Zugg Software :: View topic

Adept Joined: 18 Dec 2005 Posts: 246

I've got quite a mess with regard to my cmud files. First off, let me say, I only play one mud. I use one mapset. I continually use one package for all of my characters. Ocassionally I use another package for specific reasons. However, through the move from zmud to cmud and the upgrades, downgrades and sidegrades I've gon through with all of the cmud versions from the first betas to 3.03 I've got a bunch of files. I'd like to figure out which ones I need, and which ones I can archive or trash. This is all being spurred on because It appears I've just had a major crash of 3.03a and in trying to fix it i've gotten fed up with all of the different files. Here is a screen shot of my CMUD directory.

It appears to me I don't need the first four files with sessions in them. as I have a sessions.db and sessionkeys.db down below. I think I created these because of a sessions bug where they were being corrupted by copying and pasing sessions.
Do I need the adminstrator.adu, administrator_spell.cfg files?
I'm sure i need the cmud.img, cmud.ini, cmudstartup.ini files... do I need the cmudstartup_bak.ini file?
I dont think I need any onf the next files that start with fox, as my fox.pkg file that i connect to all sessions is in the foxmud folder.
How about the mapper.tbz file?
I know I need the muds.db, sessionkeys.db, sessions.db, files.
How about the settings.tbz, settings.xly, stylis.ini files
I wouldn't think i'd need any of the untitledxxx.xxx files.

Heres my foxmud directory

I know what a bunch of the stuff is in here, but some I don't know. All of the excel and .txt files are mine, and I really should move them to another directory in here but havn't gotten to that.
do I need these files:
fox.ini
foxmud.ini
I think the map files used to be *.mdb files, it appears they are now *.zfg files...?
Bleh.
So in a perfect world, where should I be keeping my files?
I'd think that any Fox Mud packages should be in the Foxmud directory, but there is a Packages directory in the Cmud directory... Should I be putting them in there?
As I asked, which is the map extension, and which directory should it be kept in? what about the .xly files?

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:50 pm

The adminstrator.adu, administrator_spell.cfg contain the spellchecking settings, and any words that you have added to your user-specific dictionary file. So you should keep those.

The styles.ini file stores any custom changes to the various Syntax styles in the Styles preferences.
mapper.tbz stores the custom toolbar layout/config for the menu and toolbar in the mapper
settings.tbz is the menu/toolbar customization for the Settings Editor
settings.xly is the panel/window layout for the Settings Editor. You can delete any of these files and CMUD will restore to the default layout or toolbar. But then CMUD will recreate these files again when it exits.

The untitledxxx files are the saved results of the previous blank session. These files are overwritten and recreated each time CMUD runs. So you can safely delete them, but they will reappear again after running CMUD.

The muds.db file contains the MUD List, and is optional.

The sessions.db and sessionkeys.db files store your session icons. The sessionkeys stores your character name/passwords in a strongly encrypted format. So these files are both important. If you delete them, then you lose all of your session icons.

The cmud.img file stores the images used for session icons and should not be deleted.

The cmud.ini contains your global preferences. Again, you can delete it to restore the defaults, but CMUD will recreate the file.

The cmudstartup.ini file contains the default session icons. If you delete this file, then CMUD will re-fetch the top-ten icons and will recreate any session icons for these default sessions that you might have deleted.
You don't need any *_bak.* files. They are created by CMUD as backups in various situations and are for your own use if you need to go back to previous versions.

In your specific Fox MUD directory:

The fox.ini and foxmud.ini are actually the global preferences for the Map of those sessions. The *.zfg files store the mapper configuration data. The *.mdb files are the actual map databases (these are changed to *.dbm files in the v3.x beta of CMUD) The Fox.tbz is your custom toolbar configuration for that session, and the Fox.xly file is the window layout for that session.

The Packages directory in the CMUD Directory are for package files shared between multiple sessions. Such as the English Keypad and English Directions and ClickableURL packages that come with CMUD.
If a package is specific to a session, then it should be stored within the subdirectory for that session (like your Fox directory).

While you can delete some of the various backup files that you have created over the years, in general you should not *move* any files around. CMUD can be picky about which directory files are in. In general, all files specific to your character session should remain within the specific subfolder for that session. Each session icon should have it's own subfolder.

Adept Joined: 18 Dec 2005 Posts: 246

In reading this note and trying to fix my ability to startup cmud without crashing, I've been "cleaning up" my files. One idea I just had was to ask to see if Zugg could have cmud create comments in the properties of each of the files (i.e. right click on the file out of windows) with descriptions similar to what is above... So when cmud installs, the comments field for muds.db would say something like "this file contains the database of muds to connect to out of CMUD, removal is optional. etc" Just a thought.

Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:38 pm

As far as I know, the File Comments are for end-users. The File API that I'm using to create files from within Delphi certainly doesn't have any properties or methods for manipulating the file comments. So I'd have no idea how to do that. If someone wants to post a link to the API that allows programs to manipulate the comments, that would help.

Magician Joined: 17 Apr 2005 Posts: 496

Zugg, if I turn on the "File description" column in explorer (Vista), some of the .exes and .dlls in my CMud directory have comments (and I didn't set them).

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:23 pm

Yeah, EXE and DLL files have a "resource" where stuff like the version is stored. Part of the version information is a description of the program. I think the description for CMUD, for example, is just CMUD.

Anyway, this version info is added to EXE and DLL files as a system resource, similar to how the icon image for the file is stored. These resources are "linked" to the EXE and DLL by the file linker when the application is built. It's not something that normal "data files" have.