I'm missing the search function?

[Leon]

Wheeelp! I'm working on an index of AGS games and one of the most used function is the search.....
I can't search throught the forums anymore? What happened?

[SSH]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aadventuregamestudio.co.uk+something&btnG=Search&meta=

[Pumaman]

Please read this thread:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=29071.msg449818#msg449818

The search is temporarily disabled whilst I sort out the server performance problems.

[Leon]

@Pumaman, thnx. No worries, I'll see it back sometime...
@SSH, thnx. Nice to know you can search that way but I'm not that desperate. 

Hope it wasn't me:

if somebody does a search the forum grinds to a halt for everyone else.

I use the function quite a lot.

[Pumaman]

How do you mean, you use it quite a lot?

The search is quite an intensitive function, why do you need to use it regularly?

[Leon]

To explain my activities:

I'm trying to create an index of games made with AGS. Since some post them in the Completed Games, some in the Games Database, some in the MAGS threads, some in the competition threads (OROW, 1Hour etc.), it's very hard to find out whether a game exists or not.

There's not much structure or moderation in the games database nor in the games archive. All is voluntairy based and everyone can create his/her own entries. This freedom is good on one hand, on the other it creates chaos and eventually misses it's goal. What is a short game for one, is a long one for another. What's a joke to one, isn't for another (I remember a recent entry of Fsi under full-length games what easily could be joke or short game, certainly not full-length).

So here's what I did:

1: I took an output of the Games Database. Then I searched for the games (physical files) mentioned in that database.  A lot of them have either broken links or no links at all. Searching the completed announcements helped a lot because other links were often mentioned there.
2: I took the lists found on the web, mostly on the americangirlscouts with the year lists. and added them to the list after filtering for dups.
3: I took the threads from the competition forum and checked the OROW entries (so far only four so quite managable) and searched the physical files. Searching these threads were also intensive since there's no structure in the OROW entries. Also dups were filtered because some entries are also in the DB and not mentioned as OROW (take Vince XII's ANNA for instance).
4: The same with the hour games. Even more games and even less structured but ok.
5: I worked through the mags-competition.tk site and searched all files to go with the entries. Again I searched the completed games forums since a number of entries in the MAGS, were never put in the DB or completed threads. Furthermore are there missing links on the mags site for games that do exist on the archive server or elsewhere on private shares.

A lot of files come from http://aafiles.bicycle-for-slugs.org/, the semi official archive.
I made an index of that server to search easier. There's not much structure there allthough the several folders should indicate otherwise. The biggest problem lies in the fact that there's a location for users (incoming) and a location for the archive (full/hour/mags etc). But where to find the file you want? Names aren't always very clear (i.e. which game's called dlrt2.rar?) and how to find a game in the incoming section when you don't know the author?
And I noticed more files with the name 1hour/hour/onehour etc so which game is that (same goes for the mags part). Who does the 'moderation' of the names or keep the index?

So when you take away the files you're looking for mentioned above (under 1-5), the remainder on that server needs to be of somewhere else. Sometimes these are the misspelled, sometimes these are deleted entries in the forum/games db etc. To find out more about these files I search all forums.

That all together is a dirty job, but hey someone.... ;-)

The end result should be about 900 non-commercial games. These are of all categories, excluding the demo's. All other entries are listed. Of about 95% I've found the original game files and stored them in my personal, offline archive with commonsense names, registered in my own database with author, filename, category (multiple for 1 game and only added after I played the game), year of production and once played, the solution to the game.

You can view them here (#/f), here (g-p), or here (q-z) for now.

At the moment it's just an overview and only indexed on gamename, searchable with ALT-F. Maybe other functionalities later on. It's still work in progress and the online version isn't realtime. So my local archive holds even more entries than you can see right now. The ultimate result would be a 100% coverage with a 100% working links.

In my opinion that can only be reached through moderation and official archiving (every entry of a competition, every completed game announcement etc). But that's another discussion and someone should be willing to do that. And then I didn't even start talking about version control. (What happens when an author updates a game with another version?)

Enough to talk about! Let's play some games.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Leon, if you ever need it, I have a rather huge archive of AGS games on my hard drive. I took it into my head to collect them, they include all the RON and MMM games and a few from the french AGS community, I always keep them updated to the latest version (no point keeping a version history)... since you are so interested in archives as well, if my monstruous collection can be of help (even though MAGS, Full-length, medium, short, hour games and joke games are all lumped together - only the non-adventures stand apart), all 876 regular games (including commercial releases, excluding DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH because I HATE WITH A PASSION not being able to purchase it via direct download), 82 RON games, 93 MMM games and 139 non-adventure games... if my collection can be of any use to your archiving purposes, hey, give me a call!

ALso, since you are so interested in making walkthroughs... there's been a UHS-style utility created by... hmm, AJA, I believe... for AGS games. Maybe you'd like to cjeck it out?

[jetxl]

Wow, that's one heck of a herculean task you took upon.

[Pumaman]

Right, I've finished messing around, and the search function is now enabled again.

[voh]

Glad to see performance is slowly getting back to normal

[Leon]

Rui, thanks for the offer. I might use it soon.

And concerning the UHS, I've had a look at it. There are several (freeware) utilities for that but it's not my favourite. You always get the spoiler even by reading the headers. The same goes for a walkthrough. You can't do with them, sometimes you can't do without. Besides it's more intensive to write a UHS file than it is to write a walkthrough.

So what I'm working on is the human hint system: a forum like system where you can ask your question where your problem is (more or less the hints & tips of AGS).
You can use it in two ways: 1: ask your question if you don't want the spoilers. I don't mind answering questions more than once. 2: search the previous asked questions with the risk of reading the answers you don't want to see yet (the current hints & tips of AGS).

Also it's going to be possible to upload your savegame so we can be at the same point you're stuck. That way you can also easier find bugs (if any occur).

What you'll eventually get is a knowledge base of questions and the point people get stuck. That way you don't have to hint the obvious and you don't have to think of all the points one could go wrong, risking missing a few (and missing your goal).

The walkthroughs you can read right now are the basics for that human knowledge system 

[Lt. Smash]

@CJ: It seems that only online users can use the search function. Could you please fix that?

[woodz]

@CJ: It seems that only online users can use the search function. Could you please fix that?

Quite a lot of admin's like it that way.. it help prevent spammers robbing email adresses and what not

[Pumaman]

Why would you need to use it when not logged in?

[jetxl]

Why would you need to use it when not logged in?

Visitors might want to find a hint in the hintip board for a game they randomly downloaded.
Also lurkers and non-regular members that don't check the forum every day might want to read new posts on a topic they were intrested in when they last visited.
That's what I did before passing the AGS test.

[Pumaman]

That's fair enough. I've re-enabled search for guests, and will keep the server performance under review.

[AdamM]

Why would you need to use it when not logged in?

Why would you need to use it when logged in? I dislike forums that disable features available to registered users to non-registered users.