3SW build number too. I don't have an idea how to design it properly, but I'll try to suggest something later (along with the project logo).

Thanks Orzie.

"arrangement" is just the "search function" on anything possible (so, it'll be possible to search maps only for h3sw 0.8.1 version, for exemple). It will come later.

Some sort of RATING (up vote/down vote) is also my wish.

however, there will be a page that will show "only 1 map", with comments/votes (votes will make the site slower maybe..) or extra description or links (as a link to the related post on Forums of Enroth), or maybe scores, or whatever may come later.

Orzie wrote:

an additional window for underground terrain

in the actual version, the windows fit the image whatever it's just 144x144 pixels, or with underground : 144x288 pixels. But later on, i'll add 2 separate windows.

Some more are done:

• EDIT system for the uploader
  
• ------- Then, set the maps visibility to public -------
  
• DELETE system for the uploader
  
• Minimap.png and minimap-underground.png, 2 different images, in 2 separate windows

After 4 weeks of pause, i finally found the strength to manipulate the "View map" page:
http://homm2.free.fr/enroth.php?p=mapview&mapid=10
some more options for the owner of the map, such as: direct link, and some bbcode to copy/paste, but still much more to work on...)

Could you please provide some information on how the map is stored and where? I wonder if the map hosting server will long live enough, and if it has a limit of free disk space.

I think all the necessary information is now shown clearly. I would only suggest making the same background under the etc. images so that they will be more clearly visible.

Also, a map rating system would be nice, one voice for each IP address maybe, and rating from 1 to 10 with the displayed average rating similar in principle to what we have on Mod Database. https://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw

---

Probably, this display of maps is not that convenient currently:


I think that maybe the windows need to be similar in size, because various descriptions will lead to difficulties in search. What if we put a scrolling window inside of each map window? That way, the text area for each map will be the same and the maps will take less place on the screen.

I also think that when we will have 50+ maps, searching will become difficult. I recall you showing some other display mode where the maps were arranged in a some kind of list. Did you discard that idea of switching between modes?

P.S. Please fix the Stench from Below map name. It should be "Stench" instead of "Sthench".

Orzie wrote:

Could you please provide some information on how the map is stored and where? I wonder if the map hosting server will long live enough, and if it has a limit of free disk space.

Maps are stored in a subfolder of the website ( http://homm2.free.fr ), i can save them by downloading them 1 by 1 by clicking download as anybody can, or also downloading the entire folder by ftp connexion.
(Then i can zip it and send you if you want to add them into the next release, if authors give their authorization)

But the data that the uploader insert, is stored in the sql database, and i'm not really used to it. (saving a table in sql fear me... )

The server (free.fr) should be up as long as the company is here.
This company is an internet provider in France, giving to their user a personal-page area, with actually unlimited disk space.

However, there is some rules, most are just "moral sense", such as:
Don't host big files, this space isn't for storing movies, games, illegal products, personal mp3 collections, etc...
No phpbb forum allowed but without a certain part of the code (i guess it's the "new message" system, because it increase exponentially the size of database, and make so many sql requests...The server may die )

Orzie wrote:

I think all the necessary information is now shown clearly. I would only suggest making the same background under the etc. images so that they will be more clearly visible.

I agree
Done.

Orzie wrote:

Also, a map rating system would be nice, one voice for each IP address maybe, and rating from 1 to 10 with the displayed average rating similar in principle to what we have on Mod Database. https://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw

I'm thinking about how to make a "not heavy" voting system almost everyday.
I think about storing the id of the logged-in member, instead of IP + free-for-anyone to vote.

To prevent the website destroying the free server, votes updates won't be calculated after each new vote. But don't worry, i've some ideas.
Just, it's my first time into coding server-side script that run himself without me, so it may take some time.

---
(page Bestmaps)

Orzie wrote:

I think that maybe the windows need to be similar in size, because various descriptions will lead to difficulties in search. What if we put a scrolling window inside of each map window? That way, the text area for each map will be the same and the maps will take less place on the screen.

Done.
Fancy scrollbar for webkit based browsers. (so, everybody but Firefox and IE...)

Orzie wrote:

I also think that when we will have 50+ maps, searching will become difficult. I recall you showing some other display mode where the maps were arranged in a some kind of list. Did you discard that idea of switching between modes?

Yes.  
This page (called "best maps") is only for showing few number of maps. So, actually it's fine, later it could be used for "my 10 favorites maps", or for displaying "maps uploaded by $user".

I will make the "maplist" page with the search ability and so on.
Just that recently i focused on the "viewmap" as i thought it was the most urgent page.
(and still didn't totally finish.   )

Orzie wrote:

P.S. Please fix the Stench from Below map name. It should be "Stench" instead of "Sthench".

Hmmm i guess Ctesiphon fixed it.

Votes are here !

the "mapview" page only needs "phpbb sharing code for the map owner" (partially done...).
And then, someday i hope i'll have spare time to make an unique design for it. (such as this page.)

ps/edit:
votes will recalculated each 3 days. (as soon as someone load the page of the map.)
If someday there is more than 100 votes by maps, i may make it recalc each 10 days or more... for the sake of this free server

I have no other words than you are fantastic.

I wish the map rating would also show decimal values and the number of people voted shown in the pop-up information, so that it will be more informative and give some idea on how many people are active in rating of the maps stored. I don't know anything about the complexity and technical difficulties of such feature though.

Orzie wrote:

I have no other words than you are fantastic.

Thanks you very very much.
It took only 2 days... but maybe 10hours each day. I'm happy it's done.

Orzie wrote:

I wish the map rating would also show decimal values and the number of people voted shown in the pop-up information, so that it will be more informative and give some idea on how many people are active in rating of the maps stored. I don't know anything about the complexity and technical difficulties of such feature though.

It will show 8.9 with the actual programmation.
I could add one more letter. No problem.
Showing number of voters in the popup... Why not.. i think it's easy to add.
I planed on a break for few days, away from programming So, I'll do that current of next week.

After "number of voters", (and before "search map") i must add a password recovery system.

GodRage wrote:

Orzie wrote:

I have no other words than you are fantastic.

Thanks you very very much.
It took only 2 days... but maybe 10hours each day. I'm happy it's done.  

In comparison, adding "number of votes" took me 20 minutes.

GodRage wrote:

It will show 8.9 with the actual programmation.

Or maybe not, we'll see in 3 days if it does or not. (but it will be a 20 seconds fix if there is a problem here. )

edit:
Because of recents changes, I am not sure if uploading a new map is still working or if there is a bug. (I hope that if someone has a problem there, he will post here as soon as possible. )

In case of emergency, is there an opportunity to back up the maps somewhere except our own sources like cloud servers and such? This also concerns the website code so that it could rise from the ashes on another server, for example our own paid server.

Orzie wrote:

In case of emergency, is there an opportunity to back up the maps somewhere except our own sources like cloud servers and such? This also concerns the website code so that it could rise from the ashes on another server, for example our own paid server.

I have a copy of the code part on my computer, and a maybe little outdated copy on an external HDD.
The most "need to save" is the maps that are stored on the website... But because it's normal files, it has to be saved manually (I can download the whole folder, but any other human will need to download maps 1 by 1).

But if we get our own paid server, for sure i can transfer everything, or just what you want.

Uploading a map had a small bug that was making uploading maps impossible.
It's now fixed totally.

Is this just for h3sw maps ? You asked me to upload my maps here, but they are for SoD

If your maps are for SoD, then I did misunderstand something , I apologize

Lands of Enroth can store maps for H3SW, ironfist, and Heroes2 maps (it should includes fheroes2, if someday fheroes2 maps format evolve, then I'll upgrade the system to be able to store fheroes2 maps )